From the American College of Emergency Physicians:

1. Write down all the patient’s medications or put them in a resealable bag and bring them with you. And don’t forget to include over-the-counter pills and any herbal medications.
2. If English isn’t the patient’s native language, bring an adult translator. Often, people recruit school-aged children to translate, but medical procedures can be too complicated or inappropriate for them to talk about. The ER staff can call a translation service in a pinch. But things will go much more smoothly if a bilingual adult is available.
3. Don’t leave the emergency department without written instructions. And don’t be afraid to ask questions and have the doctor clarify all aspects of the patient’s condition and follow up care. Carefully follow the aftercare instructions, including any additional doctor or specialist appointments.

Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram

Until the late 1800s, physicians bled their patients.

And until two Australian researchers discovered in the early 1980s that most stomach ulcers were caused by infection from H. pylori bacteria, a common treatment for ulcer patients was surgically removing part of the stomach.

For ulcers, that treatment has mostly gone the way of bleeding.

But when surgeons discovered that patients with reduced stomachs often lost a lot of weight, the procedure helped spawn one of today’s biggest medical industries: bariatric, or weight loss, surgery. Continue Reading →

Dr. Mathias “Mal” Fobi may hail from Cameroon, West Africa, but he’s made a name for himself as Hollywood’s “weight-loss surgeon to the stars.”

Fobi has helped celebrities like American Idol’s Randy Jackson and comedienne Roseanne Barr, who shed nearly two hundred pounds combined.

Nearly four decades ago, the outspoken surgeon began using his scalpel to cut down oversized stomachs to the size of just a golf ball. Continue Reading →

Dr. Brian Quebbemann is the first sugeon in the world to perform the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, using the single-incision spider technique.

Delia Santiago, madre de dos niños de 7 y 11 años, hace lo posible porque su familia coma saludablemente. Sin embargo admite que da a sus hijos leche chocolateada cada mañana.

“Es importante que desayunen y la leche sola no se la toman”, dice esta residente del área de Boyle Heights.

Santiago no es la única que se pregunta si la decisión del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD), de prohibir la leche con sabores (y los endulzantes que los acompañan) es la acertada, y si es una política que también deben seguir en casa. Continue Reading →

Dr. Brian Quebbemann is interviewed on the Early show to talk about the Lap Band®

Dr Yuan currently is in private practice in Long Beach, California, as part of Memorial Orthopaedic Surgical Group and operates out of Tri-City Regional Medical Center and Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Dr Albert is Richard H. Rothman Professor and chairman, department of orthopedic surgery, and professor of neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals in Philadelphia. For this article, the authors have updated their discussion of spinal stenosis that first appeared in 2004 in The Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine.

ABSTRACT: Degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis is prevalent in persons older than 50 years. Typical symptoms include pain, numbness, and paresthesias in the thighs and legs. In the classic neurogenic claudication syndrome, these lower extremity symptoms are aggravated by prolonged walking or standing. The diagnosis may be confirmed by differentiating between neurogenic and vascular claudication. Weight-bearing plain radiographs should be used as the initial screening tool. MRI is used to identify the presence of neural compression. Conservative treatment options include activity modification and relative rest, wearing an elastic lumbar binder, oral medications, muscle relaxants, and chiropractic manipulation. Surgical referral is reserved for patients for whom conservative measures have not succeeded or who have intolerable pain, progressive neurological deficit, or cauda equina syndrome. (J Musculoskel Med. 2009;26:222-231)

Lumbar spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the vertebral canal, lateral recess, or intervertebral foramina of the lumbar spine; the condition may be congenital or result from spinal degeneration.¹ Usually, degenerative or acquired spinal stenosis does not become symptomatic until patients reach middle age. It affects men nearly twice as often as women. Continue Reading →

Surgeons Insert Lap-Band and Perform Other Weight Loss Procedures through Belly Button.

HAWAIIAN GARDENS — Doctors can now insert a Lap-Band or perform other weight loss surgeries with no visible scar, thanks to a new procedure call the Spider.

Dr. Shyam Dahiya of Tri-City Regional Medical Center in Hawaiian Gardens is one of the first in the nation to use the “spider” technology to perform the Lap-Band procedure and even perform a gastric sleeve operation. He’s performed more Spider procedures than anyone else in the U.S. Continue Reading →

NATIONALLY RENOWNED BARIATRIC SURGEON PERFORMS FIRST VERTICAL SLEEVE GASTRECTOMY USING SINGLE-INCISION SPIDER^® SURGICAL SYSTEM

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. – Dr. Brian B. Quebbemann, one of the country’s leading experts in minimally invasive bariatric surgery, has successfully performed a single-incision vertical sleeve gastrectomy using the SPIDER^® Surgical System. The operation was performed at the Advanced Surgical Partners Surgery Center in Costa Mesa, CA.

This marks the first time a surgeon has used the SPIDER Surgical System to perform this type of surgery. Released on a limited basis beginning in March, the SPIDER has been used by surgeons to perform other procedures including colon re-sections, kidney and gallbladder removals, and gastric banding.

A vertical sleeve gastrectomy – typically reserved for severely obese patients – dramatically minimizes the size of a patient’s stomach, and is one of the fastest growing forms of bariatric surgery.  Before using SPIDER, Dr. Quebbemann relied on conventional laparoscopic techniques and equipment that required five separate small incisions in a patient’s abdomen. Continue Reading →