Project Summary — PhD Application

Maximilian Dressler, M.D. · University of Heidelberg

Supervisor: Prof. Hyuk-Joon Lee
Institution: Seoul National University Hospital
Target start: September 2027
Proposed thesis: Prospective validation of station-specific lymph-node metastasis risk guidance for KLASS-standardized gastrectomy — integrating preoperative risk factors with intraoperative visual features, validated against disease-free survival and KLASS-02-QC quality metrics.
Research Aims → Technical Preparation
Aim Research Question Proof-of-Concept Project Repository Data Status
Aim 1 Transparent station-level prevalence visualization for professor-facing review Interactive descriptive prototype for 11 perigastric stations using published T-stage prevalence; individualized calibration remains future work the-station-risk-map ⚠ Scaffold
Aim 2 Quality metric extraction linked to survival outcomes TNM heatmaps, Kaplan-Meier curves, stage distributions from TCGA STAD the-gastric-cancer-staging-visualization ✓ Public data
Aims 1–2 Ensuring clinical trustworthiness: discrimination, calibration, clinical utility TRIPOD/PROBAST validation implementation (AUC, Brier, ECE, decision curves) the-medical-ai-validation ✓ TCGA STAD
Foundation Surgical instrument segmentation from laparoscopic video DeepLabV3 pipeline: CholecSeg8k CV plus SISVSE transfer run; zero-shot IoU 0.064 → fine-tuned IoU 0.491 on 480 public robotic-gastrectomy frames the-surgical-instrument-segmentation Public transfer evidence

All repositories: github.com/Herbert-Research · Independent building blocks on public data — not an integrated system. Scaffold values are literature-derived placeholders, not validated for clinical use.

Qualifications & Experience
Clinical: 11 weeks SNUH GI Surgery (97 procedures observed, Prof. Lee's service)
Publication: Dressler & Choi et al., JMBS 2025;14(2):85-96 (co-authored with Prof. Lee)
Research: Principal coordinator, ENiMoN RCT (80-patient robot-assisted nephrectomy trial)
Training: M.D., University of Heidelberg · Surgical residency starting July 2026 (Würzburg)
Language: German (native), English (fluent), Korean (studying, targeting TOPIK 3 by 2027)
Commitment: Korea long-term: language preparation, relocation plan, and surgical-academic career target at SNUH
Research Questions
RQ1 Can preoperative variables estimate station-specific nodal risk for KLASS-standardized surgical planning?
RQ2 Can gastrectomy video features improve risk reasoning and surgical-quality assessment?
RQ3 Can public CholecSeg8k/SISVSE transfer work become valid SNUH robotic-gastrectomy evidence after IRB/privacy approval?
Three-Year PhD Timeline
Year 1 (2027–28)

IRB approval · Data governance · Video capture protocols · Baseline station-specific risk models from KLASS registry (Aim 1) · Pre-register analyses · 60–80 cases

Year 2 (2028–29)

Intraoperative visual feature integration · Quality metric extraction + reliability validation (Aim 2) · Feasibility study · 150–200 total cases

Year 3 (2029–30)

Internal validation with subgroup analyses · Multimodal fusion pilot (Aim 3, exploratory) · Dissertation · Multicenter protocol drafted

Why SNUH / Prof. Lee

This research requires high-volume KLASS-standardized gastrectomy, mature prospective registries, established quality metrics (KLASS-02-QC), and active surgical technology research. No other institution combines these elements. My 11-week immersion on Prof. Lee's service and our co-authored publication confirm productive collaboration. Negative results are equally valuable within this validation-first framework — demonstrating where AI does not yet warrant clinical integration provides evidence-based boundaries for deployment.