1999 SLS Presidential Address

has indeed been a great pleasure and an honor to have the opportunity to serve as your president during this last year, a special one, I think, as it takes us to the year 2000. As I began my research for this address, I came across this quote from Jacques Perissat, one of the leaders in minimally invasive surgery in Europe, who wrote in the World Journal of Surgery, " For a surgeon who performed some of the first laparoscopic cholecystectomies, laparoscopic surgery is undoubtedly the main revolution of the last decade of the century. " This quote reflects my assessment of the last ten years as laparoscopy takes its place with other great developments in the history of surgery. For my part, I feel I have truly been blessed to be in the right place at the right time. However, although the successes have been rewarding, there have also been the inevitable second thoughts and misgivings along the way when trying to be a pioneer in a field where consequences of our mistakes and the mistakes of those we train must be born by human beings, our patients. I would like to take the opportunity in this presidential address to reflect upon the events that brought minimally invasive surgery to where it is today and then consider what might be in store for the future. We are approaching the end of a year, a decade, and even a millennium. I feel obligated to say something about the future. I hesitate a bit, though, as I am a fan of Stephen Gould's best-selling book concerning the significance of the millennium, entitled, as you might expect, " Questioning the Millennium. " Gould makes the case that there is little foundation, astrological, cosmological, religious or even calendrical to account for the fascination with the millenniums. Indeed, we are not even sure when the next millennium begins! Is it January 1, 2000 or January 1, 2001? It is somehow comforting, though, to a minimally invasive surgeon such as myself that there is such a distinctive binary sound to the year 2000, fitting for the digital revolution that is upon us. Well, enough for 1 esoteric thinking and on to some thoughts about what possibilities lie ahead for the field of minimally invasive surgery. We hear about the electronic revolution that is going to change completely the way we practice medicine: tele-surgery, tele-education, tele-mentoring, …