THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
THE DAY after Montel Williams did his ``Dying to Be Thin'' show, a woman phoned Dr. Stephen A. Schechner to cancel her appointment with the local surgeon, who treats the morbidly overweight.
I'm not surprised.
It's a wonder that Schechner's phone wasn't ringing off the hook after Williams' show aired recently on WAVY.
Williams and the three women who appeared on the episode probably scared many others away from surgery as a means to end obesity.
There was Jody, who complained about how sick she'd been and how her hair had fallen out after she had a gastrointestinal bypass.
Sabrina talked about how she had her stomach stapled when she weighed 300 pounds. She believes that somehow damaged nerves and muscles and put her in a wheelchair.
Brenda, who also had a bypass, told how she needed plastic surgery to cope with the folds of loose skin on her body.
Then there was Laura. Poor Laura.
She was the young wife and mother who had been invited by Williams to listen to these horror stories and then decide if she wanted to undergo surgery to lose weight. After hearing Jody, Sabrina and Brenda, I expected Laura to run from the studio.
It was a pretty scary show.
And a terribly unbalanced one.
Schechner, a Virginia Beach surgeon who says he has performed more than 1,000 successful operations to help patients cope with morbid obesity, asks, ``Where were the patients who had these operations and benefited by them?''
Schechner was one of Williams' guests, but he wasn't called on until the show was more than half over to make this point: Reputable surgeons only do the stomach stapling and bypass to improve the health of people who are 100 pounds or more overweight.
Schechner rattled off the miseries that come with being terribly fat. There is high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, migraine headaches, infertility and sudden death.
``A whole host of medical problems,'' said Schechner. When Williams finally gave the doctor his time on camera, Schechner said: ``I've not heard anyone on the panel say they had the surgeries for the correct reasons. If you come to me and say you want the operation just because you want to be skinny, you would not get surgery.''
With Schechner's input, as well as that from two other doctors and some help from the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, Laura and Williams' audience eventually learned much about the radical treatments for obesity. But it would have been nice to have heard from one of Schechner's patients who is happy and healthy.
Or somebody who lost hundreds of pounds on the diets that Williams' panelists say did not work for them.
Schechner tells of a patient who lost 230 pounds after surgery. Williams never mentioned that.
Does the Virginia Beach doctor feel that he was ambushed by Williams? Set up to be window dressing on a show about a method of weight loss that was sensationalized and sold as the surgery from hell?
No, said Schechner, he does not feel used or abused, because Williams did give him time to speak his piece. He felt that his appearance was a public service.His name is in the phone book. He invites you to call if you have questions about these surgeries.
After all this, I'd be stunned if Laura had surgery to lose weight. Williams promised to let us know.
Williams should have announced that he was going to do an hour that was sensational and slanted. However, in the world of daytime TV talk, where you have to grab the viewers at the start of the show or lose them to the other guy, the hosts will say almost anything to get your attention.
It would nice if WAVY, as a public service, had Schechner tell his side of the weight-loss story on the local news. And brought on somebody who had the surgery and does not regret it. by CNB