Caridothoracic Surgeons - How Many Heart Surgeons Are There?
Blog Topics: Heart Surgeons; Number of Cardiothoracic Surgeons; The Cardiothoracic Surgery Network; The Society Of Cardiothoracic Surgeons; Best Heart Valve Surgeons
I just received an interesting question about heart surgeons…
The question was, “How many heart surgeons are there?”
Honestly, that is the first time I ever received this question. Typically, the question I get over-and-over-and-over again is, “Who are the top heart surgeons?” and “Who are the best heart valve surgeons?”

That said, I was excited to learn more about cardiothoracic surgeons. So, I did what just about anybody would do… I started Google’ing and surfing the world wide web.
First, I found myself at the homepage for The Cardiothoracic Surgery Network. There, I found some information that related to this question. According to The Cardiothoracic Surgery Network, there are approximately 32,000 members of that association. However, a portion of those members are not surgeons they are allied health professionals.
Then, I went to the The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. There I learned that the STS has about 5,400 members. Once again, however, a number of those members were not heart surgeons… They were allied health professionals and researchers.
I then became desperate and ended up at Wikipedia… Unfortunately, there was no distinct reference to the question of “How many heart surgeons are there?”
I could offer up a guess but I’d rather not. That said, if you have any ideas on this topic, please help me out, and leave a reply (below) with some data, info, anything.
Keep on tickin,
Adam
P.S. If you would like to see a list of some of the most highly regarded or best heart valve surgeons, click here. FYI, I recently conducted a survey of many heart valve surgery patients. There were a number cardiothoracic surgeons that were “highly regarded” by the patients surveyed.






December 13th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Hi Adam,
This past summer the STS put out a Media Advisory about the trend of fewer doctors becoming cardiothoracic surgeons, http://www.sts.org/sections/resources/media/. They state that there are, “approximately 3,700 practicing cardiothoracic surgeons.”
Gideon Sims
Mount Sinai Medical Center
December 13th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Hey Gideon!
Thanks so much… Very helpful!
Cheers,
Adam