Editorial: Women in thoracic surgery

Thoracic surgery, in its second century of existence, is experiencing an increase in the number of women and underrepresented minorities entering the field (1).Nowadays, women comprise nearly half of medical school graduates and, in parallel, the number of women in thoracic surgery has steadily increased (2, 3).Societies like Women in Thoracic Surgery and Women in General Thoracic Surgery, work to ameliorate the mentorship and education of women in this specialty across North America and Europe (4); still, numerous challenges persist for the successful career of women in thoracic surgery (5).Despite all the challenges, women in thoracic surgery are perfectly aligned with their male counterparts in terms of surgical and academic skills.This Special Issue in Frontiers in Surgery brings together a series of high-quality scientific contributions that underline the versatility of the Authors concerning the pathologies addressed in the field of thoracic surgery.Screening, timeless of diagnosis and treatment, represents an identification of the modern approach to lung cancer.Disparities based on ruralities have been analyzed in the paper by Minerva et al.Most studies suggest a delay in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer for rural residents.The Authors report a paradoxical result in their study, with a faster diagnosis in patients in rural areas, probably thanks to the active involvement of the general practitioner in their small country.Thoracic surgery in the last twenty years is increasingly oriented toward minimally invasive surgery.As part of it, Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) offers patients, good results and great satisfaction (6).All thoracic surgery centers of a certain level, offer a training program for residents aimed at teaching new technologies for the treatment of old pathologies.The number of women in thoracic surgery has steadily increased, and they are more and more involved as the first surgeon in all kinds of operations.Wang et al. presented in the Special Issue the treatment of a retrosternal goiter through a VATS subxiphoid modified approach.A retrosternal goiter is a relatively rare disease and there are many surgical approaches and strategies, such as a cervical neck incision, a combined thoracic incision, or a sternotomy.The use of VATS