[5] Sugarbaker spent his high school and college years helping his father in the operating room, visiting patients outside of town, and becoming interested in medicine.
Following the completion of his residency training, Sugarbaker was appointed chief at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where he founded and built the first non-cardiac division of thoracic surgery in the United States.
[4] In addition to his career at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Sugarbaker began as Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School in 1999.
[15] Sugarbaker's clinical practice was focused in general thoracic surgery, specifically the surgical treatment of benign and malignant disorders of the lung, pleura, esophagus, chest wall, and mediastinum.
[17] The goal of Sugarbaker's project was to uncover potential targets for therapy in cancer through the development of new bioinformatic tools and functional analysis algorithms.
[18][7] Castle Connolly has annually named Sugarbaker as one of "America's Top Doctors" since 2002 and gave him special distinctions in 2007 and 2009.
[22] In 2013, he received the Henry D. Chadwick Medal, the highest honor awarded by the Massachusetts Pulmonary Section of the American Lung Association of the Northeast's Medical & Scientific Branch for meritorious contributions in the study and treatment of thoracic diseases.
His vision, focus and dedication to advancing the treatment of mesothelioma have influenced an entire generation of thoracic surgeons."