A method or process for intra-operatively providing anatomical guidance in endocrine surgery. In one embodiment, the process includes the steps of illuminating human tissues (407) in the neck area of a human being in operation with a beam of light (211, 454), obtaining fluorescent data from the light scattered (428, 405) from the human tissues, finding fluorescent signatures from the obtained fluorescent data, and identifying tissues that are corresponding to the fluorescent signatures that represent thyroid or parathyroid tissues.
