Bariatric Surgeons Being Put Out of Work by GLP-1 Drugs

This is a MedPage Today story. This story is part of a series called "Ozempic: Weighing the Risks and Benefits." It was produced in part through a grant from the NIHCM Foundation. Since she lost her job this summer as a bariatric surgeon, Lana Nelson, DO, has a phone message that tells callers, "I'm probably out on the trails" hiking near Grand Junction, Colorado. For 19 years until this fall, Nelson worked at the Norman Regional Health System's "Journey Clinic," a large weight-loss surgery program 15 miles south of Oklahoma City. For the last 12, she was its medical director. The 324-bed hospital system's two or three surgeons provided weight-loss surgery to more than 750 patients in each of the 2 years before COVID, she told MedPage Today. She did more than half of those herself. But the hospital was having financial woes, and caseloads dropped during the pandemic. Instead of bouncing back, they dropped to 387 in 2023. The chief reason: Many surgery candidates were trying the...