About William S. Peters D.O., FACS       Early in my life I recognized the general distress of the obese individual. It was very noticeable how overweight children were treated differently and not as well as so-called normal weight children. As I got older I began to recognize that they also had physical limitations. Going through medical school the physical social and economic plight of these individuals became very concrete in my mind. My first memories of bariatric surgery are of the old to jejuno-ileal bypass, which we stopped doing in the first year of my surgical training. It was to my very great disappointment that we had no good way of treating those patients. The very wonderful news is modern bariatric surgery. Through modern techniques, we can offer our patients several choices of procedures performed in the traditional "open" manner as well as offering many of them laparoscopically.      We have been able to vastly improve the lives of so many individuals that I believe that this discipline alone has made my medical and surgical training worthwhile. I do not believe that any doctor can do any greater good for any patient then to release them from the bonds of morbid obesity in every aspect of their life, to cure them from some current diseases that they might have, and to prevent some very horrible and inevitable complications of a disease that I believe may be the worst disease in modern American society.      I have been working constantly toward the distribution of information and the execution of a service to patients who recognize the benefit of what we're doing. There is no greater gratification for me then to hear from the many patients who say "doctor thank you for giving me back my life." My intent is to continue to make available these services and to constantly make improvements in the communication, operative care, peri-operative care, and education of these patients who deserve a much better situation than nature has given them. Important Disclaimer: It has been brought to my attention that there are posters circulating on the internet that are being associated with me. I would like it to be known that I am in no way associated with this marketing campaign and I have taken formal action to have my name and likeness removed from any such product, poster, internet site or publication. Just for clarification, I have never been associated with this organization and am disgusted by their vulgar display of obesity. This is something I would never stand for and am appalled that anyone would even consider placing material of this nature out for public viewing.