Books

After 18 months of intensive work, the practice-oriented manual of the "Friends of the Kiel School" has become a reality. In May 2011 we met for the first time, during the Indo-German Training Course in Kiel, to discuss the idea of a joint book project. It was our idea, as enthusiastic laparoscopic surgeons, to pass on our experience and knowledge to the younger generation of up-and-coming laparoscopists.

We hope the book will be widely read and of great benefit for both reader and patient alike.

Minimally invasive surgery has become a common term in visceral as well as gynecologic surgery. It has almost evolved into its own surgical speciality over the past 20 years. Today, being firmly established in every subspeciality of visceral surgery, it is now no longer a distinct skillset, but a fixed part of the armamentarium of surgical options available. In every indication, the advantages of a minimally invasive approach include reduced intraoperative blood loss, less postoperative pain, and shorter rehabilitation times, as well as a marked reduction of overall and surgical postoperative morbidity. In the advent of modern oncologic treatment algorithms, these effects not only lower the immediate impact that an operation has on the patient, but also become important key steps in reducing the side-effects of surgery. Thus, they enable surgery to become a module in modern multi-disciplinary cancer treatment, which blends into multimodular treatment options at different times and prolongs and widens the possibilities available to cancer patients. In this quickly changing environment, the requirement to learn and refine not only open surgical but also different minimally invasive techniques on high levels deeply impact modern surgical training pathways. The use of modern elearning tools and new and praxis-based surgical training possibilities have been readily integrated into modern surgical education,which persists throughout the whole surgical career of modern gynecologic and visceral surgery specialists.