Obituary
Kurt Karl Stephan Semm
1927 - 2003

This obituary is dedicated to my teacher in gynaecological laparoscopy and to a dear friend who died after a long illness on July 16th, 2003.

It is an honor for me, as his student and friend, to briefly review his personal and professional life. Of interest, his thesis in 1958 was not related to surgery. He wrote The problem of labor contractions under the influence of the "oxytocin-oxytocinase" metabolism under the supervision of the Nobel Prize winner, Professor Adolf Butenandt. Shortly after, he left the endocrine field and published many scientific papers related to the diagnosis and therapy of infertility.

In the early 1960s, Kurt Semm, as a talented university assistant, started to dedicate his life to laparoscopy. He preferred the term pelviscopy for operative laparoscopy. He used it to differentiate between gynecological laparoscopy and procedures that other specialties performed for upper abdominal screening and liver biopsy. He had hoped that the introduction of a new terminology would persuade the insurance companies to pay a higher fee for the different pelviscopic procedures. This differentiation stayed in the German Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics from 1965 until 1995. As gynecologists have now extended their surgical procedures out of the pelvis, including lymphadenectomies and other procedures, laparoscopy is a more appropriate term.

Based on his training both as a toolmaker and physician, his first inventions were to develop an electronic CO2 insufflator, a uterine manipulator and a tubal patency-testing device. He presented his works at the German, Austrian and Swiss gynecological meetings in the early 1960s. Palmer’s work in France stimulated Semm’s interests in gynecologic laparoscopy, leading to his invention of CO2 pneu-automatic insufflator. In 1956, he founded the German Society of Fertility and Sterility. In 1964 Semm received his professorial degree from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Munich University.

Semm’s early struggles and determinations to develop laparoscopic surgery in gynecology and general surgery could be illustrated in the following anecdotes. 

• Semm was in the middle of a slide presentation on laparoscopic ovarian cyst enucleation when somebody unplugged the projector and stated that the surgery was unethical.
• In the seventies, his colleagues suggested that only a person with brain damage would perform laparoscopic surgery and they persuaded Semm to undergo a brain scan.
• In 1972, following Semm’s presentation on laparoscopic ovarian cyst enucleation, a German gynecological professor gave me the following advice: "My young colleague, if you wish to advance in the German academic world, don’t pay any attention to Semm’s nonsense".
• Between 1975-1980, his idea to perform cholecystectomy by laparoscopy was rejected by the general surgeons. In 1981, following his lecture on laparoscopic appendectomy, the President of the German Surgical Society wrote to the Board of Directors of the German Gynecological Society suggesting suspension of Semm from medical practice.
• The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology rejected Semm’s paper on laparoscopic appendectomy. One of the reviewers questioned the ethical aspect of the procedure.

In 1984, Semm described laparoscopic assistance vaginal hysterectomy in his book "Gynäkologische Laparoskopie" (Schattauer Publishing House, page 236). This "cookbook" for gynecological endoscopy, was translated into English and published by the American Yearbook Company in 1987. Translations into eight other languages followed. An extension of the book was recently published under the title "Endoskopische Abdominalchirurgie" (Editors: L. Mettler and K. Semm, Schattauer Publishing House, 2002.)

His activities in national and international professional organizations, many of which were founded by him, were numerous. He was the president of the International Federation of Fertility Societies, and an honorary member of many endoscopic societies. He was a brilliant teacher and head of one of the largest university clinics in Germany. Late in his life, he received many honors, including the "Pioneer in Endoscopy" Award from the Board of Governors of the SAGES (Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons) in New York in March 2002, and the honorary membership of ISGE in Cancun, Mexico.

Semm was married for thirty years to Roswitha von Morozowicz who died of breast cancer in 1986. In 1994, he married Isolde Semm, an Irish gynecologist. They later moved to Tucson, Arizona, with their two children. Isolde Semm is now the president of WISAP.

It has been an honor to witness the milestones, which Kurt Karl Stephan Semm achieved in the field of laparoscopic surgery. Students, and colleagues would never forget him. There have been only a few people in the world who have been able to achieve what Kurt Semm has achieved in 75 years. He was a man of great reputation whose methods were well understood and developed.

Professor Dr. med. Liselotte Mettler
Deputy Director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University of Kiel