Kurt-Semm-Center of minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery: Over 10 years of an interdisciplinary and interprofessional project in clinical application, research and training

We are looking back on over 10 years of successful work and numerous milestones in the interdisciplinary center of minimally invasive surgery, robotic surgery in particular. The success is largely owing to the spirit of sharing and collaborating — rather than competing — across the surgical disciplines. The collaboration became particularly fruitful by including the Kiel Center of Clinical Anatomy of Kiel University where many surgical approaches and techniques have been developed or refined on body donors. Apart from the traditional and renowned “Kiel school” for training in gynecological endoscopy built on the heritage of Kurt Semm; a training center (Kurt-Semm-Academy) for robot-assisted surgery was founded in 2020. The Kurt-Semm-Center has always followed the credo of establishing the best surgical technology for the best possible patient treatment. The ambitious claim to offer not only state-of-the-art surgery, but also to advance it further through studies and research, both experimental and clinical. This is evidenced by the enormous output of innovative research and publication activity, some of which is presented in this article. The key to success has been co-working across the disciplines, with continuing tenacity and dedication to state-of-the-art minimally invasive surgery. We believe that many hospitals could profit from an interdisciplinary spirit, having realized that individual department-specific interests are eventually better met when people learn from each other and work as a team. This article is dedicated to the spiritus rector of the Kurt-Semm-Zentrum, Prof. Dr. med. Klaus-Peter Jünemann.