Kurt Semm

Kurt Semm was a German gynecologist and a pioneer of minimally invasive surgery who has been called the father of modern laparoscopy. Born in Munich in 1927, he received his medical degree there in 1951 and in 1970 became director of the gynecologic services of the University of Kiel. Having worked as a toolmaker after the war, he founded the WISAP medical instrument company in 1959 and developed numerous instruments, among them an automated electronic carbon dioxide insufflator, uterine manipulators, thermocoagulators and endoscopic knotting devices. From the 1960s he used laparoscopy, which he called pelviscopy, for gynecologic surgery, and on 13 September 1980 he performed the first laparoscopic appendectomy, a step that was at first sharply criticised. His persistence opened the way for much wider minimally invasive surgery, and he produced over 700 publications before his death in 2003.