How to check on Doctors in Mexico?

[redfox 0]

Hi,What can you tell me about Dr.Cesar Romero?What hospital is he at,If you dont mind me asking...what did you pay for his services?im looking into having him do mine,ive read some good info about him,his price is in a range I could afford.any thing you could tell me would be soo helpful....thanks

[losethechains 0]

My wife and I were banded by Dr. Rumbaut in Monterrey back in April. We have been back to Monterrey for our first fill. I would highly recommend Dr. Rumbaut and his staff. they provided everything they promised, the logisitcs in Mexico were all handled well, the operation and hospital facilities were great, and we've had no issues in the healing process afterward. Nothin' but good stuff to say about Dr. Rumbaut! Hope you find what your searching for.

[catzintj 1]

dr. romero was working for dr. huacuz. sounds to me like he has gone out on his own. i think he is nice and a good nutritionist, but id stick with the doctors with experience, like dr huacuz or sanchez, or kuri. all doctors who are proven to be doing well. most docs all charge about the same, 8000.00 , go to the websites of the more well known docs and get references. i love dr. huacuz. he is so good about follow up. i can call and talk to him when i have concerns. good luck and hope all goes well for you. ive lost 101lbs. feel great. occasional gurd and heartburn, but nothing too bad. im so glad i have my lapband.

[vixie 0]

Dr. Alvarez sucks. I had a bad experience with him and his staff. I personally think his numbers are fixed. Here are a couple of tips when checking out MX doctors.

1)The number of surgeries. This is a hard one to prove or disprove. To me its really more of a common sense one, I'll tell you what I find suspicious and you judge for yourself. Let me use ortiz to demonstrate what I think normal stats look like. Ortiz finished his lacroscopic training in 1998 and has been doing the lap band for about 9 years. In that time he has done about 4000 lap bands. Thats about 450 lap bands per year. If we take into consideration that he goes on vacation, does other type of work and probably has a few days off per week, it probably means that he does surgery several times a week and does 3or 4per day. That sounds pretty normal. Now look at Dr. Alvarez's stats. He only got his diplomas in 2005 and 2006. That means he only had about 1 year since he completed his training, yet he claims to have done 1200 surgeries in that time according to http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/professionals/showdocs-international.php?Country=Latin+America Some Some sites have given him credit for as many as 1800! There are 365 days in a year. Let say Alverez never takes a vacation or has any sick days, lets say he takes two days off per week and has 1 day a week that he does nothing but followups. That leaves him 208 days to perform surgery per year. Are we to believe that he did 1200 surgeries in 208 days? I don't think so. Using the search engine on this board further broadens my case. If indeed, this little known surgeon does 3 times as many surgeries as Dr. Ortiz (one of the best known surgeons) where are his patients? Do a search of his name and you will only find half a page of posts about him. Last I checked he only had 3 patients here. Do a search for Ortiz and you will get 20 full pages.

2) Checking American credentials is easy. Most MX claim a few American credential. The most common seem to be American Society for Bariatric Surgery, American College of Surgeons and a lot claim they have been trained in American Schools. Most of these places have like online search engines where you can just type in the Dr's name and see if they are in fact members or Fellows. I know for sure the ASBS and ACS have these links. The International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity also has a link to check on council members. Most Universities also have these links. Just go to google and type in the name of the association or university. Then look for the link. Sometimes they will read, "see our member list of members" or "find a doctor" or so on. Heres a tip too. Just type in the doctors last names. You dont know where the doc was living when he became member, so just avoid typing in any more information. You will be surprised, even Doc's with VERY common names can be searched in this manner because most of these associations have very few members. Then you just need to match up the first names of the doc to your search. I have found a lot of doctors who claim to be members and ARENT.

3)Inamed certified. A lot of docs are not certified, but claim to be. That means they are placing your band without really knowing how...Ahhhh! Others, where certified but Arnet any more (really scary, probably means they were making too many mistakes). You can email Inamed and they are supposed to respond, but I have found that they are a little flaky. Its best just to call and find out.

4) Claims that the doc trains US doc for Inamed. This is easy to check on. Just call Inamed and ask if they are training for Inamed and if they are training within the USA. Inamed is very open and will give you any FACTS you ask for.

Other than that my advice is to make sure your getting the surgeon they advertise, ask it the hospital they practice in has a dedicated emergency wing in case something goes wrong,

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

mexicanbandsters : MexicanBandsters

Join ... directly or by sending a blank email to MexicanBandsters-subscribe@YahooGroups.com -- then follow the directions in the email that will soon be sent to you. This is to confirm your intent to join the group...

after that you can post your questions directly at the website or mail them in by sending an email to MexicanBandsters@YahooGroups.com from the same email address that you signed up with.

Do not be upset when your post doesn't show up right away. Sometimes it can take a day or two before the moderators have a chance to approve it.

Another great group is http://www.yahoogroups.com/SmartBandsters/ which is run by an RN (Seattle Bariatric Practice) who was banded in Mexico years ago. It is one of the LARGEST groups available for prospective and newbie bandsters.

Now, to read what those doctors who pay for listings have to say about their practices and to read the feedback their patients have submitted to day, go here ---

ObesityHelp Professionals

-- Be aware about this fact --- the doctors at the top with flashing stars and plain stars -- that only means they pay ObesityHelp.com money to promote their practices by listing them at the top & drawing attention to their names. The countries are all mixed together, so you will have to search the list for the cities closest to you. They have links to more info and websites .. and to patient testimonials.

ObesityHelp.com is mostly used by patients with traditional bypass surgeries... Plus they make it VERY difficult to find the section for Mexican physicians...

BUT they do have an active support forum for Mexican Physicians here - South of the Border - Messageboard I post the link here for after their website changes, it became nearly impossible to locate.

Good Luck ..

I agree with much of what you say but one word of caution I have to offer is that some of the folks on the yahoo sites are not really patients, they are patient coordinators that are less than ethical. They promote their docs by claiming they are patients. They get a fee for referring people to the doc they work for. They get a commission per person that they recruit for their docs. Two of the worst docs in Mexico are promoted as the best docs around. Huacuz and Lopez of Betancourt. They have patient coordinators pretending to be patients, they aren't. They work for the docs. Actually, the same thing happens here too as well as OH.

Find a doc that LOTS and LOTS of people are talking about and they tend to like him. Research a LOT, talk to everyone, take your time, ask about stats, do the legwork. This holds true regardless of doctor and regardless of the country they practice from.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

does anyone have anything to say about this doctor?

Obesity Surgery Center - Dr. Roberto Rumbaut

and this one?

http://www.huacuz.com/index.html

i really cant believe the price difference from Canada witch is $15000 and Mexico $7000 to $10600. why is that?

andree

The first link is good, the 2nd is bad, verrry verrry bad. Bad history with the medical board in Mexico, lots of infections, used to work for Betancourt and if that isn't enough to scare you away, nothing will.

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Dr. Alvarez sucks. I had a bad experience with him and his staff. I personally think his numbers are fixed. Here are a couple of tips when checking out MX doctors.

1)The number of surgeries. This is a hard one to prove or disprove. To me its really more of a common sense one, I'll tell you what I find suspicious and you judge for yourself. Let me use ortiz to demonstrate what I think normal stats look like. Ortiz finished his lacroscopic training in 1998 and has been doing the lap band for about 9 years. In that time he has done about 4000 lap bands. Thats about 450 lap bands per year. If we take into consideration that he goes on vacation, does other type of work and probably has a few days off per week. It probably means that he does surgery several times a week and does 2 or 3 per day. That sounds pretty normal. Now look at Dr. Alverezes stats. He only got his diplomas in 2005 and 2006. That means he only had about 1 year since he completed his training, yet he claims to have done 1200 surgeries in that time according to http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/professionals/showdocs-international.php?Country=Latin+America Some have given him credit for as many as 1800! There are 365 days in a year. Let say alverez never takes a vacation or has any sick days, lets say he takes two days off per week and has 1 day a week that he dos nothing but followups. That leaves him 208 days to perform surgery per year. Are we to believe that he did 1200 surgeries in 208 days? I don't think so. Using the search engine on this board further broadens my case. If indeed, this little known surgeon does 3 times as many sugeries as Dr. Ortiz (one of the best known surgeons) where are his patients? Do a search of his name and you will only find half a page of posts about him. Last I checked he only had 3 posting here. Do a search for Ortiz and you will get 20 full pages.

Excellent point. Alvarez combines his numbers with his partners and claims them as his own. I wouldn't go to him. Not in a million years. If he fibs about stats what else is he fibbing about? It is deceptive and I would never consider someone who is deceptive.

[mylap-band 0]

I HAD TO DO A LOT OF RESEARCH ON THE WEB FOR MANY MONTHS, I FINALLY DECIDED TO HAVE MY SURGERY DONE BY DR. FRANCISCO GONZALEZ.

I CALLED THE CLINIC AFTER I CHECKED OUT HIS WEBSITE , I WAS ON THE PHONE FOR ABOUT 40 MINUTES, AND MOST OF MY QUESTIONS WERE ANSWERED BY LAURA MARTIN -SHE IS PATIENT COORDINATOR, SHE EVEN GAVE ME THE PHONE NUMBER OF A COUPLE OF PATIENTS. I DID CALL THEM AND AFTER SPEAKING WITH THEM I KNEW THEN THAT DR.GONZALEZ WAS THE BEST CHIOCE FOR ME, I'VE LOST 80 LBS IN THE FIRST 9 MOS. AND I'M VERY HAPPY NOW SOMETIMES I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER I HAVE THE LAPBAND. MY EATING HABITS HAVE CHANGED QUITE A BIT. IT WAS A LITTLE DIFFICULT AT THE BEGINNING BUT AFTER THE FIRST TWO WEEKS I BEGAN TO GET THE HANG OF IT. I HAD AGREAT EXPERIENCE AND YES, I DO NOT HESITATE TO RECOMMEND DR. GONZALEZ AND HIS ENTIRE MEDICAL TEAM AND STAFF. DR. GONZALEZ TREATS YOU LIKE FAMILY.

I WAS KIND OF FEARFUL SINCE I HAD NEVER HAD ANY MAJOR SURGERY, DR. GONZALEZ MADE ME FEEL AT EASE, AND HONESTLY AFTER SPEAKING WITH HIM BEFORE THE SURGERY I KNEW I WOULD BE OK. CHECK OUT HIS WEBSITE: GOLAP-BAND.COM OR SEND HIM AN E-MAIL: fgonzalez@golap-band.com

[vixie 0]

I've never heard of DR. FRANCISCO GONZALEZ, so I went to his site. He doesnt even have his credentials posted...whats that all about?

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Vixie...

I've never heard of him either. The better docs in Mexico are usually well known to bandsters. Anyone else ever heard of him?

[reconciler 0]

I was banded by Dr.Rumbaut on March 1. He did a great job. I have lost 21lbs and feel great. My experience was positive from beginning to end. If you have any specific questions I will answer them.

May I ask how much you paid? And did he himself do the surgery? Thanks.

[mylap-band 0]

For all you fellow bandsters: Dr. Francisco Gonzalez is very well known in the Los Angeles area as well as Arizona and Nevada and of course Mexico. He has been doing lap-band surgery for more than ten years, was in fact one of the first Mexican surgeons to be certified by Bioenterics, now INAMED. The fact that his presence on the web has not been as propagated as others has nothing to do with his experience or his credentials it is simply that he has been very focused doing his job and less focused in marketing. In fact, 99% of his patients are recommended by WORD OF MOUTH from one patient to another and if you take that into account, he has much more experience than many other surgeons out there. Don't take this the wrong way, simply know that contrary to popular belief, there is still a huge world out there outside cyberspace. I am sure that in a few years, if you are not on the web you are going to be left out of the picture, but not now, not yet. Make a note of this surgeon's name Dr. Francisco Gonzalez because you will be hearing (or reading) more of him and 99.9% percent of what you hear is going to be GOOD. thanks and keep losing those pounds!

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Hmmm... all the people that go to him must not post on the internet.

Honestly, I've never heard of him.

BTW, do you work for him?

[WASaBubbleButt 41]

Have to add...

I suspect you do work for him as 100% of your posts are pushing him. You write about nothing else here on a support board.

[mylap-band 0]

:whoo: I was banded by Dr. Franciso Gonzalez (find him at golap-band.com) his staff and patient coordinator were great! The best doctor I have had the pleasure to meet. Very professional. I paid 7,250 for surgery, hospitalization, all pre-op exams. INAMED FDA approved lap-band, he uses no other.

You can usually schedule a phone consultation with Dr. Gonzalez, oh and by the way, he never charges for adjustments (fills) and does them on "as needed " basis.

:clap2: