Kurt Karl Stephan Semm, 1927 - 2003

Kurt Karl Stephan Semm died in Tucson, Arizona, on 16 July 2003, aged 76. He achieved worldwide recognition as a gynecologist and as Director of the Department of Gynecology at the University of Kiel (Germany), above all by introducing and contributing to the subsequent widespread application of laparoscopic surgery in the abdomen and pelvis - a field in which he initially had to struggle against a considerable amount of prejudice. Even in his home city of Kiel, it was initially difficult to find acceptance for the technique he termed “pelviscopy”. Kurt Semm was not only an important physician, but also a medical technologist who founded his own company to design and manufacture numerous devices aimed at improving laparoscopic surgical techniques. He was a vivacious man who fought with enthusiasm and persuasiveness for new ideas he recognized as right. He received numerous awards, among which honorary doctorates from several universities deserve particular mention. He was for many years a member of the Advisory Board of the German Society for Endoscopy and Imaging Procedures, and served as its President in 1970, 1978 and 1990. We at Endoscopy are grateful to him for his commitment and dedicated work for the journal as an Associate Editor. As a human being, a physician, and as an innovative, creative, and scientifically oriented endoscopist and surgeon, Kurt Semm will not be forgotten.
Meinhard Classen

Professor Kurt Karl Stephan Semm