Tuesday Cook, MD FACS Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medici

Dr. Tuesday F. A. Cook is a fellowship-trained Advanced Laparoscopic and Bariatric Surgeon. She is a Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation Quality Improvement Program Verified Surgeon, certified by the American College of Surgeons. She is Board Certified by the American Board of Surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Cook is also obesity medicine board-certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine.

She received her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine and afterward completed a general surgery residency at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. She subsequently completed a fellowship in Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at the Pennsylvania State University Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. She is Board certified in General Surgery and has served as a Clinical Instructor both in Pennsylvania and Maryland, teaching surgical residents, fellows and medical students from the United States and abroad. Annually, she has welcomed both high school and college students to shadow her in the office and hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in lieu of shadowing, she began to give virtual presentations to middle and high school students across the country, mostly from underrepresented backgrounds encouraging entrance into the medical profession.

Dr. Cook has served as a physician panelist in Town Hall discussions with the White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force and been featured on nationally syndicated radio shows and social media platforms as a proponent of increased access to care and health equity, discussing the social and political determinants of health in minority communities. She has worked with CareFirst of Maryland in connecting vulnerable populations to the COVID-19 vaccine. She continues to do numerous presentations and community work both in Maryland and around the US regarding vaccine hesitancy and advancing equitable healthcare.

Dr. Cook was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She currently sits on multiple local, state, national and international committees focused on decreasing health disparities as it relates to people of African descent and LatinX communities. She has written legislation along these lines, presented to the State Medical Society House of Delegates and the American Medical Association. She is also on the MedChi Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Advocacy Task Force for the State of Maryland. Dr. Cook has worked to modify harmful policies and given testimony in Annapolis, Maryland and on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC before the House and Senate. She is proud of her volunteerism and service, performing general surgery operations on medical missions to other countries as well, including Haiti after its devastating earthquake.

Her ultimate goal is equity for people of color, both in national and international settings.
Dr. Cook has been practicing as a bariatric, minimally invasive and general surgeon in Maryland since 2008. She has performed Laparoscopic Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy and Laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass in the DC metropolitan area since then, all through tiny incisions. She has lectured in varying arenas on metabolic and bariatric procedures, care of the bariatric patient and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. She is the author of several articles in peer-reviewed journals and has a book chapter regarding bariatric surgery pending publication. Her areas of special interest also include minimally invasive foregut gastrointestinal surgery, including procedures for the treatment of achalasia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, paraesophageal/hiatal hernias and all other advanced foregut processes.
She also performs a variety of minimally invasive general surgery procedures including laparoscopic hernia repairs, laparoscopic anti-reflux operations, laparoscopic gallbladder removal and laparoscopic intra-abdominal biopsy.

Dr. Cook was one of the first 15 physicians in the United States to be trained on the placement and management of the FDA-approved intragastric balloons and has placed them both endoscopically as well as in her office as an adjunct aid for weight loss. Her board certification in obesity medicine allows her to have additional tools in her armamentarium to effect meaningful and sustained weight loss as part of a comprehensive obesity management program.

Dr. Cook is a Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and has been Director of a myriad of sessions for their annual surgical conferences. She sits on several committees, including the Access to Care Committee and Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Society. She is also an Executive Board Member of the Women’s Leadership in Surgery Society and is Chair of their Diversity Committee. She is a member of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and the American Medical Association. She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Montgomery County Medical Society, presently in the role of President-Elect and prior Chairperson of the Women in Medicine Committee. Dr. Cook has been a Washingtonian Top Doctor several years and running and is a prior Secretary of the Board for the Maryland State Chapter of the ASMBS. She is passionate about the treatment of metabolic diseases by management of obesity via a multidisciplinary, patient-centered approach.