Patient Support Groups:

Support groups provide a safe and confidential place for patients to share their personal concerns and experiences and receive answers to questions. Support groups also provide a relaxed atmosphere to make new friends, learn from others’ challenges and stories, and gain insight and information. Weight loss patients who attend a support group regularly find themselves motivated to “stay on track,” are less stressed by the weight loss surgery’s tremendous changes, and relate a sense of fulfillment in helping other, “newer” WLS patients.

Studies show that patients who attend support groups regularly lose more weight, and have less weight regain than those who do not attend groups.

We have our own support group for Bariatric Center of Kansas City patients. Due to size constraints, we must limit this to our newly approved or scheduled pre-op patients, post-op patients and their families/support persons only. Our group meets twice monthly for gastric bypass patients, and once a month for the Lap Band patients. We have regularly scheduled speakers as well as special events throughout the year. The schedule for our support group meeting is as follows:

RECENT UPDATE:

PLEASE NOTE: The March Roux-en-y/Sleeve support group meeting will be held in Room 23 of the Life Dynamics building on the SMMC campus.

- Thank you.

Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Support Group Meetings:

The first Thursday of each month - 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Shawnee Mission Conference Room
9100 West 74th Street, Shawnee Mission, KS

LapBand Gastric Band Support Group Meetings:

The third Thursday of each month – 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Shawnee Mission Conference Room
9100 West 74th Street, Shawnee Mission, KS

We will keep you updated on each upcoming meeting dates under our Events section of this website.

Also, we offer our patients on-line support through the Forum feature on our Website. This unique feature offers our patients the opportunity to communicate with each other in a question/answer format, which is monitored by professionals in our program. Patients who might be unable to attend support group, such as those immediately post-op, or those whose employment coincides with support group times, will now have a means to write in and receive timely answers and support from other members of our community.