Club for Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgeons Spurs Controversy.

ORLANDO, FLA. -- They call themselves lions, the image dominating the stationery, the meeting program, and even the scientific presentations of the One Kilo Club.

To join, a surgeon must provide evidence that he or she has extirpated a uterus weighing 1 kg or more without reverting to a laparotomy.

"It took me 5 years to collect 65 members," says Dr. Marco A. Pelosi II, founder and president of the organization, which recently held its first meeting to highlight advances in minimally invasive pelvic surgery including vaginal surgery and laparoscopically assisted vaginal surgery for large pelvic masses.

"For years, meetings and discussions on minimally invasive surgery for this type of pathology have been hampered by the unproductive criticisms of surgeons with little or no experience in challenging minimally invasive pelvic surgery," according to a brochure produced by the club.

The document continues: "The founders of the One Kilo Club sought to establish a scientific and social organization through which the battle-proven warriors of the various minimally invasive surgical arts could concentrate their common interest untrammeled by the negative input of those who neither appreciate nor understand where the technical limits of modern surgery truly stand."

Dr. Pelosi's son and surgical partner in Bayonne, NJ., Dr. Marco Pelosi III, described a vaginal hysterectomy for a 2,003-g uterus at the meeting held in conjunction with the 37th International College of Surgeons' North American Federation Congress.

In another presentation, Dr. Harry Reich, the first to perform a laparoscopic hysterectomy joked about the proliferation of "hyenas" among U.S. gynecologic surgeons; that is, surgeons who perform abdominal hysterectomies to remove small uteri, when the operations could just as easily be performed vaginally.