Miami’s Mercy Hospital has introduced a new surgical program focused on weight loss.

The new dedicated metabolic and bariatric surgical program at the hospital’s Surgical Weight Loss Center offers Harvard fellowship trained bariatric surgeons, minimally invasive surgical options, a dedicated bariatric coordinator, expert dietitians, psychologists and more.

“Weight loss surgery is not a cosmetic procedure, it focuses on restoring patients’ overall health and, in some cases, has the power to drastically improve and potentially reverse chronic health issues such as Type 2 Diabetes,” said Mercy Hospital CEO David Donaldson. “At Mercy Hospital, we pride ourselves on taking a holistic approach to patient care and our new metabolic and bariatric program has the resources in place to transform our patients’ physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.”

The program at the 488-bed hospital, part of HCA East Florida, offers robotic and laparoscopic procedures that use a thin tube to create smaller incisions that result in less scarring. These include Gastric Sleeve Surgery, where the stomach size is surgically reduced by up to 60 percent, and Gastric Bypass Surgery, which restricts the stomach size by creating a small pouch causing food intake to bypass a portion of the patient’s stomach. The Surgical Weight Loss Center is led by Dr. Steven Henriques and Dr. Limaris Barrios, who received fellowship-training in minimally invasive metabolic and bariatric surgery and Harvard University.

“I always tell my patients in our first meeting that they are getting a physician for life;” says Henriques, who is Mercy Hospital’s chief of surgery.  “We specialize in robotic gastric sleeve and bypass surgery which enables us to make smaller incisions. The robotic platform allows us the ability of 360-degree range of motion which drives more precise patient outcomes and faster recovery periods.”

Learn more about the new surgical program here.