Construction of a regional telementoring network for endoscopic surgery in Japan

This paper introduces a regional telementoring network for endoscopic surgery in Japan. The telecommunication center was established at Osaka University and it has been operational since 1997 using six ISDN B-channels. The network, composed of five remote hospitals, aimed at tele-educating young surgeons in constituent hospitals, was applied not only to tele-education in routine endoscopic surgery, but also to telementoring in advanced operations. As the significance of telementoring in surgery has been gradually recognized, several networks following our model are now under consideration in other areas of Japan. Although there remain several problems with the wide and general propagation of telesurgery, such as the expenditure and privacy protection, it will be beneficial to prevent professional isolation to share the limited resources of surgical experts, and it is expected to contribute to patients receiving advanced surgical therapies.