In the United Kingdom it was developed as a separate specialty from general surgery by Richard Welbourne and John Lynn, surgeons at what was then the 'Royal Postgraduate Medical School' and is now the Hammersmith Hospital and contains the Department of Thyroid and Endocrine Surgery staffed by consultant surgeons Professor Fausto Palazzo, Professor Neil Tolley and Miss Aimee Di Marco.

Incomplete resections (sub-total or near total thyroidectomy) are also infrequently performed, but are disfavored by most surgeons[citation needed].

Adrenalectomy, the surgical removal of the adrenal gland, is performed to treat conditions including Conn syndrome, pheochromocytoma, and adreno-cortical cancer.

In Surgery: Basic Science and Clinical Evidence, the book the efficacy prior research:[2] Surgeons and physicians have advanced endocrine surgery by careful description of unusual patients and families with endocrine syndromes...Surgeons have also improved techniques for preparation for surgery and methods...In the 1970s, a specialty training program at Hammersmith Hospital was the primary location for early work in training a large number of surgeons.

Some surgical teams leave wound drains in place after surgery to the thyroid gland.