About Me

Dr. Cottam grew up in Houston, Texas. He completed his undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University. He received his medical degree from the University of Texas, and completed his residency at Nassau University Medical Center in Long Island, New York.  It was there that his interest in bariatric surgery began.  After residency he did a two year fellowship at the prestigious Mark Ravitch/Leon C. Hirsch Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. During his time there, he performed hundreds of bariatric surgeries as well as doing ground breaking research on inflammation in obesity, diabetes and bariatric surgery, and the training of bariatric surgeons. He also helped pioneer the sleeve gastrectomy as a weight loss procedure.

He left fellowship to begin practice in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he specialized in bariatric surgery, abdominal wall reconstructions, and complex revisional bariatric surgery. He was one of the first in the nation to begin doing revisional endoscopic bariatric surgery. While in Las Vegas, he helped teach numerous physicians how to do bariatric surgery safely and effectively. He also served as a professor of surgery at Touro University Medical Center.  He left his practice in Las Vegas in 2007 for his current practice here in Salt Lake City.  Dr. Cottam has been recognized as a Center of Excellence Surgeon since 2005. 

Dr. Cottam is a board certified general surgeon with specialty in laparoscopic surgery.  He performs single incision laparoscopic adjustable gastric band and sleeve gastrectomy and is currently teaching other surgeons how to perform these procedures using this technique.  He also performs laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass and revisional bariatric surgery.  He is proud to offer comprehensive medical care to the bariatric population here in the intermountain west.