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

Email us

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:

  • Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS)
  • National Resident Matching Program (NRMP)

The weekly clinical schedules include:

  • General Thoracic Surgery clinic on Monday's
  • Interventional Cardiology/Cardiac Surgery Cath Lab on Thursday's
  • Multidisciplinary Lung Clinic on Friday's

The weekly patient conferences include:

  • VA Lung Tumor Board on Monday's
  • OHSU Surgery M&M Conferences on Monday's
  • OHSU Cardiothoracic Surgery M&M Conferences (2nd Monday's)
  • Cardiology Multidisciplinary Conference on Tuesday's
  • Esophageal Care Conference on Wednesday's
  • Pulmonary Radiology Conference on Wednesday's
  • Multidisciplinary Lung Conference on Fridays
  • Interventional Cardiology/Cardiac Cath Conference on Thursday's
  • VA Multidisciplinary Cardiac Conference on Thursday's

Weekly curriculum reviews:

  • Congenital Cardiac Surgery on Tuesday's
  • Adult Cardiac Surgery on Wednesday's
  • General Thoracic Surgery on Friday's
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    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 two hospital sites: OHSU and the VA Portland Health Care System, which has adult cardiac and general thoracic surgery rotations.

    The Cardiothoracic Surgery fellow will be part of the surgical team and thus 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.

    The salary is Dependent upon PGY level; the 2020-2021 range is $74,482 (PGY6) to $77,333 (PGY7).

    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., F.A.C.S., F.A.C.C.P.

    Paul Schipper, M.D., is the program director for the Cardiothoracic Surgery fellowship and an innovator and researcher in chest and lung surgery. In 2012 he received the OHSU Faculty Excellence in Education Award and is a member of the School of Medicine Faculty Council.

    Section heads

    Adult Cardiac Surgery

    Howard Song, M.D., Ph.D.

    General Thoracic Surgery

    Paul Schipper, M.D.