Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons – Enabling Canadian Thoracic Surgeons to provide the highest level of care to every patient, every time.

CATS Vision

Enabling Canadian Thoracic Surgeons to provide the highest level of care to every patient, every time.

CATS Mission

A collaborative network that promotes excellence in patient centered care, fosters innovation, and enhances quality through education, research and advocacy.

The Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons represents thoracic surgeons in Canada. We provide subspecialty clinical care for patients with a wide range of pleural, mediastinal, esophageal and gastric diseases. Our patients suffer from complex benign and malignant diseases, and our training is therefore very broad. We educate students and residents. Our success in postgraduate surgical education is well known. Canadian trained thoracic surgeons have a world-wide reputation for clinical excellence, and many of our former trainees hold thoracic surgical leadership positions throughout the world. The association is actively involved in clinical and laboratory research. We are also involved in health care planning issues such as thoracic surgical manpower, standards of practice, and delivery of thoracic surgical oncology services.