Dear Dr Delbridge,

Thank you for accepting to come to the 5^th Turkish National Endocrine Surgical Meeting (www.ecd2011.org) in 24 – 27 April 2011.

1. Why did you choose Endocrine Surgery? At the begining, which dificulties did you have ?
 
Endocrine Surgery was the major academic surgical unit at the hospital where I trained as a resident and was the obvious career path for someone such as myself who was interested in practicing surgery as a full-time academic.
 
2. What do you think about the borders of Endocrine Surgery? Such as; should the Endocrine Surgeons perform FNAB, ultrasonography? Should they follow-up patients (especially thyroid patients) before and/or after surgery?
 
I see endocrine surgeons as endocrinologists who can also perform surgery. As such endocrine surgeons have no real bounds and should be involved in the totality of patient care including diagnosis, eg fine needle biopsy and ultrasound, as well as therapy including follow-up id so wished. Having said that in our unit all patients are treated in a multidisciplinary setting so ALL patients are managed jointly by an endocrine surgeon and endocrinologist.