In a city awash with splashy billboards featuring svelte models urging the obese to call 1-800-GET-THIN, it might seem that bariatric surgeon Ted Khalili couldn’t be more pleased.
The veteran Cedars-Sinai Medical Center doctor has performed more than 4,000 gastric procedures in the past decade, including hundreds using the hottest technique: the Lap-Band device that squeezes the opening to the stomach.
But he’s not pleased with the ads – and the recent news about his profession.
In the past several months, local coverage about four patient deaths after Lap-Band surgeries – and the characterization of some practices as gastric “surgery mills” – has put all bariatric surgeons on the defensive.