How far would you go to boost your flagging showbiz career? Bare your soul to the world? Bare your body, perhaps? What about having bits of it chopped off in public?

Welcome to the world of A doctor in your house, billed as 'the Internet's only celebrity-featured health and wellness service'. To get some idea of the ethos, try to imagine a cross between Hello! and The Lancet - and then take into account the fact that it is all based in Beverly Hills.

Meet B-list celebrity Carnie Wilson. She's the daughter of Beach Boy Brian Wilson and now hosts her own daytime chat show. She's also obese - and not proud of it.

Had you surfed in (the phrase seems appropriate) on 21 June you could have joined in a chat between Carnie and Dr Alan Wittgrove as they discussed her impending gastric bypass surgery. A few weeks later, she went under the knife in a live cybercast. Don't worry if you missed it - a video is available at $9.99.

Then there is the post mortem - not on Carnie, who we are told is doing well in post-op, but on the procedure itself. Dr Wittgrove and his colleagues talk it through and answer questions. They don't rate drugs as an alternative - on a 300lb patient, drugs might produce 30lb weight loss. Their aim is more like 100lb.

It is not all gore. LA Law actress Jill Eikenberry reveals the lumpectomy and radiation treatment that saved her life 12 years ago, and with the help of her doctor probably gets more health advice across to the sort of people who buy supermarket tabloids than a dozen government health education programmes.

Coming soon: chat show host Larry King talks about his experience of heart disease. Even James Bond is not immune, as Roger Moore explains how he discovered he had skin cancer on the set of Octopussy and now uses fake tan to maintain the bronzed look.