Transcription:

Bill Klaproth (Host): You are not alone when it comes to bariatric weightloss surgery and support groups play a big role in that. Here to talk with us about that, is Jenifer Stein, Program Navigator for Bariatric and Colorectal Surgery Programs at Saint Barnabas Medical Center supporting Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center. Jenifer, always a pleasure talking with you. So, let’s start here. Why is support so important.

Jenifer Stein, MS, RDN, CDE, CSSGB (Guest): What we have found through our research of studying how our patients do after surgery, is that patients who attend support groups regularly after surgery can lose more – 10% more than patients who do not attend support groups. So, that’s why we think it’s so important to continue with the weightloss and to gain support after surgery.

Host: Wow, that’s amazing. So, it’s not just a mental lift, but there’s also physical benefits too.

Jenifer: Absolutely.

Host: Wow, really good to hear. So, let’s talk about support at Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center. How often do the support groups meet? What’s the format? Tell us all about this.

Jenifer: We offer support groups on a monthly basis. Typically, we will meet for about an hour to an hour and a half. We usually have a topic picked out suggested to us from our – the patients who attend the support groups, they tell us what talks they would like us to talk about. The topics include nutrition, psychosocial support, exercise, physical activity. We even have guest speakers come in from time to time to talk to the group.

Host: So, Jenifer, do you allow time at these meetings for people to get up and share their experiences?

Jenifer: Absolutely. I feel sharing your experiences with others is one of the most important things that the attendees can get out of the meeting. And we also found that the people who have had the surgery, they want to share their experience because it helps them. Originally, when we started the monthly support groups, we had a topic picked out, we may have even had a speaker come to talk but we found that our patients didn’t have enough time to socialize and interact afterwards, so what we did is we reformatted the structure of the monthly support groups. So, we do have a topic picked out and we will talk about it, but certainly if someone comes to the support group and wants to bring up something that they would like to present to the group or get help with; we certainly allow extra time for that as well.

Host: So, Jenifer it sounds like this is really important for relationship building and it sounds like you are also building a community as well, is that right?

Jenifer: That’s correct. We offer this – the monthly support groups as a community service so patients who have had surgery anywhere with any surgeon can come to our group. In fact, we like when people come to our group that are from a different surgeon that they can share their experiences. So, we are glad that we can offer this as a community service.

Host: So, if someone is looking for a support group that maybe isn’t in the area; how can someone find support groups that may fit their needs?

Jenifer: I would suggest that if anyone is interested in finding a support group in the local area to check a website its called www.obesityhelp.org so the Obesity Action Coalition is very good about publishing support groups all over the country. So, our patients can access that anywhere. So, that would be www.obesityhelp.org.

Host: Really good information and then how long do support groups run? I’m not talking about the individual day of, but will this be a yearlong process, or can people continue to come to support however long they feel they need it? How does that work?

Jenifer: I think it’s important that the patients come to support groups as they need it, however, we do have some patients that are – want to keep themselves accountable so they attend regularly. They come every month. But we don’t want to make it too stringent so, it’s not – we don’t want to require patients to come to support groups. We just want them to know that whenever they need it, we will be there. We meet monthly. I don’t think I’ve missed a meeting in nine years and if I cannot make it to a meeting; I make sure that the psychologist can be there so our patients can expect they will be able to attend a support group every month.

Host: Very good and is it a simple sign up procedure?

Jenifer: At Saint Barnabas Medical Center on our website there is a sign up procedure, but it’s not required. All our surgeons have flyers in their offices where they can call to register. But it’s not required. Sometimes patients just show up and that’s fine as well.

Host: What about support for people prior to surgery?

Jenifer: That’s a great question. We open up our support groups to people who are preparing for surgery as well. Sometimes one of our surgeons will have a patient who is going through the preoperative process who may need a little bit extra support or who may need to understand what to expect after surgery, so we opened up our support group to people who are preparing for surgery. However, sometimes those patients have a lot of questions to ask so, we make sure that we moderate the meeting to have a good balance between the patients who are preparing for surgery and the patients that have already had the surgery.

Host: Excellent information. Jenifer, thank you so much in talking to us about support groups. We appreciate it. For more information, you can visit the Garden State Bariatrics and Wellness Center website at www.gsbwc.com, that’s www.gsbwc.com. This is Winning Through Losing a Weightloss Surgery Podcast with Garden State Bariatrics. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.