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

Promoting climate-resilient health systems through national surgical plans.
Authors: Authors: Gerk A, Forbes C, Wurdeman T, Kumar N, McLeod EJ, Meara JG, Jimbo-Sotomayor R, McClain CD, Garcia Fuentes MJ, Uribe-Leitz T, Vega AB.
Lancet Reg Health Am
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Surgery and the first 8000 days of life: a review.
Authors: Authors: Seyi-Olajide J, Ali A, Powell WF, Samad L, Banu T, Abdelhafeez H, Maswime S, Abbas A, Ademuyiwa A, Ameh EA, Abib S, Aziz T, Bickler S, Bundy D, Chowdhury TK, Echeto MA, Evans F, Gathuya Z, Gray R, Hodges S, Jamison D, Klazura G, Lakhoo K, Martin B, Meara J, Nabukenya M, Newton M, Ozgediz D, Rai E, Philipo GS, Sykes A, Yap A.
Int Health
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Building resilient surgical systems that can withstand external shocks.
Authors: Authors: Glasbey JC, Ademuyiwa AO, Chu K, Dare A, Harrison E, Hutchinson P, Hyman G, Lawani I, Martin J, Martinez L, Meara J, Reddy KS, Sullivan R.
BMJ Glob Health
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Health systems strengthening through surgical and perioperative care pathways: a changing paradigm.
Authors: Authors: Kamarajah S, Ademuyiwa AO, Atun R, Cieza A, Agyei F, Ghosh D, Henry JCA, Lawani S, Meara J, Morton B, Park KB, Morton DG, Reynolds T, Ghaffar A.
BMJ Glob Health
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Discussion: Speech Outcomes and Rates of Secondary Speech Surgery from Childhood to Skeletal Maturity following Modified Furlow Palatoplasty.
Authors: Authors: Rogers-Vizena CR, Meara JG.
Plast Reconstr Surg
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Expansion of national surgical, obstetric, and anaesthesia plans in Latin America: can Brazil be next?
Authors: Authors: Gerk A, Campos LN, Telles L, Bustorff-Silva J, Schnitman G, Ferreira R, Uribe-Leitz T, Ferreira RV, Mooney D, Colleoni R, Falcão LF, Alonso N, Meara JG, Vega AB, Ferreira J, Botelho F.
Lancet Reg Health Am
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Task-sharing spinal anaesthesia care in three rural Indian hospitals: a non-inferiority randomised controlled clinical trial.
Authors: Authors: Menon N, George R, Kataria R, Manoharan R, Brooks MB, Pendleton A, Sheshadri V, Chatterjee S, Rajaleelan W, Krishnan J, Sandler S, Saluja S, Ljungman D, Raykar N, Svensson E, Wasserman I, Zorigtbaatar A, Jesudian G, Afshar S, Meara JG, Peters AW, McClain CD.
BMJ Glob Health
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Immediate Impact of a Patient-Reported Outcome Measure Visual Dashboard on Cleft lip and Palate Care Provision.
Authors: Authors: Bushman NT, Nguyen T, Incorvia J, Meara JG, Ganske IM, Rogers-Vizena C.
Cleft Palate Craniofac J
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Multidisciplinary Velopharyngeal Dysfunction Evaluation Helps Detect Non-classic Cases of 22q11.2 Deletion.
Authors: Authors: Stanek K, Wang AT, Hseu AF, Clark RE, Meara JG, Nuss RC, Ganske IM, Rogers-Vizena CR.
Cleft Palate Craniofac J
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Digital solutions for rare diseases in global health.
Authors: Authors: Gerk A, Kundu S, Meara JG, Stegmann J.
Lancet Glob Health
View full abstract on Pubmed