Frank Detterbeck, MD, FACS, FCCP, Awarded Yale Medicine Distinguished Clinical Career Award

The Yale Medicine Distinguished Clinical Career Award honors physicians who have contributed to Yale Medicine for at least 20 years since completing their fellowship training and whose careers are marked by significant accomplishments, exemplary dedication, and important contributions to advancing the practice, the overall medical profession, and the community. The award is intended to honor faculty members who are widely recognized as distinguished clinicians and who have devoted the main part of their careers to Yale.

Dr. Detterbeck is professor of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and associate director of the Yale Cancer Center. In 2005, he was recruited to Yale from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as division chief of Thoracic Surgery. He held this position until 2020, when he passed the leadership torch to one of his own faculty and recommitted his focus to his lifelong passion – patient care.

The major focus of Dr. Detterbeck’s career has been thoracic oncology, promoting evidence-based care and multidisciplinary teamwork. He specializes in surgical treatment of lung cancer, lung metastases, esophageal cancer, thymoma, mediastinal tumors, chest wall tumors, Pancoast tumors, mesothelioma, and sarcoma. Most of his thoracic/chest surgeries are performed using minimally invasive techniques, but he has performed some of the most complex thoracic procedures, achieving extraordinary outcomes for some of the highest-risk patients.

Dr. Detterbeck has pioneered the development and application of new knowledge that has advanced thoracic care standards fundamentally. He led the revision of the lung cancer staging and is personally responsible for the creation of treatment guidelines for the American College of Chest Physicians. He also created the International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group of which he also served as president, leading the development of staging and treatment guidelines for thymic tumors.

A principled leader and clinician, Dr. Detterbeck embodies the essence of compassionate care. With a holistic, personal approach (where patients often call him by his first name), he carefully considers the unique goals and needs of each patient and goes out of his way to hear the perspectives of the members of their multidisciplinary care team.

Academically, Dr. Detterbeck is world-renowned — both as a surgeon-scientist and educator. He has published 403 manuscripts with more than 24,000 citations and has an H index of 79. His numerous teaching awards include the Edward H. Storer Award for Excellence in Surgical Teaching, the Elton Cahow Award for Outstanding Faculty Teaching from the Yale General Surgery Residency Program, and the Golden Scalpel Award for Teaching Excellence from the Yale Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency Program. Nationally, he has been honored by the American College of Chest Physicians as a Distinguished CHEST Educator and has received the prestigious Thoracic Surgery Residents Association Socrates Award.

Nationally, Dr. Detterbeck has served on multiple committees with major oncology societies. He was a leader, board member, and trustee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B and served on panels with the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, American College of Surgeons, and Thoracic Oncology Network. He has also received numerous international and national awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in Thoracic Oncology from the American Thoracic Society, and is an honorary member of the German Thoracic Society.

Dr. Detterbeck received a bachelor’s degree in cell biology from the University of Michigan and a medical degree from Northwestern University.