Obese try to make the cut in New York weight loss surgery contest

BY: NAHAL TOOSI - ASSOCIATED PRESS
Category: Weight Loss Surgery | In The News, Gastric Bypass Insurance Coverage, Gastric Bypass

NEW YORK — For the dozens of overweight people who lined up in front of a scale at the Times Square Brewery Restaurant on Sunday, New Year’s resolutions to get thin have failed. So have pills, diets and support groups.

Now the participants are pinning their hopes of shedding extra pounds on Dominick Artuso, a Dobbs Ferry surgeon who promises to operate, free of charge, on 10 people wanting _ or badly needing _ weight loss surgery.

The weighing in Sunday attracted about 50 people, mostly from the New York area. About 40 others from around the country also have been in touch as word of the weight loss surgery contest has spread.

“I know it’s very drastic,” said Gildana Amitrano, a Bronx resident who weighs 450 pounds. “But I feel like I need more structure in my life, and this will give me a better quality of life. I would not do something like this unless I absolutely thought this was a last resort.”

Artuso said he was inspired to offer free surgeries after watching patients struggle to get insurance coverage for the increasingly popular but still risky procedures, which can use bands or staples to shrink the stomach. He said he expects all 10 winners to lack insurance coverage, something several people interviewed Sunday said was why they came.

Artuso, who performs the most popular forms of weight loss surgeries, gastric bypass and laparoscopic gastric band, estimated the 10 surgeries combined are worth about $250,000 in fees. He said he hopes to send a message that morbid obesity is a disease that can’t always be cured with traditional means.

“A lot of lay persons come to me and my patients and say, ‘You don’t really need that. You’re taking the easy way out. Just diet and exercise,” Artuso said.

For many participants, looking beautiful is not a motivation so much as feeling healthy and desiring normalcy, such as being able to buy clothes off the rack. Obesity has been a lifelong struggle, many said.

“I want to have a family some day, and the weight is a big issue,” said Amitrano, 29.

The participants’ weights ranged up to 606 pounds.

Eleven-year-old Korina Castro may have been the youngest contender, though Artuso said he’s unlikely to perform the surgery on someone her age.

Korina’s relatives brought her in hopes of cheering her up. She said she’s tired of being teased at school and wants to fit in with the other girls.

“I don’t want to look like them, but in the same category,” said Korina, who weighs 258 pounds.

Artuso, who has 18 years of surgical experience, with the last six specializing in weight loss, said the number of pounds is the top factor in choosing the lucky 10 by the end of the month but health problems and other issues could play a role.

He said that while his fees for the surgery and checkups will be waived, the patients may have to pay for their hospital stays, though he hopes to help defray those costs as well.

Mario Arena, a 40-year-old patient of Artuso’s from Peekskill, was on hand Sunday to answer questions and offer encouragement. He’s dropped from 420 pounds to 215 since his surgery about a year ago.

He said it’s important to exercise, eat well and monitor one’s health because the surgery alone doesn’t guarantee thinness. But the decision to go for it has brought him a great deal of happiness.

Now, he said, he can get on the rides in amusement parks.

“I’m experiencing my childhood all over again,” he said.

A sense of solidarity bound the dozens who waited their turn at the scale Sunday.

“If he doesn’t pick me I’m not going to feel like I wasted my time coming,” said Lisa Brown, a 35-year-old Brooklyn resident who weighs 370 pounds. “I look around the room and I do see people who are more deserving of the operation than myself.”