weight loss and the medical profession

Okay, today I need to vent a bit about a subject that really annoys me sometimes...and that is the approach that some of my collegaues have to helping their patients lose weight. Yesterday I saw in followup a patient who entered our program last week and she had an abnormal EKG. I did not prescribe phentermine, recommended that she have further cardiac workup but I did start the serotonin and Phase 1 of our dietary plan, neither of which would adversely affect any potential heart issue.

The patient went to her primary care physician to initiate the work up and right off the bat, the guy tells her the serotonin is not safe and she should stop the program entirely. The patient of course was perplexed and confused because she has one physician (me) telling her its okay to sytart the supplement and Phase 1 and her own doctor tells her it is dangerous.

This is not an isolated case....all along the way over these past 8 years, when I do a consultation about our program and the patient tells me that he/she needs to go back to their own doctor to get their opinion, I laugh to myself because I know there is no way that patient ever comes back. Why? Because upon hearing about the elements of our program, most (not all, as we do ahve a number of referring doctors who "get it") doctors will tell their patients 'Phentermine is not safe and neither is that serotonin". These same physicians do NOTHING to help their own patients lose weight, and if they did, then we wouldnt have their patients coming through our doors to either sytart our program or find out more about it. A doctor handing out a 1200 calories diet sheet and telling their patients to "eat less and exercise more" is not obviously a time-tested effective measure.

I guess like any other profession, physicians will be "territorial" about their patients and not want them going to any other doctor for "help" unless they do the referring themselves. I guess it is a bit of a slap in the face when a patient has to look elsewhere for help that could be provided by their own physician. The same physicians who are prescribing boat loads of blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetic pills etc. to their overweight patients are fearful about a supervised weight loss program where patients are being monitored weekly? Give me a break.

I strongly believe that we, as physicians, need to play a more active role in weight loss efforts for our patients rather than nay-saying others efforts.