General Thoracic

In this second special joint episode of Thinking Thoracic and the American Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology (AABIP), Dr. Erin Gillaspie is joined by interventional pulmonologist Dr. Sameer Avasarala of Case Western Reserve University and infectious disease specialist Dr. Renuga Vivekanandan of Creighton University to discuss the multidisciplinary management of pleural space infections.

What does the path to a career in general thoracic surgery look like today? Host Dr. Jane Yanagawa is joined by Dr. Varun Puri, Chief of Thoracic Surgery and CT Surgery Program Director at Washington University in St. Louis, to break down the evolving training pathways available to medical students and general surgery residents. They explore traditional 5+2/5+3 fellowships, fast-track 4+3 programs, and integrated I-6 tracks, highlighting key differences in clinical exposure, training timelines, board certification, and leadership development.

In this episode of the STS Thinking Thoracic podcast, host Dr. Jane Yanagawa is joined by Dr. John Mitchell—Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Colorado and incoming Chair of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery (ABTS)—to unpack critical updates from the board.

In this episode of the STS Thinking Thoracic podcast, host Dr. Jeff Yang is joined by thoracic surgeons Dr. Seth Krantz and Dr. Christopher Seder, along with Harvard medical student Alexandra Potter, to discuss three landmark studies using the STS General Thoracic Surgery Database that are reshaping how lymph node evaluation is performed in lung cancer surgery. The panel explores current guidelines, quality standards, and how more comprehensive nodal evaluation can improve staging accuracy while maintaining patient safety.

In Part 2 of Thinking Thoracic's annual review of the year's most influential thoracic oncology research, Drs. Jeff Yang and Linda Martin examine practice-changing studies in perioperative care, lung cancer treatment, and multidisciplinary cancer management.

The discussion covers emerging evidence on cryoanalgesia, preoperative fasting, targeted therapies for EGFR-mutated lung cancer, and other key clinical trials and consensus recommendations that are influencing patient care today.

In Part 1 of this special Thinking Thoracic episode, Dr. Jeff Yang welcomes Dr. Linda Martin for a discussion of groundbreaking research spanning immunotherapy, lung cancer epidemiology, and screening. Together, they explore emerging organ-preserving strategies for mismatch repair-deficient cancers, the growing population of patients with lung cancer who have never smoked, and new data highlighting opportunities to improve screening eligibility and uptake.