RAFAEL ARIAS, MD

Dr. Arias is a medical doctor from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. He specialized in advanced laparoscopic surgery at CES University in Medellín, Colombia and has formal experience and training as a bariatric surgeon at Fundación Valle del Lili in Cali, Colombia (an institution where he worked for 11 years).

He completed part of his training at the Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery at Cleveland Clinic Florida in the United States and in Brazil with Dr. Garrido’s group, one of the largest bariatric teams in Latin America. He is also a board member of the Colombian Association of Obesity and Bariatric Surgery.

Dr. Arias has extensive experience in various bariatric procedures such as gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy, in advanced laparoscopy, and in the management of specialized nutritional support. He was a member of the Nutritional Support Group at Fundación Valle del Lili for several years. Dr. Arias has participated in over 5,000 bariatric surgery procedures.

He has also been a speaker at national and international conferences, presenting on topics such as bariatric surgery, advanced laparoscopy, nutritional support, and trauma. Dr. Arias has published in international journals such as Obesity Surgery, where he authored a study on bariatric surgery in patients with kidney transplants. In the World Journal of Surgery, he co-authored a study on emergency surgery. He also has a publication in SOARD (the journal of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery) on bariatric surgery in a heart transplant patient. Additionally, he has multiple publications in the Colombian Journal of Surgery.

He has worked as a professor in emergency medicine and general surgery and has also participated in laparoscopic surgery workshops for specialists from other areas.