Meet Your Surgeons

Jim Norman, MD, FACS, FACE

Dr Norman operates at Memorial Hospital of Tampa alongside Dr Tobias Carling.

Dr. James Norman is the founder of the Norman Parathyroid Center, and is by far the most experienced parathyroid surgeon in the world. He is considered the “father” of minimally invasive parathyroid surgery after a number of discoveries and developments in the early and mid-1990’s while he was Professor of Surgery and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of South Florida. He also held the position of Director of Endocrine Surgery at USF and the Director of Surgical Core Research Laboratory. These discoveries and inventions led to a novel operative approach for the localization, identification, and real-time evaluation of parathyroid glands that transformed a 4-hour exploratory operation into a 20-minute out-patient procedure.

For two decades, Dr Norman has been the leading international voice for innovation in parathyroid surgery and for the understanding of the long-term effects of hyperparathyroidism. No doctor of this generation has had as much of an impact on endocrine surgery as he has.

Dr Norman is a member of more than 20 medical societies, and is one of only a handful of surgeons who is also a fellow of the American College of Endocrinology (FACE). He has been recognized as one of America’s Top Surgeons for 15 years and is rated in the top 1% of all surgeons by US News and World Reports. His career has been highlighted by dozens of local, national and international awards. He has published more than 250 medical journal articles as well as 12 books and/or book chapters. Dr Norman and his team have published the 8 largest parathyroid articles of all time (most patients). He holds 6 US and foreign patents including the patent for the techniques and tools used in radioguided parathyroidectomy.

Dr Norman was a central member of the prestigious Moffitt Cancer Center team that helped develop sentinel lymph node mapping for breast cancer and melanoma. He has received more than $4.2 million in federal and industry grants to support his research, including grants from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.

Dr Norman (he prefers to be called “Jim”) is an entrepreneur surgeon, having re-defined parathyroid surgery in the operating room and now through the use of innovative diagnostic tools, mobile apps, and software programs. The CalciumPro app has helped over 100,000 patients and doctors diagnose hyperparathyroidism.

One of Dr Norman’s greatest skills is in team building and changing processes. As you know, getting you to this point was probably the easiest and most organized medical experience of your life. He has assembled the “Dream Team” of the world’s best endocrine surgeons at the Norman Parathyroid Center and sister-centers, the Clayman Thyroid Cancer Center and the Carling Adrenal Center.

Norman’s clinical interests are now primarily within re-operative parathyroid surgery–the most difficult and challenging parathyroid cases. It is estimated that Dr Norman has performed over 22,000 parathyroid operations including over 1600 parathyroid re-operations.