Acknowledgments

This textbook would not have been possible without the support of mentors, colleagues, and collaborators both at home in Boston and around the world. In particular, we thank Drs. Keith Lillemoe and David Rattner, who supported the vision of establishing a line of research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) on the development of artificial intelligence for surgery; and Professor Daniela Rus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has contributed her genius, expertise, and experience toward developing and translating these technologies for the benefit of surgical patients. We also wish to thank the faculty, residents, and operating room staff at MGH, Newton Wellesley Hospital, and North Shore Medical Center who have supported the quest for a data-enabled future of surgery.

Now more than ever, science is a product of teamwork, and the Surgical AI and Innovation Laboratory at MGH has had success due to the contributions of a great team of fellows, students, and staff. We are grateful for the hard work and dedication of Dr. Thomas Ward, Dr. Yutong Ban, Dr. Mikhail Volkov, Caitlin Stafford, Allison Navarrete-Welton, Will Specht, and Gloria Indelicato.

We thank all the chapter authors and contributors to the textbook. Your expertise is invaluable to our community, and we appreciate you sharing it with us in an accessible manner. The advancement of surgical artificial intelligence is a global effort to improve access to and the quality of surgical care; such advances would not be possible without the collaborative efforts of surgeons, researchers, and patients around the world. A very special thanks to the McGraw Hill team, especially Andrew Moyer, Peter Boyle, and Leah Carton, for recognizing the importance of providing a source of fundamental knowledge of concepts in artificial intelligence to surgeons and surgical researchers.

Finally, we wish to thank all our colleagues and frontline workers around the world who have been engaged in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Although work on this textbook began well before the start of the pandemic, we have all been affected—either through direct patient care, in our research efforts, or through personal experience with friends and family who were impacted by the virus. Thank you for your selfless dedication to the health and wellness of the world.