On April 13, 2023, I opened the virtual doors of BodyByBariatrics with a very clear vision of what I wanted to build and absolutely no idea how much work it would take to build it. Sure, I was excited, but I was also terrified. I was betting a lot, well, everything, on the belief that bariatric care could be more personal.

I wanted someone to be able to find us when they were ready to change their life and feel like we would take it from there. I wanted to remove as much confusion and frustration as possible from the process of getting to surgery safely. Behind the scenes, that meant obsessing over everything from our website and patient education to insurance contracts, revenue cycle management, staffing, technology, marketing, and a hundred other parts of the business of medicine that I had never had to understand before.

I underestimated how hard it would be to build this practice. What I also underestimated, though, was how much joy it would bring me.

Today, BodyByBariatrics performed our 2,500th bariatric surgery and that number has made me stop and reflect. I think about 2,500 people who trusted us with something incredibly important.

There is a moment before surgery that has stayed special to me no matter how many times I have experienced it. I am standing beside you before we go to the operating room, and I tell you, “I’m going to take awesome care of you.” So often, you look me straight in the eye and say, “I know you will.”

You are trusting me while you are under anesthesia and unable to advocate for yourself. You are trusting my hands, my judgment, my team, and the practice we built. You are trusting us with your future and with the hope that this decision might change the direction of your life. I have never taken that responsibility lightly. I feel the weight and the privilege of it every single time.

I have watched you travel from near and far to find us, share your non-scale victories, write reviews, come to our celebrations, retreats, and support groups, join Project Reset, do the difficult mindset work, and show up for yourself.

You have invited us into parts of your lives that extend far beyond the operating room. You have told us about getting on an airplane without worrying about the seatbelt, playing with your children without getting winded, buying clothes you never imagined wearing, getting off medications, taking pictures again, traveling, dating, moving your bodies, and simply feeling comfortable taking up space in the world. I have watched people come back to life.

Somewhere along the way, BodyByBariatrics became much more than the practice I was trying so desperately to build. It became a community, and it became my life’s work. Beyond the pink, the energy, the events is something very serious to me: taking exceptional care of people who have trusted us to help them change their lives.

I will look back on this for the rest of my life and think about how incredibly fortunate I was to get to do this work. I am proud of what we have built, proud of the people who work beside me every day, and deeply grateful for every person who decided that BodyByBariatrics felt like the right place for them.

So today, I wanted to stop before rushing toward the next milestone and simply say thank you.

2,500 surgeries is an incredible milestone for BodyByBariatrics, but to me, it will always mean 2,500 people who trusted us with a piece of their story. That is something I will never take for granted.

With all my gratitude,

Dr. Betsy Dovec

Founder & Bariatric Surgeon

BodyByBariatrics