Surgery Without the Slicing

Editor's note: For a CBS Evening News report on minimally invasive surgery that was made in collaboration with BusinessWeek, go to: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/03/eveningnews/main3992970.shtml.

On Mar. 11 Jeff Scholz, a 42-year-old former U.S. Marine, developed severe abdominal pain. It wasn't as bad as the gunshot wound to the leg he suffered while in the service, but it kept him doubled over for most of the night. At the insistence of his fiancée, he went to the emergency room at the University of California at San Diego med center the next morning, where he learned his appendix was inflamed and had to come out. That's how Scholz, the owner of a wholesale clothing company, ended up making medical history. He's the first patient in the U.S. to have his appendix removed through his mouth.