Nicholas Bertha Bariatric Surgeon D.O., F.A.C.S.

Dr. Bertha is a kind and caring physician who has set up a great complete support plan for his bariatric patients. His staff is really good and quite knowledgeable about all phases of information, pre-surgery information, and post surgical follow up. I have now completed the RNY surgery this last week (5/1/06) at Morristown hospital (which also did a GREAT job with wonderful Staff) and I am looking forward to a great healthy life ahead.

I think that Dr Bertha was wonderful. He made me feel confident (well as confident as I was going to be!). Both his competence and his bedside manner were great.......overall I would recommend him to anyone.

My husband and I are doing WLS together. We attended the requisite new patient seminar and liked all of the doctors and ultimately chose Dr. Bertha. We set up our first consultation with him together; we arrived at the office and were seen to be weighed, have our blood pressure checked, etc., and were seen within 15 minutes or so. Dr. Bertha was very professional and courteous; he answered both of our questions thoroughly and alleviated the concern we had because we planned to have this surgery back-to-back (as it happens, we are now scheduled five weeks apart). We were impressed by the comprehensive nature of the program; before care and after care. We know it is not just "cookie cutter" decision-making; Dr. Bertha authorized a cardiologist approval for me and not my husband, as an example, and explained why (family history). It was because of his thoroughness that we felt comfortable scheduling surgery several months out and being patient about getting it done. To minimize complications and give us the best opportunity for a healthy recovery, we have both started a weight reduction and exercise program even though Dr. Bertha did not specifically require it (though encouraged it). We hope that this experience continues to go well.

Dr. Bertha made a significant impact on our first visit. He is very self-assured and pulled no punches when it came to how my life would change after the surgery. I appreciated his candor and knew he was the right doctor for me. As time went on and the surgery came and went, I was so thankful that I had him for my doctor. For the first few months, I was doing great, but about six months in I had some minor problems. I was calling him about twice a week and he would always call me back and answer my questions and reassure me. Now that I'm over a year out, I look back on my journey so far and realize if I had another doctor, I may not have come so far. Dr. Bertha is a kind, caring doctor who is very honest. If you're looking for a doctor who will coddle you and hold your hand, he is not the doctor for you. But if confidence and honesty are high on your priority list, then he is the doc for you.

Dr. Bertha was very businesslike, very straight forward, and didn't pull any punches. He explained the procedures very well, positives and negatives. As I came to know him, he was a very personable and caring doctor.
The office staff is fine, several are very, very good and a pleasure to interface with.
Some response times were not real great...
They do emphasize aftercare very much, and have several ways to help provide that care. Unfortunately, I was coming to them from outside the area, so I really couldn't take much advantage of the aftercare programs.
Personally, I much prefer a highly competent surgeon over a "friend" who is also my surgeon! In Dr. Bertha, I feel secure that I had the best of both worlds. A very, very esteemed surgeon, and a very nice, very personable man.
I would highly recommend him for anyone interested in these procedures.

Surgeon is a very good Doctor, Had no problems with office staff, everyone very nice. He was very honest about everything. Told me all the risks, and he did emphasized aftercare. Believe it or not I had no bad feeling about the surgeon or his Staff, But I didn't like his partners. I am glad I picked him as my surgeon.

I went to the new patient orientation last night, and was very impressed with Dr. Nicholas Bertha and his entire staff. Everyone was eager to help and was very nice! I was able to setup my first surgeon consultation, psych eval, and nutritional eval at once; all the appointments are one after the other on the same day; and I only have to wait a week! I was very impressed with Josephine who handles the insurance. If you have exclusions or problems, she will fight for you. She knows which insurance companies are difficult and how to handle them. At the orientation, everything was discussed. They have a total "Program for Life" and they stress aftercare very much. I feel very confident choosing Dr. Bertha, Dr. Abkin, Dr. Pupkova and the entire staff at Advanced Laparascopic Surgeons.

I was very impressed at the seminar this practice requires all patients to attend that ALL of the surgeons were present. During the Q&A time with the doctors I especially liked the way Dr. Bertha answered patients questions. He had an understanding and empathetic tone and at the same time it was very clear how knowedgebale and professional he is.

When I met with him for the first time I was generally pleased with the interaction. I have a lot of exerience with the medical field and don't feel as though I need a lot of hand holding but want doctors to be as straightforward and frank with me as possible and not dumb the material down for me. Either he is always like this, or is perceptive enough to have sensed what I was looking for. I found him to be clear, direct, and respectful of my own knowledge of myself and of my research.

He made it really clear that I would be the one to make the final deicison about what surgery I wanted but that if I chose LapBand I would have to really be ready to make the commitment to the lifestyle in order to make it work. At the time this bothered me a little bit, but in retrospect I realize that it was very responsible of him to make that clear to me. Now that I've been following the lifestyle for a month and a half I appreciate the fact that I was appropriately warned by my doctor, and glad that I was still able to make the decision that was right for me.

I also really like that his practice requires a psychiatric consult as well as nutritional consultation and a pre-op class. I feel they equipt me with all the information I needed and they gave out very thorough nutritional information for after surgery and beyond.

I haven't had a fill yet, but when I do, I hope the experience is as positive as all the rest.

The one "complaint" I have is not about Dr. Bertha but about the fact that the practice is soooo busy that I have been kept waiting a lot at his office each time I've been there. Sometimes up to 3 hours! But they are busy because they are good surgeons and have good aftercare, so I've just decided to make sure that I have nothing else to do that day and have babysitters for my daughter so I can go devote myself to the appointment.

I enjoyed meeting Dr. Bertha. He was thorough at the seminar and very easy going at the first visit.
There ia a complete program in place and they have put together a "Center of Excellance" which is becoming a must for some insurance companies. His office is heading a new bariatric wing at second North New Jersey hospital so there must be a great deal of confidance in his skills.
He is honest but optimistic about associated risks. The office has a very low rate of complications and worse. They do 8 operations a week (aver.)and are very experienced.

I have told other professionals on my consultations about having Dr. Bertha and he has an exceptional reputation and long family history(physicians) in the Morris county area.
That made me feel like I made a good choice.

The office seems very busy but the staff have handled many phone requests.

I have just sent them the last of my info so they will be forwading my stuff to insurance for precert. They weren't too positive about my insurance company, but I was glad they were honest. I just worked that much harder.

I will update this as I progress on my journey.

It took some time for me to find a surgeon that I was comfortable with. I was victim to malpractice before so being very scared of it happening again. I spoke to several people regarding surgeons and he came highly recommended. He took the time to talk to me. Not just about the surgery and the risks. He took the time to talk. I felt very comfortable with him. here really isnt anything I didn't like about him. What you should know about his office is this. It's an assembly line. There is a person for every aspect of this surgery. A person for every specific task. SO if your the type of person who needs alot of hand holding, I don't think that this would be the place for you. There are alot of patients in and out of this place. Dr. Bertha deals with the surgery, and the after check ups. If you need to talkto some one about your surgery or problems or anything of that sort. You will be dealing with the nursing staff, who let me tell are quite competent, I dealt with Nurse Linda most of the time. She was great. The other staff those who weigh you in and take your blood pressure and all of that are great to. But I truly feel that every experience is what you make it. I am very friendly with the staff and I like to talk to them all. They are all very personable. Now there is a guy there who's name is Sid. I am not sure what it is that he does there, but he was a huge help to me. He was always there with a straght foward answer, very down to earth, and he was great for moral support. Always there with a you can do it or an off the cuff comment that just made sence. The phone staff is courteous and do a good job at keep appointments organized. Never had a cancellation never had aproblem with leaving a message. All my messages were called back. Every one at this place is HARD UP on after care. I mean dilligent. This is for your own good. When reading about Dr B, I read that he is very quick with his vists and doesn't talk much. I disagree, My family found him to be funny, and informative. I think that he is very personable. If anything is quick I would say it was his humor. He is not only a good doctor but a good person. My instincs told me that he was the one. Once again my instincs were correct. I drive an hour north to see him, its way out of my way, there were surgeouns in my neck of the woods, but I chose Dr B. Glad I did. The only complaint I have and this is a BIG HUGE GIANT COMPLAINT ! The nutrtion department, bot of the ladies who work there are as useless as breasts on a bull ! They should have just hit me over the head and stole my money. At least I could have accepted being robbed. the trouble is that you have to see these so called specialists. I have had one bad experience after another. I was trying to loose 20lbs before surgery, Ihad a month to do it. At 3 weeks I was shy 5 lbs. I called the nutrtionist for help I mean just 5 minutes to see if there was anything I can do to help the weight loss along. She wanted to charge me 125 dollars for a half hour phone consultaion. I WAS LIVID ! I ended up speaking to Sid and he helped. As I said I dont know what Sid does there but he's the man. If you have to be subjected to the incompetance of the nutrtionist before and after your surgery, just go to the mandatory 2 visits and go through your insurance if you can and GET SOME ONE ELSE. In the end, there were so many people at Dr.B's office that were so helpful, EXCEPT THE NUTRITIONIST AND HER USLESS SIDEKICK ! I would reccomend Dr B. and would rate my experience with him and his office as excellent. EXCEPT THE NUTRITIONIST.