Follow Up on Chaka, the African Child Who Required Amputations

As some of you will recall, while recently in Africa I had to perform a very sad operation on a one year old baby. The baby had severe malaria and because it took so long for him to recieve adequate care his fingers and feet died and I had to amputate many of his fingers and do amputations of his lower legs. (See postings under African Hospital in the index to the left of this posting and find "The Saddest Operation I Have Ever Performed")


Chaka felt much better a few days after his operation and now has gained weight and will soon recieve the artificial lower legs from a doctor in the USA.

If you look closely at the photo you will note the partial absence of several of his fingers but each is well healed.

I am so pleased he is alive and doing so well. I will be excited to see him next year and see how he is walking with his articicial legs.

Gastric Bypass - Jennifer Pierce Reports 3 Years Later

-----------------JENNIFER NOW-----------------



"Best thing I have ever done for myself!" Jennifer exclaimed. It was my privilege to see Jennifer Pierce in the office three years after her laparoscopic Roux en-Y gastric bypass by me at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

She was very willing to share some of her journey.

She told me she weighed 267 lbs before surgery and now weighs only 155 lbs. She is near ideal weight and doesn't she look great?

"I now love to work out," Jennifer said when I asked if she is staying active.

She is much happier as you can see from her photos. She has more confidence in herself and is feeling much better than before her operation.

Jennifer's weight loss is a result of her strong effort to get her best result from her operation by staying active and making great choices. She lost nearly all of her excess weight in the first year after her gastric bypass but her weight has remained stable since then.

Great job Jennifer! I am delighted with your result and you should be very proud of yourself for what you have accomplished and how you have kept the weight off.Keep up the good work!

Robotic Bariatric Surgery and Improvement in Pain

The results of our first 50 robotic gastric bypass operations have now been completed. The most dramatic difference we have noted is that our patients who have had robotic operations are much more comfortable following surgery and are leaving the hospital the day after surgery in the vast majority of cases.

At the live bariatric surgery seminar I gave last Saturday,as usual one of our patients volunteered to share her journey through our program. She had lost 135 lbs over the last year and is clearly doing very well. However, one thing she said took me by surprise. She explained that she experienced considerable pain at the one incision in the left side of the abdomen for several days after her operation. The reason this was surprising to me is that I remembered how much discomfort this particular incision caused many of our patients and that I have not heard this at all for the last several months since we have been using the da Vinci Robot.

This is a remarkable change. Previously we made an incision a little over an inch in size that allowed the passage of a fairly large circular stapler into the abdomen. This required the spreading of the muscles at this location which caused much more pain than the small incision we use with the robot.

Using the robot allows me to perform the connection between the gastric pouch and the Roux limb with two rows of stitches instead of using a circular stapling device. Of course the stitches, which we call sutures, are easily passed into the abdomen without any additional abdominal openings. In fact we have been able to decrease the number of incisions from five incisions we previously used and now use only four smaller incisions.

The result is much less pain and the ability to leave the hospital the day after surgery.

It is a privilege to be the only bariatric surgeon in central Ohio using the da Vinci Robot to perform the gastric bypass operation and to be one of the very few surgeons in the country to use the da Vinci Robot routinely to perform a Roux en-Y gastric bypass. It is wonderful to work Riverside Methodist and have the privilege to use today's most advanced technology to improve the lives of so many people.