This is why the surgical community jumped on L.C. so fast (too fast): their livelihood was threatened by two new non-invasive treatments for gallstones: lithotripsy for calcium stones and dissolution.

And why surgeons were terrified of losing patient to non-invasive therapy with wanton disregard for patient safety in the pursuit of the almighty dollar:

Complications after laparoscopic cholecystectomy.  MD Harvey R. Bernard’Correspondence information about the author MD Harvey R. Bernard1, BA Thomas W. Hartman1 Albany, New York, USA PlumX Metrics DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9610(05)80956-0

 “The frequency of cholecystectomy has increased sharply, by 21%, since the advent of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The serious injury rate may be approximately 15 times that observed after an open cholecystectomy.”

“The New York State department Of Health was alerted to possible problems posed by the largescale introduction of the laparoscopic methodology to general surgery as a treatment for diseases of the gallbladder by Dr. Hiram Polk, Jr., the editor of The American Journal Of Surgery, in May 1990. There were several factor that indicated a danger. These included:

(1) the attractiveness of the method to patients who were informed by the news media of the considerable benefits of minimally invasive surgery without any indication of the possible complications;

(2) the attractiveness of the method to surgeons who saw a ‘bread-and-butter operation threatened by nonsurgical treatment;

(3) the strong influence of instrument manufacturers for whom rapid dissemination of the technology was just good business; and

(4) the absence of the safeguards inherent in traditional surgical education in the numerous abbreviated training courses by which practitioners were introduced to laparoscopic methods.