Image of John Gerard Meara

John G Meara, D.M.D., M.D.

Boston Children's Hospital Professor of Surgery in the Field of Pediatric Plastic Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital
Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
617-355-2313

John G. Meara, MD, DMD, MBA is the Director of the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, and Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Meara serves as the Plastic Surgeon-in-Chief of the Department of Plastic & Oral Surgery at Boston Children's Hospital.   He was Co-Chair for the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and was a commissioner on the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era, and the Lancet Oncology Commission.   He currently serves as a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Diagnostics.  In 2008 he created the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship program. He is also interested in value-based health care and implementation science research, including time driven activity-based cost research and outcomes research.  Dr. Meara has led several ICHOM projects focusing on outcomes reporting and international benchmarking. 

Affiliations
Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital

Contact Information
Harvard Medical School
Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
641 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Boston Children's Hospital
Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery

Assistant
Marshalee Bowens

Dr. Meara's interests and innovation activities lie in the areas of craniofacial anomalies, cleft lip and cleft palate, but he has a particular interest in augmenting the delivery of quality surgical and anesthesia care in low-resource settings through long term capacity building. He is involved in multiple global surgery projects looking at the burden of surgical disease, the surgical capacity and health systems building in low-resource environments, surgical education and the economic impact of untreated surgical disease. He is also interested in value based health care and implementation science research, including time driven activity based cost research and outcomes research. Dr. Meara has led several ICHOM projects focusing on outcomes reporting and international benchmarking. Since 2008, he has directed the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship program in collaboration with Partners In Health. Its purpose is to strengthen global surgical systems through a combination of research, advocacy, and implementation science as well as train leaders who will further promote surgical care, education, and research pertinent to global surgery.

Research Interests

Surgeon migration between developing countries and the United States: train, retain, and gain from brain drain.
Authors: Authors: Hagander LE, Hughes CD, Nash K, Ganjawalla K, Linden A, Martins Y, Casey KM, Meara JG.
World J Surg
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Distance to hospital and utilization of surgical services in Haiti: do children, delivering mothers, and patients with emergent surgical conditions experience greater geographical barriers to surgical care?
Authors: Authors: Friedman JM, Hagander L, Hughes CD, Nash KA, Linden AF, Blossom J, Meara JG.
Int J Health Plann Manage
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The Haiti Breast Cancer Initiative: Initial Findings and Analysis of Barriers-to-Care Delaying Patient Presentation.
Authors: Authors: Sharma K, Costas A, Damuse R, Hamiltong-Pierre J, Pyda J, Ong CT, Shulman LN, Meara JG.
J Oncol
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The critical state of graduate medical education funding.
Authors: Authors: Metzler I, Ganjawalla K, Kaups KL, Meara JG.
Bull Am Coll Surg
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Survey of surgery and anesthesia infrastructure in Ethiopia.
Authors: Authors: Chao TE, Burdic M, Ganjawalla K, Derbew M, Keshian C, Meara J, McQueen K.
World J Surg
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Nasoalveolar molding in cleft care: is it efficacious?
Authors: Authors: Abbott MM, Meara JG.
Plast Reconstr Surg
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Training global surgery fellows.
Authors: Authors: Sullivan SR, Hughes CD, Raymonville M, Rogers SO, Steer ML, Meara JG.
Bull Am Coll Surg
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The clinical and economic impact of a sustained program in global plastic surgery: valuing cleft care in resource-poor settings.
Authors: Authors: Hughes CD, Babigian A, McCormack S, Alkire BC, Wong A, Pap SA, Vincent JR, Meara JG, Castiglione C, Silverman R.
Plast Reconstr Surg
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Health information technology, meaningful use criteria, and their effects on surgeons.
Authors: Authors: Friedman J, Metzler I, Detmer D, Selzer D, Meara JG.
Bull Am Coll Surg
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Public reporting of healthcare data: a new frontier in quality improvement.
Authors: Authors: Sharma K, Metzler I, Chen S, Mayer JE, Meara J.
Bull Am Coll Surg
View full abstract on Pubmed