The Latest Obesity Medicine Association (OMA) Developments You Should Know About

| July 1, 2021

by Craig Primack, MD, FACP, FAAP, FOMA, Dipl. ABOM

Dr. Primack is President of the Obesity Medicine Association and co-founder of Scottsdale Weight Loss Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Funding: No funding was provided.

Disclosures: The author has no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this article.

Bariatric Times. 2021;18(7):21

As the Obesity Medicine Association (OMA) continues to pursue its goal to arm physicians with cutting-edge resources, education, and treatment techniques, we are proud to announce a few developments within the OMA community that will move the field of obesity medicine forward. Since overweight involves hundreds of comorbidities across all major systems of the body, OMA views the treatment of obesity as a specialty with interdisciplinary relevance. It is exciting to imagine, therefore, that the effects of these developments will travel beyond our own area of practice and be seen to some extent in medicine generally.

2021 Spring Obesity Conference a Success! Maintaining the virtual format of its 2020 Spring Obesity Conference, OMA regaled practitioners watching from around the country with state-of-the-art presentations on obesity medicine during this year’s conference in April. The theme of the event was Treating Obesity First, a reference to the idea that the many concomitant illnesses of overweight may be addressed at once by going to the root of the issue. 

Over five days, including two of accredited interactive courses and three dedicated to the Spring Obesity Summit, attendees enjoyed a wealth of resources: everything from advice for new doctors on starting an obesity medicine practice to speeches and panel discussions by experts over the fine points of obesity etiology, pharmacotherapy, deprescribing, and more. Keynote speakers included Dr. Matt Hutter, President of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), and Gary Taubes, investigative health journalist and author of The Case Against Sugar. 

For those of you who weren’t able to watch the April conference live, recordings are available,1 with reduced pricing for OMA members.

OMA will hold its 2021 Fall Obesity Conference from September 23 to 26, 2021; the theme will be Treating Obesity Across the Lifespan. We’re looking forward to being back in-person with our conference taking place in Chicago followed by a virtual offering of the conference. This is another great opportunity for practitioners to come together, exchange information, and refine their understanding of obesity medicine. Registration is now open.2

Fundamentals of obesity virtual courses. OMA’s accredited Fundamentals of Obesity Treatment course includes all the basic knowledge a clinician would need to begin treating the disease of obesity, and now you can attend virtually! The course is designed for those who work in healthcare in any of a number of roles: physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, medical students, and others can all benefit from the information offered. In a series of online lectures lasting one and a half days, attendees will learn about the many causes of obesity, the basic physiologic processes underlying the disease, current methods of diagnosis, manifestations of associated illnesses in clinical settings, implementing treatment programs, and much more.

 Registration is now open3 for a virtual session from November 12 to 13, 2021. 

Pocket guidelines now available. The OMA has recently released the Pocket Guidelines,4 a handbook available in digital or physical form to guide physicians in their treatment decisions throughout the day in busy practices. By using this reference tool, you can be confident of your treatment plans’ consistency with key obesity medicine principles.

The OMA community has been busy, and we’re not slowing down anytime soon. As the science guiding our profession continues to evolve, we stand ready to provide new resources to physicians to prepare them for whatever the future holds. Here’s to a productive and healthful second half of 2021!

For more obesity medicine resources, or to join the OMA, please visit
www.obesitymedicine.org.

References 

  1. Registration pricing–obesity medicine 2021 virtual conference. Obesity Medicine Association. https://obesitymedicine.org/spring/pricing/?utm_campaign=pr&utm_source=june_bariatric_times&utm_medium=article. Accessed June 15, 2021.
  2. Overcoming obesity 2021 conference. Obesity Medicine Association. https://obesitymedicine.org/fall/?utm_campaign=pr&utm_source=june_bariatric_times&utm_medium=article. Accessed June 15, 2021.
  3. Fundamentals of obesity treatment course. Obesity Medicine Association. https://obesitymedicine.org/conferences/fundamentals-of-obesity-treatment/?utm_campaign=pr&utm_source=june_bariatric_times&utm_medium=article. Accessed June 15, 2021.
  4. Obesity guidelines for clinicians. Obesity Medicine Association.https://obesitymedicine.org/obesity-algorithm/#pocketguides?utm_campaign=pr&utm_source=june_bariatric_times&utm_medium=article. Accessed June 15, 2021.

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Category: Medical Methods in Obesity Treatment, Past Articles

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