History

The seed of the ESTS comes from the mid seventies, when Abbey Smith and Francisco Paris organized the Coventry Conference and the first meeting of European thoracic surgeons in Valencia.

The first meeting of the European Thoracic Surgery Club was held on Sunday 16th of September 1979 at Castle Hill Hospital in the UK, organized by Keyvan Moghissi.

In 1980 new members were introduced to the Club, most of whom, 13 years later, would become the leaders of our European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS). As a premonitory situation, Ingolf Vogt Moykopf was in charge of exploring the possibility to evolve from a Club to a Society in the future. Another twelve annual meetings of the Club were organised in a friendly, hard-working atmosphere.

In 1982, the good relationship with Pulmonology led to the creation of a surgical section in the Societas Europaea Pneumologica (SEP), participating in the 1st Convention in Bruges.

But the need of more than a Club of Thoracic Surgery in Europe became clear with the foundation in 1986 of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS), under the leadership of Francis Fontan and Keyvan Moghissi. The initial steps of the Association were successful, but over the years, the need of a better profile of general thoracic surgeons was postulated.

Between 1990 and 1992, thoracic surgeons demanded a bigger role of Thoracic Surgery in the EACTS, and on 18th of November 1993 a European Consensus Meeting – Foundation Session was held in Heidelberg during a Combined Meeting: The 1st European Conference on General Thoracic Surgery and the 2nd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Thoracic Surgery.

Ingolf Vogt-Moykopf, the major proponent of the new Society, was elected President and the first Executive Committee was composed of eleven members with Peter Goldstraw as Vice-President, Toni Lerut as Treasurer and Detlev Branscheid as Secretary General.

Please visit the interactive timeline to explore our nearly 30 year history.