Dr. Vincent J. Obias
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About Dr. Obias
Bowel symptoms that follow your cycle are not a coincidence. Painful bowel movements around your period, rectal pressure, bloating that no gastroenterologist could explain: these are recognized features of bowel endometriosis, present in an estimated 12% of people with the condition. When disease involves the rectum or sigmoid colon, a gynecologic surgeon alone is not enough. The anatomy requires a colorectal specialist who has operated on it thousands of times. Dr. Obias is that surgeon.
In 2009, Dr. Obias performed the first robotic colorectal procedure in Washington, DC. In the years since, he has trained surgeons nationally and internationally, launched robotic surgical programs in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, and built two of the region's most active colorectal surgery divisions. He served for more than a decade as Chief of Colon and Rectal Surgery at George Washington University, where he also held a faculty position as Professor of Surgery, and later as Chief of Colorectal Surgery for the National Capital Region at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He is board-certified in both General Surgery and Colon and Rectal Surgery and holds Fellowship status in the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons.
His fellowship was completed at the Cleveland Clinic, followed by advanced laparoscopic colorectal training at Case Western Reserve University. His clinical volume across more than two decades includes some of the most complex colorectal cases in the mid-Atlantic region.
At WECS, Dr. Obias joins the OR for approximately 80 to 90% of bowel endometriosis cases, operating alongside Drs. Vargas and McHale as a planned part of the surgical team from the start. He is not a consultant called in when something unexpected appears. He is there because the pre-operative mapping already identified bowel involvement and the case was built around it. He co-founded WECS because that model, a colorectal specialist in the room before the first incision, is not the standard elsewhere. At WECS, it is.
Education & Training
Surgical Leadership & Training
Dr. Obias has trained surgeons across the United States and internationally, launching robotic colorectal surgery programs in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines and serving as a Visiting Professor of Surgery at the University of the Philippines. His national and international presentations on robotic and minimally invasive colorectal surgery span more than two decades. At WECS, that record of training and innovation is applied directly to patients with bowel endometriosis requiring surgical resection.
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If you are trying to understand whether surgery is the right next step, or you already know it is and you are vetting surgeons, start here.