Kurt Semm

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Kurt Semm
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (M.D.
, 1951)
OccupationGynecologist

Kurt Karl Stephan Semm (23 March 1927 – 16 July 2003) was a German

minimally invasive surgery. He has been called "the father of modern laparoscopy".[1]

Biography

Semm was born to Margarete and Karl Semm in Munich where he attended the Realgymnasium. At the end of World War II he was drafted for the Wehrmacht at the age of 16 and became briefly a Soviet prisoner of war. Upon his return he worked as a toolmaker, before, in 1946, he was able to begin his medical studies at the

University of Kiel. Semm retired in 1995 and moved to Tucson, Arizona. He died from complications of Parkinson's disease.[3]

Semm was married twice. His first wife, Roswitha, died in 1986 from breast cancer. In 1994 he married Iseult O'Neill. They have two children.[3]

Work

Richard Fikentscher got Semm interested in the treatment of infertility. In 1957, Fikentscher, Semm and three other physicians founded of the Deutsche Gesellschaft zum Studium der Fertilität und Sterilität, renamed Deutsche Gesellschaft für Reproduktionsmedizin in 1998. In the 1960s Semm started to use laparoscopy – he named it pelviscopy[4] - for gynecologic indications, initially as a diagnostic tool, but soon realizing that the laparoscopic approach had potential for interventive surgery. His experience as toolmaker let him to found the WISAP medical instrument company in 1959 allowing him to developed numerous instruments among them an automated electronic CO2 insufflator, uterine manipulators, thermocoagulators to stop bleeding, and extra- and intracorporeal endoscopic knotting devices to tie off vessels or remove organs.[5]

When Semm introduced laparoscopic surgery at the University of Kiel, he had to undergo a brain scan at the request of coworkers as "only a person with brain damage would perform such laparoscopic surgery".

tubal pregnancy, and others.[6]

On 13 September 1980 Semm performed the first laparoscopic

German Surgical Society demanded that Semm should be suspended from medical practice.[4] But Semm was tireless in advocating his techniques and gradually got some surgeons interested. In 1985 Erich Mühe showed that Semm's laparoscopic approach could be applied for cholecystectomy,[8] and it became the gold standard within a decade and remains so.[9][10]
With the acceptance by general surgery, minimally invasive surgery expanded its applications.

Semm produced over 700 publications and spoke at over 1,300 national or international meetings and conventions.[11] He made over 1,000 improvements to instruments.[3]

Awards

Selected publications

References

  1. PMID 15865510
    .
  2. ^ a b Mettler L (October 28, 2003). "Kurt Karl Stephan Semm, 1927 – 2003". OBGYN.net. Archived from the original on October 14, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c New York Times obituary
  4. ^
    PMID 20668618
    .
  5. ^
    PMID 9876762
    .
  6. PMID 6448547
    .
  7. S2CID 45763958
    .
  8. PMID 21170235
    .
  9. PMID 1386505
    .
  10. PMID 25958296
    .
  11. ^ Vorstand und Beirat der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Gynäkologische Endoskopie (2003). "Nachruf Kurt Semm (1927-2003)" (PDF). Frauenarzt (in German). 44 (10): 1106–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-09-15.
  12. ^ Mettler L (2003). "Historical Profile of Kurt Karl Stephan Semm, Born March 23, 1927 in Munich, Germany, Resident of Tucson, Arizona, USA Since 1996". Journal of the Society of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons. 7 (JSLS(2003)7): 185–188 – via semanticscholar.org.
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