What Resources Does the STS Website Offer Cardiothoracic Surgeons?

sts.org is the website of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and its main value for practicing cardiothoracic surgeons is access to clinical registries, quality-improvement data, risk calculators, research programs, and career-stage resources. The site is aimed at CT surgeons and care teams rather than patients, and the resources below are the ones most likely to be useful in practice, research, or career planning.

Clinical data and quality improvement

The centerpiece is the STS National Database, described on the site as the gold standard for clinical registries and quality improvement. Related entry points include:

• Public Reporting — institutional performance and national benchmarks for survival, complications, and other measures.
• Data Access Programs — STS data made available for quality-improvement initiatives, clinical trials, and research.
• Current Projects — ongoing research from programs funded by STS.

If your goal is benchmarking your own outcomes or contributing to a registry, the National Database and Public Reporting sections are the places to start. If your goal is using STS data for a study or trial, the Data Access Programs page is the relevant route.

Practical clinical tools

The site hosts Risk Calculators that estimate a patient's risk of mortality and morbidities for common surgeries. These are the kind of tool you would reach for during pre-operative discussion or documentation, using patient variables as inputs to produce a risk estimate.

Career-stage and member resources

STS organizes some content by career stage rather than by clinical topic:

• Early Career Resources — guidance aimed at surgeons earlier in practice.
• Member Voices — first-person commentary from surgeon members. One example on the site, from Melanie Subramanian, MD, MPHS, argues that supportive colleagues and mentors affect long-term job satisfaction more than salary alone.
• STS Surgeon Compensation Survey — a survey intended to help U.S.-based CT surgeons understand their market value by specialty, practice type, career stage, and geography. Participation is solicited through the site.

Education, advocacy, and meetings

• Annual Meeting — the 63rd STS Annual Meeting is promoted on the homepage, with early bird discounts stated as available until Nov. 2, 2026.
• Advocacy updates — presidential updates cover policy positions. One highlighted update, from Vinay Badhwar, MD, addresses the final CMS National Coverage Determination for transcatheter aortic valve replacement and the Society's support for multidisciplinary, heart team–based care.
• Awards — the 2027 Nina Starr Braunwald Extraordinary Women in Cardiothoracic Surgery (EWCTS) Awards recognize achievements in clinical practice, leadership, mentorship, and advocacy by women in the specialty.

Specialty content worth noting

The site also surfaces focused clinical material, such as a video summarizing a study of patients in the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database who underwent operative repair of a postinfarct ventricular septal defect (PIVSD) between 2014 and 2022. The accompanying description notes that ECLS therapies can provide hemodynamic stabilization and may allow definitive surgical repair to be delayed.

How to decide where to go

Access conditions, membership requirements, and any fees for specific programs are not stated in the material available here, so check the individual program page before assuming a resource is open or free.