In laparoscopic surgery, the physician makes a small incision and inserts a video camera and special instruments to see and to operate inside the body. As the procedure has increased in effectiveness, so has its popularity spread for many types of surgery.
Patients benefit by less invasive operations, faster recovery and lower costs.
Hulka, one of the first U.S. physicians to use laparoscopy for elective sterilization, has taught a generation of physicians to perform it safely. Now professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology and of maternal and child health at the UNC-CH schools of medicine and public health, he serves as a fellow at the Carolina Population Center. W.B. Saunders Co. Dr. Harry Reich, director of advanced laparoscopic surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and a Columbia University faculty member, is co-editor. Reich was the first to use laparoscopy for hysterectomies and was widely criticized at the time. Today, a third of hysterectomies are done that way.