Cardiothoracic surgery at OHSU Hospital maintains an active teaching service that encompasses all aspects of adult and pediatric cardiac and non-cardiac thoracic surgery. The surgical house staff assumes a very active role in all aspects of patient care under the supervision and guidance of the attending staff and the cardiothoracic residents. In addition to running a busy adult cardiac surgery service, the service provides cardiac surgery for congenital heart defects to children of Oregon, Southern Washington, Idaho and northern California. Since 1985, an average of 30 heart transplants have been performed at OHSU each year, and more recently, lung and heart lung transplantation have been added to the service successfully.

All patients are admitted and discharged from the cardiopulmonary surgery service. Residents rotating through the service are directly involved in running the cardiac recovery room where postoperative patients are housed, as well as staffing the cardiopulmonary surgery clinic.