Dr Duc Vuong from New Mexico discusses how he was first introduced to the International Bariatric Club and the benefits of being part of the third largest professional organization for bariatrics in the world...
I could not believe what I was seeing on my smart phone. I had to show it to my new partner: “Hey, Dr. Joe! Come look at this.”
On my phone, my Facebook app was opened to the International Bariatric Club group, an organization of which I had only recently learned. A Latin American surgeon had posted a short video of what I later discovered was an endoscopic gastric bypass procedure shown on a fluoroscopic monitor. Dr. Joe and I watched the video in amazement. “Wow!” my partner exclaimed, “What was that?” Neither one of us was sure, the procedure was so novel.
My journey into this organization of elite weight loss surgeons started in 2010. I was a young surgeon in solo private practice, struggling to learn bariatrics in Texas. I had read numerous papers and texts, attended many society meetings, and participated in several industry-sponsored courses, including animal and cadaver labs, but I never felt comfortable enough to make the leap into gastric bypass procedures.
One night, while updating my Facebook status, I received the slightly mysterious message: “You’ve been invited to join the International Bariatric Club by Tomasz Rogula.” At first I thought this was an internet data scam, but I then made what has turned out to be one of my best professional decisions. I clicked “Accept.”
This opened the exclusive International Bariatric Club to me. I immediately saw several intriguing posts and comments, ranging from options for failed gastric bypasses to treatments of sleeve leaks to individual case studies. The discussion was robust, abuzz with user activity. The names were international—some German, some Arabic, some Latin.
As I started scrolling through the posts and comments, I saw names I recognized, like Jaime Ponce who posted a link from the ASMBS. Or Michel Gagner who responded to a question about duodenal switch. There’s Phil Schauer commenting. Could that be THE Dr. Fobi discussing banded bypass? Ariel Ortiz talking about gastric plication data?
I was astonished this resource was available to me, for free, in real time. Soon I found myself joining in discussions, posting questions myself, and becoming a part of an elite surgical community.
Then, Dr. Rogula posted a link to the monthly journal club that was to broadcast live via a webinar. The topic was a recently published article from Professor Paul O’Brien’s group in Australia comparing the long-term outcomes of gastric banding with the published literature on bariatric surgery. I cleared my schedule for that evening, and I was not disappointed. I thought it would be difficult to link to the meeting, but to my surprise, the website was easy to manage.