Hi there,
It takes five to seven years of General Surgery residency plus 2 years of fellowship to become a cardiothoracic surgeon. The extra two years are research years as most of the fellowships want to see some meaningful research. Also, be ready to try to match into primarily university based programs or very, very strong community programs because cardiothoracic fellowships are fairily competitive.
The job market is pretty dismal right now but lots of things change in seven to nine years. You can't try to go into a speciality based on what you think the projected job outlook will be. There are always jobs for outstanding performers.
As far as lifestyle, the CT guys around here LOVE what they do and they do plenty of work as UVA is a CT-heavy center (our chairman is a CT surgeon). Sometimes (rarely) they are operating late into the night (on a transplant) but most of the time, they will do a couple of cases each day. There are two guys who do primarily thoracic and about five guys that do cardio. They all seem to be pretty busy.
Good luck!
njbmd
