Dr. Makary is an advocate for health care innovation, writing in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. He has written extensively on organizational culture, the science of measuring quality in medicine, and health care reform. Dr. Makary is principle investigator of a Robert Wood Foundation Grant to lower health care costs in the U.S. by creating physician-endorsed measures of appropriate medical care and directs the national “Improving Wisely” project to reduce waste in medicine. He speaks nationally on disruptive innovation in health care.

Dr. Makary is the author of two bestselling books: Mama Maggie—a book about a Nobel prize nominee—and Unaccountable, a book about health care transparency. Makary is a frequent medical commentator of NBC and FOX News, commenting on the health care cost crisis, the impact of new technology, and interpreting the latest medical research for everyday consumers. Dr. Makary is a surgical oncologist specializing in minimally-invasive surgery and teaches health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Makary is director of The Center for Opioid Research and Education and founder of SolveTheCrisis.org, a website that shares expert opioid prescribing recommendations for common medical procedures for clinicians and patients. The effort uses information to educate patients about opioids before they undergo surgery.

At Johns Hopkins he has served as the endowed chair of gastrointestinal surgery, director of surgical quality and safety, and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center For Surgical Outcomes Research and Clinical Trials. He has published over 250 scientific articles, including the first description of the surgical checklist, the first study of “frailty” influencing patient outcomes, and the first series of laparoscopic pancreas islet transplant operations. He performed the original studies on surgical “never events” and safety culture measurement in health care. He currently serves as the chief of the Johns Hopkins Center for Islet Transplantation and director of the appropriateness in medicine project at Johns Hopkins.