Shanda H. Blackmon, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S., is a minimally invasive thoracic surgeon, author and artist. She completed Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, Texas. She was awarded the Clinical Instructorship position in thoracic surgical oncology at MDACC until she was recruited to build and lead the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital. Dr. Blackmon was Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital for eight years. She has led esophageal support groups for 17 years. She is now a Professor of Thoracic Surgery within the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She holds patents, including a novel esophageal anastomotic device, minimally invasive surgical tools, and the concept of 5-D printing. She also leads the Mayo Clinic Esophageal Tumor Board and is a member of the AJCC education and promotions committee. She also has led a team to develop Mayo Clinic’s first decentralized world clinical trial, utilizing the Upper Digestive Disease (UDD) App, which is a virtual patient management platform for foregut surgery and integrated with the DELiVeR Clinic. She has developed a specialized team for complex esophageal reconstruction. She served as the Medical Director of Mayo Clinic Consumer Digital Platforms and currently is the Medical Director of User Experience/Design (together, referred to as XD). She is dual board-certified by American Board of Surgery & American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Blackmon has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, given over 400 oral presentations, is an internationally recognized surgeon and has published more than 100 YouTube instructional videos. She is active on social media @ShandaBlackmon for Twitter. She is a former Deputy Editor for The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. She is the Past-President of Women in Thoracic Surgery, former Secretary/Treasurer of the Thoracic Surgery Foundation, current Secretary/Treasurer of Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, serves as a Council Chair for the Board of Directors for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and serves on the Membership Committee for Association of American Thoracic Surgeons. Currently, she is focusing on survivorship care, creating Mayo Clinic’s first completely virtual longitudinal disease-specific digitally-guided integrated survivorship program, for which she is launching a book in the fall.Read more about this authorRead less about this author