Contact: Richard P. Gulla
Tel: 781-434-7101
Email: rgulla@mms.org
Waltham, Mass. – June 26, 2013 -- Obesity in America continues to be an enormous public health problem, with some 36 percent of adults and 17 percent of children and adolescents considered obese, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Along with this epidemic of obesity has come an increasing patient demand for weight-loss surgery, with about 220,000 operations now taking place each year. Weight-loss surgery is known to be an effective treatment for excessive weight, and increasing evidence suggests it might also be effective therapy for metabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
The July edition of Physician Focus with the Massachusetts Medical Society – Weight-Loss Surgery: Myths and Realities – examines surgery as a treatment for obesity. The discussion looks at such questions as: Who is eligible for this treatment? What are the different kinds of weight-loss surgery? What are the risks of this kind of surgery? How successful is it as a treatment for obesity? What is required of patients, before and after the surgery?
Guests are Mitchell Gitkind, M.D., medical director of the UMass Memorial Weight Center in Worcester, Mass., and Rick Buckley Jr., M.D., a board-certified general surgeon and former director of the Bariatric Surgery Center at North Shore Medical Center in Salem, Mass. Both physicians are members of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Committee on Nutrition and Physical Activity. Hosting this edition is Bruce Karlin, M.D., a primary care physician in Worcester, Mass.
Physician Focus is a noncommercial production of the Massachusetts Medical Society and Hopkinton (Mass.) Community Access Television, HCAM-TV. Now in its ninth year, the monthly half-hour program brings viewers health and medical information on timely topics from physicians and other healthcare experts. Distributed as a public service, the program reaches some 275 communities in Massachusetts each month through the courtesy of public access television stations. For details on the program, visit the home page at www.physicianfocus.org.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, with more than 24,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society publishes The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s leading medical journals; the Journal Watch family of professional newsletters covering 11 specialties; and AIDS Clinical Care. The Society is also a leader in continuing medical education for health care professionals throughout Massachusetts, conducting a variety of medical education programs for physicians and health care professionals. Founded in 1781, MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country. For more information, visit www.massmed.org.
HCAM-TV was founded April 1, 2004 by the Board of Selectmen of the Town of Hopkinton as a nonprofit corporation to manage local access to cable broadcast facilities. For information on HCAM, visit http://www.hcam.tv
