Hi, IÕm Dr. Linda Martin. IÕm a thoracic surgeon at the University of Virginia. My practice focuses on surgical diseases of the chest that donÕt involve the heart. For example, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, surgery for heart burn, or paraoesophageal hernias. Every patient has taught me things and increased my increased my interest in helping patients with cancer, but IÕve also had family members whoÕve gone through cancer treatment and that certainly impacts your decision-making, your understanding of what people are going through. When we have a new patient coming to the clinic, we try to review their records ahead of time, make sure we have a handle on what weÕre dealing with. And at the visit, weÕll review their history, their symptoms, their background medical problems, and then spend quite a bit of time talking about the problem at hand. What we know, what we donÕt know, what we need to do to further investigate it. We do try to work together as a team, and when we have someone coming in with a new diagnosis, itÕs not always completely under the expertise of one specialist. A lot of times, weÕll need multiple specialists to get involved and help come up with the best treatment plan. In addition to that, we have a lot of innovative programs here that are really focused on helping the patients do as well as they possibly can with their diagnosis, or getting through their operation. And I think UVA has been very innovative and progressive in coming up with new ways to handle old problems.