Douglas Earl Wood, M.D.

Dr. Wood is a UW professor, chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and the endowed chair in lung cancer research. He is a world-renowned surgeon in thoracic oncology, specializing in the areas of lung and esophageal cancer. He is also a national and international leader in the management of complex airway disease and in the surgical management of end-stage lung disease. He focuses his practice in these areas where he has led the UW thoracic group to be the leading referral center for patients from all over the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Wood received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and trained in general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He then was recruited to Seattle to lead a new section of general thoracic surgery at the UW.

Patient Care Philosophy
"I try to take care of each patient as if he or she were a member of my own family. I strongly believe that prompt and efficient evaluation and clear explanations help patients make good decisions. Our goal is that every cancer patient will have a work-up completed and a treatment plan defined within a few days of his or her first phone call to our office."

Personal Interests
Dr. Wood enjoys traveling with his family. He is an avid photographer, downhill and water skier, and likes to run and lift weights to keep fit. He has aspirations to become skilled in kite boarding, but has not quite mastered it yet.

Clinical Interests
Thoracic oncology (lung, esophageal, mediastinal and chest wall tumors); benign and malignant airway disease; and emphysema surgery.

Research Interests
Tracheobronchial pathology, thoracic oncology and lung volume reduction surgery.

Dr. Wood developed one of the early programs in lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) for severe emphysema, initiating the program at UW in 1994. He was a major participant in the National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT) for which he was a co–principal investigator and wrote the surgical protocols for Medicare and the National Institutes of Health. The Agency for Health Research and Quality also sponsored a cost-effectiveness analysis of LVRS within the treatment trial, the largest cost-effectiveness study ever performed in a clinical study. He was the primary NETT clinician involved in the cost-effectiveness study; he subsequently worked directly with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials in developing the national coverage determinations for LVRS and the site selection criteria.

His second major area of clinical interest is tracheobronchial pathology, and he has developed a large interventional bronchoscopy program that complements the surgical airway program at UW. This interest in bronchoscopic intervention and surgical therapy for emphysema has served as the basis for his involvement in the evaluation of endobronchial therapy for emphysema. He is one of the principal investigators of the Spiration IBV™ clinical trial, which is evaluating the effectiveness of endobronchial valves for the palliation of severe emphysema.

Teaching Interests
Dr. Wood has been devoted to graduate medical education throughout his career. He is the program director of thoracic surgery at UWMC and serves as a director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. In addition, he is chair of the Thoracic Residency Review Committee for the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education. 

He has been on the program committees of each of the major U.S. cardiothoracic and oncology societies and has led the general thoracic postgraduate programs at the thoracic surgical scientific meetings.

Languages
English

Expertise
Cancer Care (esophageal), Cancer Care (lung), Pulmonary/Lung Care, Surgery