The surgeon for the lungs, esophagus and chest wall, mostly cancer. General surgery first, then two or three more years. About 14 years of training.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $419,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $144,000 at the lower end to about $767,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
13 to 16 years after high school, on the usual route.
$74,000 to $169,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$419,000
Lower end
$144,000
Upper end
$767,000
Job Bank's thoracic surgeon page uses the figure for all surgeons together: a median of about $419,000 a year (low $144,000, high $767,000) for 2023 to 2024. Job Bank pools every surgical specialty in one group, so this is not a thoracic surgery figure. Most thoracic surgeons work at teaching hospitals, often on a blended or salaried plan. It varies by province.
About $652,000
Median gross clinical payment, thoracic and cardiovascular surgeons together, 2024 to 2025
CIHI (Canadian Institute for Health Information) counts 513 doctors in this group. The middle 60% were paid $260,000 to $1,008,000. This is billing before office, staff and other practice costs, not take-home pay. Read from CIHI's data tables, downloaded in a browser with Claude in Chrome on 6 November 2026, because cihi.ca refuses our checker.
$73,000 to $116,000
A year in Ontario from July 1, 2025, in postgraduate years 1 to 8 (PGY1 to PGY8), over 7 to 8 years of residency
Set by the 2023 to 2026 agreement between PARO (Professional Association of Residents of Ontario) and Ontario's teaching hospitals. Other provinces have their own agreements and pay scales. The thoracic years come after a full general surgery residency, and you are still carrying medical school debt.
About $509,000 a year
The median for all surgeons in Alberta, the highest of the larger provinces
Manitoba ($457,991) and British Columbia ($441,788) come next. Ontario's median is $403,957 and Quebec's is $397,319. Job Bank pools every surgical specialty in these figures.
Roughly, all in
$74,000 to $169,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a three year undergraduate degree at a cheaper university, a three year medical school at the lowest domestic tuition, and the exam fees: the MCAT (medical school admission test), the MCCQE (the national medical exam), and two Royal College certification exams. The high end is a four year degree, a four year medical school at 28,000 a year, and the same exams at their upper fees. Residency is paid work, so those years add no tuition, but most finish medical school owing 80,000 to 150,000. Malpractice coverage costs tens of thousands a year once you practise and is partly reimbursed, so it is a working cost rather than a cost of qualifying.
Typical debt at the end of medical school is $80,000 to $150,000. Eight years of residency pay slows the bleeding but rarely pays it off.
Academic salary option
Nearly all thoracic jobs are at university hospitals. Many pay a fixed amount instead of per-case billing.
On-call stipends
Hospitals pay extra for covering nights and weekends.
Malpractice coverage
Through the CMPA (Canadian Medical Protective Association). Provinces reimburse part of the fee.
No employer pension
Unless you are a hospital employee, you save through a professional corporation.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Every doctor's road, a full surgical residency, then a second match into a tiny subspecialty.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Top marks in biology, chemistry, math and English. You need a very high average for a science undergrad.
Bachelor's degree
3 to 4 years
Any major works. Keep a GPA (grade point average) above 3.8, volunteer, do research. Write the MCAT (medical school admission test).
Medical school, the MD (doctor of medicine)
3 to 4 years
Very competitive: most applicants are turned down. Classes, then clinical rotations. Surgery electives earn the reference letters that decide the match.
General surgery residency
5 years
Matched through CaRMS (the residency matching service). Abdomen, breast, trauma, and in-hospital call from year one. Cardiac surgery is the other door into thoracic.
Thoracic surgery subspecialty
2 to 3 years
A second match near the end of general surgery. Lung cancer resections, esophagus surgery, keyhole and robotic chest surgery, airway work, chest trauma. Pass the Royal College exam to become FRCSC (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada), then register with your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Biology and chemistry
Required for nearly every pre-med path.
Calculus and functions
Physics
Tested on the MCAT (medical school admission test). Breathing is pressure and volume.
English
You will deliver cancer diagnoses and explain big operations for a living.
You need a licence from your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons to practise, and Royal College certification in thoracic surgery to work as one. Hospitals will not grant operating privileges without both. The credential is national, so moving provinces is paperwork and fees. Jobs, though, exist only at large hospitals.
In Quebec you apply to medical school straight from CEGEP (public college), with no bachelor's degree first. Thoracic surgery then comes after a full general surgery residency.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science option), chemistry and physics. These are the entry courses for the CEGEP (public college) science program.
Science DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
A 2 year CEGEP (public college) program (200.B1), offered in English at Dawson and the other English colleges. Take the biology and chemistry courses medical schools ask for.
Medical school, straight from CEGEP
4 to 5 years
No bachelor's degree needed. McGill and Montréal start with a 1 year preparatory year, Laval and Sherbrooke do not. You need a top R-score (the CEGEP ranking score), the Casper test and interviews.
General surgery residency
5 years
Matched through CaRMS (the residency matching service). At Montréal it is 5 years: 2 years of surgical foundations, then 3 senior years that include thoracic and vascular surgery rotations.
Thoracic surgery residency
2 years
2 more years. In Quebec, Montréal runs it jointly with Laval, at the CHUM (Montréal's university hospital), the Montreal Heart Institute and the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute. Good French is essential.
Royal College exams, CMQ (Collège des médecins du Québec) permit and a hospital spot
End of residency
Pass the Royal College exams. The CMQ issues your permit once you show French. You then need a spot in a hospital's PEM (medical staffing plan).
Montréal and Laval set a minimum R-score (the CEGEP ranking score) of 33 for CEGEP applicants in 2026. McGill's Med-P year is only for recent CEGEP graduates.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Minimally invasive lung surgery
Removing part of a lung through small cuts with a camera, or with a robot.
Esophageal surgery
Cancer and severe swallowing disorders. Long, technically hard operations.
Lung transplant
Only a few centres in Canada do it. Extra fellowship training and a lot of nights.
Research and trials
Screening programs and new surgical approaches. Academic thoracic surgeons lead them.
Surgery electives and research in med school
The match is decided by letters from surgeons who watched you work.
Stamina
Sports, shift work, anything that proves you can function tired.
Fine hand skills
Instruments, sewing, drawing. Sewing an esophagus back together is delicate.
French
Opens Quebec, Ottawa and New Brunswick programs and jobs.
Thoracic surgeons rarely run a private clinic. You work where the operating rooms, intensive care and cancer centre are: a teaching hospital in a big city. That means academic colleagues, residents to teach, and research expectations, but also that your job options are a short list of cities.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
7 a.m. rounds on the thoracic ward and the intensive care unit. First case: a lung cancer removed through three small ports with a camera, about 2 hours. Second: a lung biopsy. On a big day, an esophagus cancer operation that runs 6 hours or more. Clinic another day: 20 to 30 patients with nodules on a scan, cancer results, swallowing problems, or a chest wall deformity. On call about one night in four; chest trauma and blocked airways come in at any hour.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Canadian Cancer Society expects about 32,900 new lung cancer cases and 19,300 deaths in Canada in 2026, about 22% of all cancer deaths. Surgery is the best chance of cure when it is found early, which is why screening programs matter to thoracic surgeons.
The lung transplant program at Toronto General Hospital performed the first successful single and double lung transplants, and calls itself the largest lung transplant program in the world.
Job Bank expects a strong risk of a shortage of surgeons across Canada from 2024 to 2033. About 10,500 people worked in this group in 2023, and 38% were 50 or older.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Surgeons first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked November 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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