Donald E. Low

Donald E. Low, MD, FACS, FRCS(C) is Director of the Esophageal Center of Excellence and Head of Thoracic Surgery at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle. He is one of North America's most recognized esophageal surgeons and has been instrumental in developing and propagating minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) techniques, defining surgical quality benchmarks, and leading international efforts to standardize esophageal cancer surgical outcomes reporting. Low is a co-founder of the Esophageal Complications Consensus Group (ECCG), an international collaborative of high-volume esophageal surgery centers that developed standardized definitions for postoperative complications after esophagectomy—work that transformed how outcomes are measured and compared across institutions worldwide. His operative series with over 1,500 minimally invasive esophagectomies is among the largest in North America, and his technical reports on thoracoscopic and laparoscopic esophagectomy, anastomotic technique, and conduit reconstruction have become foundational references for surgeons learning and refining MIE. Beyond surgical technique, Low has contributed to multidisciplinary trimodality therapy protocols, patient selection criteria for esophagectomy, and enhanced recovery after esophageal surgery (ERAS) programs. He is a past president of the Esophageal Research Foundation and has served on guideline committees for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), NCCN, and ISDE. His research on volume-outcome relationships and surgeon-level quality metrics has been highly influential in policy discussions around surgical centralization.