To establish a national profile of the current cardiothoracic surgery workforce and advise the Australian Government on workforce requirements to 2011, the Cardiothoracic Surgery Workforce Working Party brought down a report in May 2001 to The Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee. The survey data were taken from half the current Fellows of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons engaged in cardiothoracic surgery. Australian cardiothoracic surgeons are typically middle-aged males working more than 60 h per week. Their work has both private and public sector components and most surgeons provide services in both cardiac and thoracic surgery to an average catchment of 180 000 people. Concentrated in the capital cities, mainly on the eastern seaboard, they devote 90% of their working hours to service delivery, with little time spent in research and developmental aspects of their profession, or in administrative roles. The committee provided 10-year projections for surgical services, predicting an annual growth in service requirements of 1.8% in Australia to 2011. The report concludes that maintenance of the present intake of surgical trainees at five per year — offset by the projected retirements of 2.7 surgeons annually — will be sufficient to meet demand. This conclusion is based on an assumption of a decade of unchanged national health structures and patterns of workforce participation and service delivery.