When the war in Bosnia began, Vahudin Zugor had to stop studying medicine and fled to Germany. He had no money and did not know the German language. Today, 30 years later, he is among Germany’s leading experts on robot-assisted surgery.

The Zugor family from Banja Luka lived a completely normal life until the beginning of the 1990s and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Father Sacir was a magistrate, and mother Nazifa was a senior nurse. Their son Vahudin attended school and played football.

But this changed once the war began. Zugor would end up in Germany, where he said his main goal was survival and providing financial resources for him to study and help his parents who were refugees in Croatia.

“I worked day and night. I first worked as a caretaker. When I worked during the day, I would study the language at night and vice versa. After three years, I enrolled at the renowned medical faculty in Erlangen”, he remembered.

Today, Zugor is the director of the Department of Urology and Pediatric Urology in Bamberg.

Zugor is also a pioneer of robotic surgery in Germany. He recently performed 1,000 surgical procedures with the Da Vinci robotic system. Most often, there are surgeries to treat cancers of the prostate and kidneys, bladder or adrenal glands.

German hospitals are increasingly recognizing the importance of robotics primarily because of the good results. About 200 robotic systems are in use in Germany.

Xaver Frauenknech, president of the Board of Directors of the Clinical Center in Bamberg, called Zugor an internationally recognised expert.

“In the past four and a half years, he wrote the history of our clinical centre with his work. We bought another Da Vinci robot in order to apply it in other areas, but also to train new experts,” says Frauenknecht.

Many patients from Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighbouring countries come to Bamberg for treatment and seek help and advice from Zugor.

“My wish in life is that one day, robotic surgery will come to my BiH as well. Such a project requires a special infrastructure, huge motivation and education of the entire team and medical team. Currently, there is no such robotics and surgery in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I hope that one day our knowledge and experience gained abroad will be utilized and used in our home country as well”, he said.