The field of bariatric surgery continues to grow, attracting surgeons with expertise in laparoscopic, gastrointestinal, and bariatric surgery. With the implicit goal of ensuring that surgeons have met minimum criteria to safely perform bariatric surgery, 3 national surgery associations — American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), American College of Surgeons (ACS), and the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) — independently created credentialing guidelines to guide hospitals and institutions in the credentialing process for bariatric surgery. The guidelines were thoughtfully written to assist local credentialing committees in the evaluation of an applicant’s qualifications and were not developed to become a standard of care.
This article was originally published in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases. Download the full article from the link below:
Joint Task Force Recommendations for Credentialing of Bariatric Surgeons
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Guidelines for clinical practice are intended to indicate preferable approaches to medical problems as established by experts in the field. These recommendations will be based on existing data or a consensus of expert opinion when little or no data are available. Guidelines are applicable to all physicians who address the clinical problem(s) without regard to specialty training or interests, and are intended to indicate the preferable, but not necessarily the only acceptable approaches due to the complexity of the healthcare environment. Guidelines are intended to be flexible. Given the wide range of specifics in any health care problem, the surgeon must always choose the course best suited to the individual patient and the variables in existence at the moment of decision.
Guidelines are developed under the auspices of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and its various committees, and approved by the Board of Governors. Each clinical practice guideline has been systematically researched, reviewed and revised by the guidelines committee, and reviewed by an appropriate multidisciplinary team. The recommendations are therefore considered valid at the time of its production based on the data available. Each guideline is scheduled for periodic review to allow incorporation of pertinent new developments in medical research knowledge, and practice.