Dr. George Berci, Whose Innovations Changed Surgery, Dies at 103

Dr. George Berci, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who changed the way modern surgery is conducted by developing techniques and instruments that help doctors better see and treat the inside of the body while minimizing cutting, died on Aug. 30 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 103.

His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Katherine DeFevere.

Dr. Berci brought a precise eye and an inventor’s zeal to innovations that enabled doctors to better visualize the bladder, colon, esophagus, prostate, common bile duct and other body parts. Until earlier this summer, he was the senior director of minimally invasive surgery research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had worked since 1969.

His innovations were critical to the revolution in minimally invasive endoscopies and laparoscopies, which dramatically reduced the need for surgeons to make large incisions.

In endoscopies, doctors use a flexible tube with a light and a camera to examine the upper and lower digestive system. Dr. Berci focused mainly on the area around the throat and vocal cords.

In laparoscopies, surgeons place a thin rod with a video camera attached at the end through a small abdominal incision. Carbon dioxide is then used to inflate the space to give doctors enough room to use small instruments to, among other things, remove gallbladders, cysts, tumors, appendixes and spleens; diagnose endometriosis; and repair hernias.

Working at a hospital in Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Berci adapted an existing miniaturized television camera, which he attached to an endoscope. It allowed procedures to be shown on monitors so that the medical team could work from the screen. One early broadcast was the bronchoscopy of a dog.