The ASMBS 30th Anniversary

1994-95 ASMBS President

Mervyn Deitel, MD

Most Important Event of the Year

Inclusion of the journal, Obesity Surgery, on the Index Medicus and the publications of guidelines in the journal.

What happened during our presidency may not be memorable to us – We were elected President because of prior achievement for the Society. However, in 1994 to gain credence for bariatric surgery, I emailed the membership and found over 150 ASBS members who had FACS, submitted this list to the ACS, and members received the designated FACS number after their name in the ACS Membership Book. Also in 1995, I submitted the necessary OBESITY SURGERY journal prior material to Sheldon Kotzin, Director of the National Library of Medicine in Washington, and the journal was accepted into the Index Medicus, indexing every article on PubMed since the first issue in February 1991. 1994-5 was a big year for a statement by the Standards Committee of the ASBS re Guidelines for patient follow-up and criteria for success, led by Horacio Oria and Ed Mason. Possibly more significant in 1995, we arranged a meeting in Stockholm at Prof. Scopinaro’s Annual Obesity Surgery Symposium where, in cooperation with the ASBS, 13 bariatric surgeons formed the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity, with Obesity Surgery as its official journal and with myself as First Executive Director.

Sincerely,
Mervyn Deitel, MD