"Dr. Robert Woodbury is the director of Healthy Steps Weight-Loss Center here in Santa Rosa, California. Before a patient can be scheduled for their initial consultation, they need to attend a seminar that he hosts monthly. The seminar is where I first met him. My first impression was that he really cared about people living healthy lives. His disposition was nice and welcoming. For me, going to this meeting was the first time I silently yet publicly "announced" that I had a problem. I looked around the room at the other info-seeking potential patients and recognized my same sentiment on their faces: nervous, curious, hopeful. While on the journey to be approved for the surgery, I had my first appointment with him that ended with me in tears after he told me that my BMI wasn't high enough to qualify for it (needs to be 40 or above). He spent the time to talk to me about lifestyle changes, stressing that making better food and exercise choices will lead to success. My BMI was 37. Thankfully, there is a contingency that if your BMI is 35-40 and you have an obesity-causing condition, then surgery would be approved. A few months later I returned to the program with a diagnosis of sleep apnea. The surgery would be approved and I already could feel the relief lifting. There is a Lifestyle Center that is part of the program that is designed to stay with you for life. It is right across the street from the clinic (where the nurses are). You must enroll in this program as a part of the package, so to speak. This program costs $799.99 and they accept a payment plan. The program provides nutrition education, a fitness and exercise consultation, mental health counseling, and general support. You are supposed to go to appointments there while going to clinic appointments across the street for the months leading up to surgery. Even years after surgery, they are available to help you with goals, nutritional guidance, and exercise groups. Every month there is a "Walk with the Doc" where Dr. Woodbury spends a few hours walking around Spring Lake with patients (in every stage of their journey). This is an opportunity for us all to connect, get support, and ask questions while exercising. The Lifestyle Center also organizes picnics and cooking classes. What I like about Dr. Woodbury is that there is so much focus on AFTER the surgery, the rest of your life, and how to most effectively extend it. Surgery is treated like what it is, a tool. Surgery is not the answer, it a stop on the path to the answer, mine being LIVING the rest of my life to the fullest. Everyone's answers are specific to themselves.
Over time, I can see that he is truly dedicated to helping others live a healthy life. The other patients I have met have all been happy about their experiences with Healthy Steps.
His staff is kind and knowledgable. There are other surgeons in the practice that I have never met, but I have heard that Dr. Cortez is awesome. I have no other bariatric surgeon to compare Dr. Woodbury to, but I would rate him high.
I don't want to put anything negative out about anyone in particular, but about the clinic on Hoen Ave (not the Lifestyle Center) I will say that my pre-op appointments were supposed to take 3 months, but took much longer than that and I'm not sure exactly why. My General Practitioner moved to another office and I had to find a new one to write a letter stating that I was cleared for surgery, and that took some time. Also, one day I was very stressed from running late and I kind of cried a bit at an appointment with one of the nurses. Even though mental health is not her field of expertise, she told me that I didn't seem emotionally ready to have the surgery. (That upset me) I can't point to one thing in particular as to why the "3 months" actually took many more, but many appointments were just like "check in" appointments where I wasn't given a task to do, like to get this lab or that procedure done. Thoughout the process I kept thinking that I wasn't on the ball. Whatever the reasons were, Dr. Woodbury had nothing to do with it, and my clinic experience shouldn't get in the way of a potential patient determining if it's a good program to go through. It totally is.
My journey has really just begun, (as I write this, I am 3 weeks post-op) and I know I've done the right thing!"
