During the 14th Triennial Congress of the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic
Association(APOA) held in Kuala Lumpur in September 2004, a group of eminent spine surgeons and scientists were of the opinion that advances in minimal invasive and computer aided spine surgery were very rapid and therefore felt it would be prudent to establish a forum to discuss new advances and the effects of these changes to patient care.

It was felt that our patients would be best served if the top minds in spine surgery, computer science, biomedical engineering,physics, medical imaging, endoscopy, cybernetics, information technology and related industries could gather annually to discuss and debate the best ways in which to move the technology forward with patient safety, ease of use and cost effectiveness in mind.

Our goals are to promote research and accelerate awareness and
acquisition of expertise in this field. Peer reviewed papers, conferences and other resources will be made available to members. WENMISS will also be providing workshops to help train surgeons. It will allow vendors and computer scientists to describe their technologies to surgeons, while allowing surgeons to describe their needs and problems. There will also be research into the best
terminology in this new area of knowledge.

The society was formed on 9th September 2004 in the Shangri-la
Kuala Lumpur and was initially known as WEMISS, which later
evolved to WENMISS. Any surgeon, scientist or engineer with an
interest in computer aided spine surgery or minimal invasive or
endoscopic surgery is invited to join WENMISS.