The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) is an international association of cardiothoracic surgeons. It was founded in 1917 by the earliest pioneers in the field of thoracic surgery. Headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts, it has over 1,200 members from 35 countries. To be considered for membership, a surgeon must have a proven record of distinction within the field and have made meritorious contributions to the knowledge of cardiothoracic disease and its surgical treatment.The association publishes the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. It fosters the education of young cardiothoracic surgeons by providing scholarships and fellowships, and makes special awards to distinguished members.Recipients of the association's Scientific Achievement Award include John W. Kirklin (1994), Norman E. Shumway (1998), Michael E. DeBakey (1999), Denton A. Cooley (2000), Alain F. Carpentier (2005), Gerald Buckberg (2007), and Andrew S. Wechsler (2008).The association's papers are held at the National Library of Medicine.AATS Graham Foundation has been fostering Careers and developing Leaders ̶ Since 1973. It has continually supported cardiothoracic surgeons worldwide in research and education. In this endeavour, AATS awards several scholarships and Fellowship awards.Some of the notable awards include - AATS Research Scholarship Award, AATS Surgical Investigator, AATS Advanced Valve Disease Educational Fellowship, AATS Robotic Surgery Fellowship, AATS Thoracic Surgery Fellowship and AATS Graham Traveling Fellowship..
Central MessageThe AATS journals propose new initiatives to curate our content and place it in the context of the current literature to assist our readers. The AATS journals propose new initiatives to curate our content and place it in the context of the current literature to assist our readers. Today we are inundated by a tsunami of information, and each day our inboxes are filled with more papers than we could ever digest. What to read? This is a question we face every day. How do we select from the thousands of choices? The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) journals have expanded, and we now have 6 journals and a robust website (AATS Online). We have an exceptional amount of material from the AATS family alone. To meet this challenge, the AATS journals propose new initiatives to curate our content and place it in the context of the current literature to assist you (our readers) to make your choice: Table 1 lists these new initiatives.Table 1New initiatives of AATS journalsCurated papers from AATS journals and high-impact journals 1. Invited Expert Reviews 2. Invited Expert Technical ReviewsFocus on technical expertise 3. Invited Expert Techniques 4. Video Atlas ArticlesThe latest discoveries 5. Invited Expert OpinionsFeatured papers in press in AATS journals for each specialty: Adult, Congenital, and Thoracic 6. JTCVS eAlerts 7. AATS Journal eAlerts 8. Featured papers in AATS journalsAATS, American Association for Thoracic Surgery; JTCVS, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Open table in a new tab AATS, American Association for Thoracic Surgery; JTCVS, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. We expanded our cadre of outstanding Feature Editors, who together with the Associate Editors from our journals and invited world experts will provide you with their selection of the top 10 best papers for important topics for each of our subspecialties: Adult, Congenital, and Thoracic. The Feature and Associate Editors of Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (JTCVS), JTCVS Open, JTCVS Techniques, Seminars, and Op Techs review topic proposals, including those chosen for presentation at the AATS meetings, the highest-downloaded papers from our journals, as well as important publications in high-impact journals. Then, the Feature Editors and invited experts review the papers on these topics from the AATS journals and seminal papers in other journals to create their top 10 lists. These mini reviews present these papers to you with commentaries. The curated lists will get you started to know what to read. To facilitate your access to the best papers, each review has an illustrated bibliography with links to these papers and their accompanying commentaries (Figure 1). Cardiothoracic surgery is a very technically oriented specialty, and surgeons appreciate new approaches to technical challenges. In addition to the papers published in JTCVS and Seminars, we also publish brief technical reports in JTCVS Techniques and drawings in Operative Techniques. Therefore, the Feature and Associate Editors have selected important topics and reviewed all recent publications in the AATS journals as well as seminal papers in other journals to create the Invited Expert Technical Reviews. These mini-reviews provide the top 10 list of the best technical papers on the topics with commentaries, visuals, videos, and drawings. These lists will allow you to know which techniques to emulate. These technical reviews also have an illustrated bibliography with links to the curated papers and their commentaries (Figure 2). The new JTCVS Techniques journal is intended to provide our community with the latest surgical approaches to challenging problems. Techniques presents an extensive number of case reports and surgical techniques. In addition, our Associate and Feature Editors have invited world experts to provide brief but detailed descriptions about their surgical approaches to important clinical conditions. These invited “how I do it” papers will show you the techniques employed by masters. The new JTCVS Techniques journal is also a repository of operative videos demonstrating new technical approaches in great detail. To provide the best instructional videos, the Associate and Feature Editors have invited experts to present their techniques in a series of short videos that show each of the steps required for their procedures. This atlas should provide learners and proficient surgeons with detailed directives from world experts. For the past 4 years, JTCVS has included brief editorials based on the latest advances in each of our subspecialties. These featured editorials have been very popular and our Feature Editors continue to search the literature for new developments. We have developed a new method to provide our readers with the latest information from our publications specific to their specialty. The Adult, Congenital, and Thoracic AATS eAlerts provide illustrated, specialty-specific links to featured in-press content each month. We have also added AATS special specific eAlerts for feature content in the other AATS journals each month as well. You can sign up to receive these eAlerts here and you can view the gallery of previous eAlerts here. Finally, to ensure that you receive the latest information, we provide an illustrated, specialty-specific links to papers in other AATS journals in each area of interest at the front of each section of the JTCVS. You can review the illustrated links for January by clicking for Adult, Congenital, and Thoracic sections. We hope that you enjoy these new initiatives and appreciate the efforts that our editors have made to help you to decide what to read.
