Thoracic Surgeon, Raja M. Flores, MD Named 2022 NY Top Doc
Raja M. Flores, MD of Mount Sinai Health System’s Department of Thoracic Surgery has been reviewed and approved by NY Top Docs for 2022.
Dr. Flores is a world-renowned surgeon with specialized expertise in mesothelioma, lung cancer, esophageal cancer and asbestos related diseases. He is currently the Founding System Chairman of the Department of Thoracic Surgery and Steven and Ann Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System.
Dr. Flores was the Principal Investigator of a 4.8 million dollar RO1 grant to study the effect of asbestos contamination in the town of Libby, Montana. He has also helped pioneer the use of intraoperative chemotherapy for mesothelioma cancers of the esophagus or lung. He has participated in and led a number of major studies including clinical trials of neoadjuvant gemcitabine and cisplatin followed by extrapleural pneumonectomy and high dose radiation and a multicenter trial of neoadjuvant alimta/cisplatin, extrapleural pneumonectomy, and high-dose radiation that improves outcomes.
He is also a leading international educator on VATS lobectomy, a minimally invasive approach that uses three small incisions in the treatment of lung cancer. He established the current program for this procedure at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he previously worked, and he published two sentinel studies establishing its oncological effectiveness by demonstrating equivalent survival and recurrence rates but fewer complications and shorter hospital stays when compared to standard thoracotomy. He has one of the largest VATS and robotic lobectomy experiences in the world and has published and presented at national and international meetings.
In addition, he pioneered major modifications to the Ivor Lewis esophagectomy that enable patients to recover more quickly. Importantly, this improved surgical technique promotes better blood flow at the new juncture point in the esophagus and causes less trauma, which reduced complications such as anastomotic leak to 1.8% and eliminated strictures.
An author of over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, reviews, books, and book chapters, he has given over 100 lectures worldwide. His work is published in many journals, including The Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, The Annals of Surgery, The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiothoracic Surgery, and JAMA –Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open.
After earning an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from New York University, Dr. Flores attended the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, receiving his M.D. in 1992. He then spent five years at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center pursuing his General Surgery Internship and General Surgery Residency. Following that, he completed a Thoracic Oncology Clinical Research Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Dana Faber Cancer Institute/CALGB in Boston, and his Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He also received a Masters in Biostatistics from Columbia University. He is a member of numerous medical and surgical societies and serves on several editorial boards. In 2017, he was recognized as an Honorary Police Surgeon by the New York City Police Department.
To learn more about Dr. Flores, please click here.
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