Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellowship Program
OHSU's traditionally formatted two-year Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellowship educational program is designed to emphasize the cooperation of cardiothoracic surgeons with other primary and specialty physicians to diagnose and treat lifelong disease states. This multidisciplinary team functions within a health care system toward economic and long-term outcome goals.
Leadership development is deemed to be one of the unique and important missions of our program. We believe surgical leadership is defined by the ability to guide and work with multidisciplinary (interdisciplinary) teams. We teach this process of leadership development. Residents leave this program with the tools for lifelong learning and growth as a person, as a surgeon and as a collaborator in the interdisciplinary system of health care delivery. Residents are part of the process. As they develop ideas that lead to improvements, they are encouraged to voice them (they attend the division faculty meetings) and good suggestions are implemented.
Our faculty are outstanding and recipients of multiple awards and recognition, including the OHSU Department of Surgery Marquam Hill Teaching Award and the OHSU Cardiothoracic Surgery Teaching Award.
Our program has frequent porcine heart, lung, and esophageal simulation events in our on-site surgery lab, VirtuOHSU.
We send our incoming fellows to TSDA Boot Camp.
Contact us
Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Mail Code L353
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park
Portland, OR 97239-3098
Phone: 503 494-4196
Fax: 503 494-7829
Program details
To qualify for a position in OHSU's Cardiothoracic Surgery program, applicants must have completed a residency in General Surgery. Applicants must ensure they meet all program prerequisites and institutional policies regarding eligibility for appointment prior to ranking a program through the NRMP. Candidates are selected through ERAS.
Applicants must register with both:
Weekly clinical schedules include:
- General Thoracic Surgery clinic on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
- Interventional Cardiology/Cardiac Surgery Cath Lab on Thursdays
- Multidisciplinary Lung Clinic and Conference on Fridays
Weekly patient conferences include:
- VA Lung Tumor Board on Mondays
- OHSU Surgery M&M Conferences on Mondays
- OHSU Cardiothoracic Surgery M&M Conferences (2nd Mondays)
- Cardiology Multidisciplinary Conference on Tuesdays
- Esophageal Care Conference on Wednesdays
- Pulmonary Radiology Conference on Wednesdays
- Multidisciplinary Lung Conference on Fridays
- Interventional Cardiology/Cardiac Cath Conference on Thursdays
- VA Multidisciplinary Cardiac Conference on Thursdays
Weekly curriculum reviews:
- Congenital Cardiac Surgery on Tuesdays
- Adult Cardiac Surgery on Wednesdays
- General Thoracic Surgery on Fridays
Fellows are required to attend clinic according to faculty schedules and will assume primary responsibility for diagnostic work-up and treatment plans. Fellows participate in rotations at four hospital sites: OHSU and the VA Portland Health Care System, which has adult cardiac and general thoracic surgery rotations; Peace Health in Vancouver, WA which has adult cardiac and thoracic surgery rotations; and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital for a pediatric cardiac surgery rotation.
The Cardiothoracic Surgery fellow will be part of the surgical team and will interact with general surgery residents and medical students. The fellow will be expected to participate in teaching opportunities of the daily care of surgical patients.
There are no outside rotations or research year in this fellowship. Fellows are expected to select, research and present a systems-based clinical project at Surgery Grand Rounds in June of their 2nd year.
Program director
Paul Schipper, M.D., is a professor of surgery and the program director for the Cardiothoracic Surgery fellowship. He is an innovator and researcher in chest and lung surgery and performs all types of general thoracic surgery. He has special expertise in lung and esophageal cancer, surgery for emphysema and minimally invasive thoracic surgical techniques. He also enjoys teaching medical residents as the director of the OHSU Thoracic Surgery Residency Program.
Dr. Schipper's medical research has focused on epidemiology, risk assessments for surgical resections and surgeries to remove lymph nodes to check for cancer. He has also done research on other procedures in patients with lung cancer.
He earned his M.D. degree from the University of Iowa College of Medicine. He completed his residency in general surgery at New York University and a fellowship in general thoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Section heads
OHSU Adult Cardiac Surgery
Howard Song, M.D., Ph.D.
Gurion Lantz, M.D.
OHSU General Thoracic Surgery
Paul Schipper, M.D.
Portland VA General Thoracic Surgery
Mithran Sukumar, M.D.
Doernbecher Children's Hospital
Ashok Muralidaran, M.D.
Peace Health Southwest Washington
Svetlana Kotova, M.D.
Robert DuBose, M.D.