Meet the Lap Band Surgeons

Nassau, Bahamas, November 27, 2008

Today professor Mitiku Belachew, the first surgeon to perform the procedure on a human in 1991 in Belgium, joins The Way Forward. Belachew has since being teaching other surgeons this procedure across the United States.  The Lap Band System was FDA approved in 2001.

Also joining The Way Forward is Dr. Charles Diggiss, the first surgeon in Caribbean to perform this procedure and only surgeon in the region qualified to perform it.

The first two Bahamians to get the Lap Band surgery in the Bahamas were performed on yesterday.

The first two Lap Band surgeries in the Bahamas were performed yesterday. The procedure was first performed about 10 years ago, on two Americans who would have been a part of medical tourism.