Camran Nezhat, FACOG, FACS is an American laparoscopic surgeon, reproductive endocrinology and infertility sub-specialist who has been teaching and practicing medicine and surgery as an adjunct clinical professor of surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California since 1993. Nezhat is also chair of the Association of the Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Stanford University School of Medicine, and a clinical professor of OB/GYN at the University of California, San Francisco. Nezhat is a pioneer and leading practitioner in the field of laparoscopic surgery, also referred to as minimally invasive, endoscopic, keyhole, and Band-Aid surgery. Nezhat is best known for the surgical innovation referred to as video-laparoscopy or "operating off the monitor", a method now widely accepted but which was, until recently, considered a controversial and questionable departure from classical laparotomy or open surgery. Early life and education Nezhat was born in Shahreza, Iran, a small, rural town in the central part of the country. After taking a college entrance exam, Nezhat's score qualified him for acceptance to Tehran University School of Medicine, located in the capital city of Tehran. He attended from 1965 to 1972, and received his medical degree in 1972. After fulfilling a military conscription requirement, Nezhat attended and completed his residency program in obstetrics and gynecology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, from 1974 to 1978. He completed a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility in Augusta, Georgia, under Drs. Robert Greenblatt and Don Gambrell. After fulfilling this fellowship from 1978 to 1980, Nezhat started his own private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, with hospital privileges at Northside Hospital. He became certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1982. Nezhat holds medical licenses in the state of Georgia and California. Surgical techniques Nezhat introduced several innovations that were at first considered unacceptable deviations from classical surgical techniques. The first departure from traditional surgical methods occurred in approximately the mid-1970s, when Nezhat began experimenting in the lab with "operating off the monitor", a phrase that refers to the method of performing endoscopic surgery (referred to as a laparoscope when used for abdominal surgeries) while viewing a TV/video monitor in an upright position, operating off the video images, instead of looking directly at the patient. Prior to Nezhat's innovation, surgeons performed laparoscopy while peering directly into the endoscope's eyepiece, a method which limited their ability to perform operations because