I do a lot of the endocrine surgery at PA Clinic. In thoracic surgery, there are many instances when you have an endocrine tumor that extends into the mediastinum. It's nice to be comfortable with structures in the mediastinum when you're taking out a thyroid. Those two arenas came together, so as a result, I do essentially all of the thyroids and parathyroids at Palo Alto clinic. When I'm on call, I'll take care of whatever needs to be taken care of, but my focus is still on thoracic surgery.
Many general surgeons perform thoracic procedures.
In many general surgery programs, trainees spend a minimal amount of time doing thoracic surgery. A cardiothoracic surgery resident will have spend six months in thoracic surgery. But the problem with that is you have to spend an extra two or three years of training learning how to be a cardiac surgeon in order to be able to do thoracic surgery. The people who have spent a lot of time going through cardiothoracic training will end up being cardiac surgeons, because maybe it's more exciting, it may pay more. We tend to spend more time on diagnosis and patient management, which I find satisfying.