Dr. Maureen Martin to head Kern Faculty Surgical Group Bariatrics

Since opening in 2003, Kern Faculty Surgical Group Bariatrics has successfully treated many Kern County residents with Drs. Martin, Sorensen and Chung performing extensive bariatric surgeries prior to coming to Bakersfield.  The area's bariatric treatment program owes its success to the incredible team that oversees each patient, not the least of which is Dr. Maureen Martin, the founder of the program.

Dr. Martin came to Bakersfield through a rather circuitous route.  She received surgical training at McGill University under Dr. Lloyd MacLean, one of the early pioneers of bariatric surgery.  Her distinguished career began after completing surgical fellowships in Hepatobiliary Surgery and Multi-Organ Transplantation at Harvard Medical School.  She was subsequently recruited to the Faculty at University of Pittsburgh, where she was a key member of the Starzl Transplant Institute.  After organizing and directing hepatobiliary and transplant programs at different university hospitals, she worked alongside Dr. Edward Mason, the father of modern Bariatric Surgery.  Dr. Martin came to Bakersfield to take a position as Chairman of the Kern Medical Center Department of Surgery while serving as clinical Professor of Surgery, University of California, San Diego, in June of 2002.  Dr. martin is board certified and a member of the American Society of Bariatric Surgeons.

In keeping with the transplant model for patient care, Dr. Martin developed a bariatric program that could serve the whole community.  When she realized that there are over 45 million people in need of weight loss management, it was clear that more people stood to benefit from her experience than the 60,000 potential transplant candidates.  So, Dr. Martin began the process of creating a bariatric "Center of Excellence" to serve the needs of Kern County.  The "Center of Excellence" idea comes from the world of transplant surgery and refers to the principle of involving specialists in several areas to treat each patient, thus exploring many alternatives for treatment  and unifying the treatment process so that each facet of the patient's treatment is overseen by an expert.

Kern Faculty Surgical Group Bariatrics is the first time the "Center of Excellence" concept has been applied to an aggressive weight management program in the San Joaquin Valley.  This means that patients that think they may be candidates for bariatric treatment will find a team of experts trained for the purpose of managing serious weight loss programs focused on their lives and their healing.  It's a concept whose time has come, and it's here now.