Developments in telesurgery are progressing at great speed. As a consequence, there is need for a broad overview of the feld. Tis frst-ever book on telesurgery is presented in such a way that should make it accessible to anyone, independent of his or her knowledge of technology. Te text is designed to be ua sle l d pr bo y fessionals, including surgeons, nurses, allied health professionals-, and com puter scientists, and not just medical practitioners. In a very short time, driven by technical developments, the feld of telesurgery has become too extensive to be covered by only a small number of experts. Tere f Teo le rse u,rgery has been written with chapter contributions from a host of renowned international authorities in telesurgery (see the Table of Contents and the List of Contributors). Tis ensures that subject matter focusing on recent advances in telesurgery is truly up to date. Our guiding -hope dur ing this task was that as editors of multiple chapters and authors, we could still write with a single voice and keep the content coherent and simple. We hope that the clarity of this book makes up for any limitations in its comprehensiveness.