These are lists of notable surgeons.

Pioneers and firsts to perform particular procedures

• Silvano Raia - Raia was the first surgeon to achieve a successful living donor liver transplantation in July 1989
• B. K. Misra - First neurosurgeon in the world to perform image-guided surgery for aneurysms, first in South Asia to perform stereotactic radiosurgery, first in India to perform awake craniotomy and laparoscopic spine surgery.^[1]
• Claudius Amyand, performed the first Appendicectomy
• Christiaan Barnard, cardiac surgery, first heart transplantation
• William DeVries, first permanent artificial heart transplant
• Eric Mühe, first laparoscopic cholecystectomy
• Paul Randall Harrington, first interior fixation of the spine by means of a Harrington rod.
• John Heysham Gibbon (1903–1973), first open heart surgery
• Simon Hullihen, The Father of Oral Surgery
• John Hunter, first aneurysm operation and founder of early schools of anatomy
• Leonard B. Kaban, Walter C. Guralnick Professor and Chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University, pioneer in oral, maxillofacial and craniofacial surgery
• Richard Lehman (surgeon), pioneered several orthopedic surgeries
• Frederic E. Mohs, developed the Mohs Micrographic Surgery technique (MMS) aka Mohs surgery in 1938 to remove skin cancer lesions.
• Dallas B. Phemister, developed the Phemister graft and early innovator in orthopedics
• Theodore H. Schwartz, first center in New York City to use intraoperative MRI scanning during endoscopic pituitary surgery
• Lall Sawh, C.M.T., F.R.C.S.(Edin.). Kidney transplantation pioneer in the Caribbean and Latin America. Early proponent of Viagra.
• Michael Woodruff, transplantation pioneer.
• Sergelen Orgoi, developed low cost liver transplantation for developing countries

Researchers and inventors in the field of surgery

• Norman Bethune, Canadian thoracic surgeon and humanitarian, early proponent of universal health care and inventor of the first practical mobile blood transport unit.
• Victor Chang
• Svyatoslav Fyodorov (1927–2000), creator of radial keratotomy
• John Heysham Gibbon, invented the heart-lung machine.
• Henry Gray, author of Gray's Anatomy
• Moshe Gueron, best known for his pioneering research about human heart influences in result of scorpion sting.
• Gavril Ilizarov, Russian orthopedic surgeon who invented the procedure to lengthen or reshape limb bones.
• Walter Lawrence, Jr., surgical oncologist and leader in civil rights health equity efforts
• Lars Leksell, neurosurgery, inventor of radiosurgery
• Joseph Lister, discoverer of surgical asepsis
• Kakish Ryskulova, inventor of new techniques in vascular surgery
• Hilda Villegas Castrejón, Mexican surgeon and pioneer in electron microscopy
• Vivien Thomas, developer with Alfred Blalock and Helen B. Taussig of the first congenital heart surgery techniques