He grew up in the Boston area, then was an undergraduate student at Wesleyan before attending Boston University Medical School. He moved to Seattle for his internship and residency training in general surgery at the University of Washington, where he elected to pursue additional training as a lung surgeon. Dr. Farivar then returned to Boston for his specialty training in thoracic surgery at the renowned department at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, where he worked closely with Dr. David Sugarbaker and other highly regarded expert surgeons. He was then lured back to the Pacific Northwest by colleagues from his surgical training in Seattle, now working at Swedish Cancer Institute, joining them in 2009. He covers a broad range of thoracic surgery patients but has a particular focus on surgery for lung cancer and mesothelioma.