Marcin Zielinski1, Jin Ye Yeo2
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Pulmonary Hospital, Zakopane, Poland; 2MED Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company
Correspondence to: Jin Ye Yeo. MED Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company. Email: med@amegroups.com
This interview can be cited as: Zielinski M, Yeo JY. Meeting the Associate Editor-in-Chief of MED: Dr. Marcin Zielinski. Mediastinum. 2025. Available from: https://med.amegroups.org/post/view/meeting-the-associate-editor-in-chief-of-med-dr-marcin-zielinski.
Expert introduction
Dr. Marcin Zielinski (Figure 1) graduated from the Medical Academy in Warsaw in 1983 and subsequently specialized in general and thoracic surgery. He gained his doctorate in 1994 from the Medical Academy in Warsaw and in 2006 was awarded his Habilitation by the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, for studies on factors affecting the effectiveness of the operative treatment of myasthenia gravis. Since 1996, he has been Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery and, since 2004, also Director of the Pulmonary Hospital in Zakopane. Dr. Zielinski is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery (Torino) and a reviewer of thoracic surgery manuscripts for several leading journals. He is the author of almost 70 original articles in indexed journals. His clinical interests are Esophageal surgery, Surgery of the Mediastinum, Myasthenia gravis, and Broncho-angio-plastic procedures.
Figure 1 Dr. Marcin Zielinski
Interview
MED: What initially motivated you to pursue a career in thoracic surgery?
Dr. Zielinski: I started my career in general surgery after my medical studies at the Medical Academy in Warsaw. After that, there was a chance for me to start in another field of surgery, and I chose thoracic surgery, and I have been working in thoracic surgery since 1997.
MED: Could you provide a brief overview of the recent publications in esophageal surgery and surgery of the mediastinum?
Dr. Zielinski: My recent activity in the last 3 years was the perforation of the book on thoracic surgery. It was published in Poland because in our country, we lack a textbook on thoracic surgery. Hence, I prepared a textbook on thoracic surgical operations that includes all fields of thoracic surgery, including that of mediastinum. This book was published in early 2024. Now, I am preparing a new book on thoracic surgery that focuses on atypical and innovative thoracic operations. This book contains the new types of surgical techniques that I developed, but the majority of the book will highlight the procedures that are forgotten or rarely used that, in my opinion, should be reminded.
MED: Which part of your new book are you most excited about?
Dr. Zielinski: My special interests are in the techniques performed through neck incisions with elevation of the sternum, and I developed many such techniques, including various pulmonary resections, so the techniques of these surgeries will be described in detail. There are original drawings prepared especially for this.
MED: What ongoing projects are you currently involved in, and what impact do you hope they will have on the field of thoracic surgery?
Dr. Zielinski: I have suspended all other activities to focus on publishing the books, as there is a lot of work behind it. However, I am thinking of starting another project, which will also be a book, on open thoracic surgery. Nowadays, people are very familiar with video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and robotic-assisted thoracic surgery (RATS) techniques. However, there remain problems that we cannot solve using VATS or RATS. Hence, it is important to also be familiar with open thoracic surgical techniques. For most of my career, I performed open surgery. So, I want to describe open surgical techniques to the younger generations of surgeons to remind them how to do thoracotomy, sternotomy, and thoracolaparotomy etc. This project will probably happen in the next two years.
MED: As a reviewer and editorial board member of various journals, what insights can you share about the publishing process in this field?
Dr. Zielinski: There is great interest in minimally invasive operations done via VATS or RATS, such as segmentectomies done with robots. This is a hot topic, especially in Asia, as there is a high incidence of ground-glass opacity (GGO)-type lung cancer, which is a less invasive type of lung cancer. These minimally invasive techniques are necessary and valuable.
MED: How has your experience been as an Editorial Board Member of MED? As the Associate Editor-in-Chief, what are your expectations for MED?
Dr. Zielinski: I believe that MED is an important journal, as it is devoted to the problems of the mediastinum, and I am very honored to be involved in the publication of the articles in MED. The importance of the journal will undoubtedly continue to grow, and I hope the highest-quality authors will continue to publish in the journal.