Sarasota Memorial Health Care System has recruited Dr. Ralph P. Tufano, a widely recognized leader in the management of thyroid/parathyroid disease, to oversee its first multi-specialty practice dedicated to the care and treatment of patients with thyroid nodules, cancers and other diseases and disorders of the thyroid and parathyroid glands.

Tufano joined Sarasota Memorial First Physicians Group in July. He comes to Sarasota from Baltimore, where he spent the past 20 years as a professor, researcher, practicing surgeon and director of the Multi-Disciplinary Thyroid Tumor Center and division of Head and Neck Endocrine Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is board-certified in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and fellowship trained in head and neck surgical oncology. Tufano specializes in the management of hyperparathyroidism, thyroid cancer, associated neck lymph node metastases, and advanced and invasive thyroid cancers.

At SMH's new First Physicians Group Thyroid and Parathyroid Center, Tufano will work collaboratively Dr. Mark A. Lupo in the medical management of these diseases.