Dr. Diego Gonzalez Rivas is a graduate of Santiago de Compostela University and the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Coruña University (MD). He received training in General Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, and lung transplantation at Coruña University Hospital.

After completing a year working in Santiago University Hospital, he joined the faculty at Coruña Hospital and is currently Thoracic Surgeon in Coruña University center and an active member of lung transplantation program (about 40 cases performed per year). He is the creator of minimally invasive thoracic surgery Unit at Coruña hospital, and he also works at Quiron institution, San Rafael hospital and Modelo medical center that are all medical hospitals within the Coruña city.

Dr Gonzalez Rivas serves on several editorial boards and is active member in organizing the annual meeting of Spanish Society of Thoracic Surgery (SECT) as well as collaborating with educational activities of European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS). He has been a European Board certificated surgeon since 2010 (FECTS). In 2007, he started to perform VATS lobectomies after learning the technique at Cedars Sinai. After performing 100 major resections, he visited Duke Medical Center to learn the double port technique from Dr Thomas D’Amico. Once experience was gained with this technique he evolved to the single-port approach. He is the director of Uniportal VATS training program at Shanghai pulmonary hospital.

He was pioneer surgeon in the world for performing uniportal VATS lobectomies (first case in June 2010) and uniportal VATS non-intubated major resections (first case April 2014). He has published several papers describing these procedures and the results in some of the most important medical journals and textbooks of Thoracic Surgery. More information about the technique can be found in www.videothoracoscopy.com