Hazem Elariny MD Bariatric Surgeon M.D.

I already knew 3 people who had weight loss surgery by Dr. E, and all raved about what a wonderful doctor he was. At my first consulation, he was sooo focused, he wanted to make sure you really understood each different surgery, and the risks involed with each one. People may say that you are taking the easy way out... but there is a lot more to the weight loss than just the surgery. For the rest of my life I will always have to monitor nutrition, and lifestyle. Then met with you to decided which surgery would be best for you. Has my impression of him changed.... YES, he has gone from someone who was going to give me a chance to be free from fat... to my life safer. Only being one month post op, I feel absolutely wonderful. I am 23 years old, and I actually feel like it, instead of being 23 in a 60 year old body! Dr. E is a busy doctor, and if you expect to get a call back in 10 minutes... think again, but never even with the minor complications that I had, feel like I had been left to the curb. I called his office at 7 one night, and HE answered the phone... He really cares about his patients, and it shows. To me... he is the BEST doctor a person could ever want. I had my procedure done lap, and have 5 very tiny scars....only 1 of them measures 1 inch. When I was in preop waiting to be takin back to the OR, and intern studying under Dr. E said that he was here to study under him because he is "the best." To me that says it all. Dr. E holds a support group meeting once a month at fairfax hospital. At first it was disorganized... but from the help of some wonderful post-ops it is very well run now. Dr. E is present when possible, and he also runs a pre-op thing before hand. There is also a yahoo group for Dr. Elariny's patients, both looking for the surgery and post ops... and that has been the most invaluable tool too have.

My first impression of Dr. Elariny has not changed at all! I believed that he was the best and I still do. I know so many people that have had surgery done by him and everyone agrees that he is simply GREAT! Very concerned about his patients and their outcomes.. not just the money involved.

I chose Dr. Elariny because he has a lot of experience, having done more than 300 duodenal switch operations laparoscopically. I am in touch with many of his patients and they all seem very pleased with him. I have never heard a single word against him.

He has a program fee of $400 and this includes his nutritionist.

HIs office staff are highly competent and very much on top of things. Shantae does his scheduling, and Mohammed handles the insurance. There is another employee whose name I forget, and of course, the nutritionist who recently started with him.
They all answer the phone and immediately take care of whatever you need.

OTHER SURGEONS
I had experiences with other surgeons offices, including Mt. Sinai and NYU. The surgeons may be good, I don't know, but my personal experience was that I had to wait weeks for a phone call to be returned at Mt. Sinai and had to wait many hours in the office for an appointment. I spent a lot of money and a lot of time and got nowhere with this program.

At NYU I had to wait 5 hours for my appointment and then was told I would have to pay $14,000 out of my pocket in addition to the roughly $6,000 that my insurance could be expected to pay.

I had a good experience with Dr. Benotti's office in Ridgewood, NJ. He has a wealth of experience and I would have chosen him as my surgeon if I had opted for the Roux-en-Y procedure.

I met with Dr.Elariny about two years ago and my impression of him was that I found him to very informational and professional.His staff is wonderful and they are friendly and helpful. Shantae is the one that I mainly talked to and she always help me as much as she could.Dr Eliariny is a super surgeon. My surgery went very well and I could not tell after surgery that I had surgery. I had very little pain maybe just some soreness but that's about it. I highly reccommend him.

DR E IS A VERY CAREING AND INFORMATIVE DOCTOR HIS GROUP CONSULTATION, IS FUN AND YOU LEARN ALOT. I AT FIRST WAS GOING TO DO THE OPEN RUN-Y BUT I CHANGED MY MIND AND DECIDED THE LAP WOULD BE FOR ME, I HAVE SEVERAL FRIENDS THAT HAVE ALREADY HAD THE SURGERY AND LOVING LIFE, SAME OPERATION JUST LAP INSTEAD OF OPEN. THE OFFICE STAFF IS GOOD VERY BUSY BUT YOU DO GET QUESTIONS ANSWERED, AND CALL BACKS OR FAXES. I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY NEGATIVES ABOUT THE DOCTOR, HE'S YOUNGER AND KNOWS ALOT ABOUT NEWER SURGIES. DR E IS REALLY THE ONLY ONE IN THE AREA I KNOW OF THAT ACCEPTS AETNA FULLY AND WILL FIGHT FOR YOU IF THEY BULK. HIS AFTER CARE IS STRUCTURED BUT YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR PART ALSO. HE ADDRESSES THE RISKS AND YOU SIGN A PERMISSION SLIP AFTER YOU HAVE READ IT COMPLETELY AND AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS. I WOULD GREATLY SUGGEST IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT SURGERY AND WOULD LIKE THE LAP TO GO TO HIS GROUP CONSOLTATION AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE HIM. I THINK AND HOPE THAT HE IS AS GOOD AS I REALLY BELIEVE HIM TO BE.
I WOULD SAY IF YOU ARE GETTING ME TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS AS I REALLY DON'T LIKE SURGERY, THEN HE HAS TO HAVE REALLY IMPRESSED ME. I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH MY VISITS AND IF I HAD THEN I WOULDN'T BE ON THIS SITE TO RECCOMMEND DR E, I KNOW HE IS VERY BUSY BUT IT IS DEFINATELY WORTH GETTING THE INFO.

I found Dr. Elariny to be very well suited for me and for my procedure. He came highly recommended and has a wonderful bed side manner! I found him through this sight and want to thank each of you for sharing your experiences so that we all can venture over to the "other-side"!

He was very busy when I met with him for the consultation but was very pleasant and informative!

Shawnta, his office mgr is TERRIFIC! I do not know how she had the incredible patients that she has! She deserves a raise!

The only complaint is that I couldn't get the surgery earlier but that is based on the fact that he is so popular and has such a great reputation!

I will let you know how I feel about him when I return home from the surgery!

I got a very good impression of Dr. Elariny and his staff from the moment I called his office to check on a group session to the first consult and now to the insurance approval. I am sure that Dr. Elariny and his staff have families and may sometime take away their time with them to take care of their patients and for this I am very grateful. Dr. E and his staff are knowledgable, professional and freindly. They want you to go into this well educated and informed. He was also very good about explaining long term care with vitamins etc... I also live an hour away from his office and they were able to have my PCP schedule and do my pre-op test which is a real convenience for me. In a nut shell they are great to work with from the receptionist nurses,insurance pro. and to the Doc. himself.

I went to a seminar hosted by Dr. Elariny yesterday evening, it was THE most informative exchange I've had regarding this surgery. Your initial appointment with him is handled in a seminar format with about 30 other people. He thoroughly describes each surgery and how each affects you, he has handouts and descriptions that you take home with you to study, so you can choose the correct surgery for you. Because he performs them all, you don't have to accept whatever it is that he is offering, because of this, I am going to have him perform my surgery. I was highly impressed with his manner and patience, as you can imagine there were a ton of questions, and answered them all, until he got paged and of course had to go. But he spent over 2 and half hours with us talking and explaining things.

I thought that Dr. E was a very soft spoken, intelligent man with a love for surgery. (He even admired a previous surgical scar) I feel very safe with him performing my surgery and completely filled me in on all the good and risky points of the surgery that I have chosen. I chose the DS because I still want a good quality of life afterwards and not vomiting and feeling ill all the time. He will perform this sugery in 2 parts in order to keep my risks to a minimum. I know 2 others that have used him and or are using him and both like him just as much. I did feel a bit rushed though but he still had more patients to see and it was getting late into the evening so I didn't blame him for that. I am looking forward to working with Dr. E!

Dr. Elariny has kind eyes and gentle hands. I know that may sound strange, but those things meant something to me. I met him for the first time today and we discussed my options and what procedure would work best for me. He had spent almost 3 hours with about 30 of us the evening before going over in detail all of the different procedures he performs and why some work better than others, depending upon your needs. He is determined to make sure that your surgery is what will work best for you, not what surgery will work best for him. He does not "pull any punches" about the risks involved, but leaves you with a sense of calm and experience that makes you feel very safe in his hands. His office staff are very competent and extremely pleasant. I was lucky to be there at the time that many pre-and-post op patients were there so I got a chance to talk with them about their experiences (all positive). I TRULY believe that you could not rate Dr. E's surgical competence and bedside manner on a different scale - he seems to be able to do both very well.