I’m a surgeon who believes some of the most powerful medicine is human connection. I build the teams and systems that bring life-changing care to the people who need it.
I’m a surgeon, a program builder, and an advocate for the patients and teams I serve. To me, these are one and the same, united by a single belief: that excellent care is built on technical skill together with access, trust, communication, and the thoughtful design of systems that support patients, clinicians, and communities.
Caitlin A. Halbert, DO, MS, MBA, FACS, is a board-certified general surgeon specializing in bariatric, foregut, and advanced gastrointestinal surgery, with particular expertise in minimally invasive and robotic techniques. She serves as Chief of Surgical Services for the Wilmington Campus at ChristianaCare and Medical Director of the Bariatric Surgery Program, where she leads initiatives focused on surgical access, operating room efficiency, comprehensive weight management, and patient-centered care.
A dedicated surgeon, educator, mentor, and healthcare leader, Dr. Halbert has helped build and transform surgical programs that improve care for patients and strengthen the teams who serve them. Her work spans bariatric surgery, perioperative operations, health equity, surgical education, national society leadership, and clinical research. She is actively involved in the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and the Delaware Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and is the co-founder and past president of the Women’s Leadership in Surgery Society.
Her professional mission is to advance surgical care through innovation, collaboration, mentorship, and systems-level improvement that expands access and improves outcomes for patients and communities.
I’m a thoughtful, passionate leader, and I believe the strongest programs are built on strong, empowered teams. My job is to create the conditions where people do their best work: a safe space where every voice is heard, a culture of accountability and transparency, and the autonomy for skilled people to work at the top of their abilities.
When I first came to ChristianaCare, I built a new program largely on my own. I succeeded, but I learned that the most lasting change is never a solo act. So I bring teams into the vision, I ask them to set the goals they will own, and I develop leaders at every level, not only physicians.
I chose surgery for something I find rare in medicine: the ability to change a person’s life through physical touch. There is a powerful connection in being trusted to operate on someone, to share one of the most vulnerable moments of their life and help carry them through it. I never take that trust for granted.
I am a board-certified general surgeon, fellowship-trained in bariatric and advanced gastrointestinal surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital. My practice centers on bariatric, foregut, and advanced gastrointestinal surgery, and I am especially drawn to minimally invasive and robotic surgery, not as a specialty of its own but as the craft of how an operation is performed. These approaches demand a finesse, precision, and technical acumen that I find deeply rewarding, and for my patients they often mean smaller incisions and a smoother recovery.
My commitment to every patient is simple: honesty, respect, and care for the whole person, not just the problem in front of me.
Of all the work I do, weight management is the closest to my heart. Obesity is one of the most complex and most visible challenges in medicine. It is a condition you cannot hide from the world, one that can shape a person’s identity like no other disease. Caring for someone through that journey, and witnessing the transformation that follows, is the most life-changing work I know.
I believe obesity deserves the same coordinated, comprehensive care we bring to any other serious disease. Too often, though, that care is fragmented: medical weight loss in one place, surgery in another, and patients waiting far too long for help or leaving to find it elsewhere. I saw a chance to do better.
I have led the effort to unite our medical and surgical weight-loss services into a single, comprehensive Center for Weight Management: one multidisciplinary team of physicians, surgeons, advanced practice clinicians, dietitians, and behavioral health specialists, working from a shared purpose and each at the top of their skill set. Obesity care works best when it draws on every tool we have, nutrition, behavior, medication, and surgery, coordinated around one person. That means better access, shorter waits, and care that follows the whole person rather than a single visit or a single treatment.
I’m deeply involved in national surgical leadership, education, and the advancement of the profession, with a particular commitment to community-practice surgeons, patient engagement, and women in surgery.
My scholarship follows the problems I see in practice, with a focus on bariatric surgery outcomes, disparities in surgical care, destination and community surgery, and surgical education.
Investigating the drivers of disparities in resource use and readmissions after bariatric surgery, so the same operation delivers the same outcomes for every patient.
Lead author of the SAGES white paper rediscovering the value of community-practice surgeons and the patients they serve.
Establishing the safety and feasibility of destination care for bariatric surgery, and building direct-to-employer models that widen access.
Demonstrating that a community hospital can meaningfully reduce narcotic use in patients recovering from bariatric surgery.
NIH-supported collaborator with the University of Delaware, studying how adipose tissue affects vascular health in obesity.
Co-editor of a comprehensive guide to revisional bariatric surgery and the management of complications.
A few conversations where I talk through the work I care about most, from my own path into surgical leadership to how we care for patients living with obesity.
On the SAGES Stories podcast, hosts Shirin Towfigh, MD and Kevin El Hayek, MD and I talk through my path into surgery, the mentors who shaped it, the case for community-practice surgeons, and my work with SAGES.
Listen on Apple Podcasts →With Dr. Lisa Breslow, I take an honest look at obesity as a chronic disease and walk through ChristianaCare’s whole-person approach to weight management, from the surgical journey to the role of newer medications.
Watch on YouTube →Dr. Lisa Breslow and I dig into how GLP-1 medications are reshaping obesity care, where they fit alongside surgery and lifestyle change, and what they mean for patients weighing their options.
Watch on YouTube →Schedule a visit through my ChristianaCare provider page.
ChristianaCare →For commentary, expert perspective, and media inquiries.
Expert media page →Invite Dr. Halbert to speak on surgery, leadership, and obesity care.
Speaker page →