Grace Chen, MD

Dr. Victoria Handa is the director of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She is also a professor in the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics and director of the Women’s Center for Pelvic Health and Reconstructive Surgery. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her areas of clinical expertise include pelvic floor disorders and female incontinence. Dr. Handa offers surgical and nonsurgical treatments for pelvic organ prolapse, incontinence and related conditions.Dr. Handa earned her undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Princeton University. She earned her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed a fellowship in urogynecology at the University of California, Irvine, and later earned a Master of Health Science in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Handa joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2001.Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Handa was chief of the Division of Gynecology and director of urogynecology at the University of California, Davis.Dedicated to scientific research, Dr. Handa has published numerous peer-reviewed research articles and several book chapters on pelvic floor disorders and urogynecology. Her research is supported by several National Institutes of Health grants and has led to many scientific findings and a 2011 award from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.Dr. Handa is a member of several scientific societies, including the American Urogynecologic Society and the International Urogynecology Association. She currently serves on the editorial board of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. She is a peer reviewer for numerous medical journals, including the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Neurourology and Urodynamics, and the Journal of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. Dr. Handa has been listed in Best Doctors in America since 2005.

Michael Schweitzer, M.D., developed the laparoscopic bariatric surgery programs at the Medical College of Virginia (one of the first ten laparoscopic gastric bypass programs in the country), Georgetown University, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Schweitzer was the first surgeon in the mid-Atlantic area to perform laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and the first in Maryland to perform laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery and laparoscopic duodenal switch with biliopancreatic diversion.Currently chair of the membership committee for the American Society of Bariatric Surgeons, Dr. Schweitzer also serves as a site inspector for the American College of Surgeons Bariatric Center of Excellence Program. He serves on three editorial boards: the Journal of Laparoendoscopic and Advanced Surgical Techniques, Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases the official journal of the American Society of Bariatric Surgeons) and Bariatric Times.Dr. Schweitzer was the first to ever publish a technique for endoscopic stoma reduction using transoral endoscopic suturing. A great deal of attention is focused on the future of transoral surgery to avoid abdominal incisions for routine surgery ("No-Scar Surgery"). Dr. Schweitzer is one of the first to apply this technology to bariatric patients.A writer of numerous papers, chapters and review articles on bariatric surgery, several of Dr. Schweitzer''s laparoscopic bariatric surgical techniques have been featured in the American College of Surgeons Cine Video Series. He is considered an international expert on venous thromboembolic complications after bariatric surgery and has one of the lowest complication rates documented in world surgical literature.Dr. Schweitzer currently has an extremely active laparoscopic bariatric practice that includes laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, laparoscopic duodenal switch with biliopancreatic diversion, and revision of previous surgery. The team at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bariatric Surgery has successfully completed over 2500 bariatric procedures.