John Phillip Gearhart

Gearhart, a director of pediatric urology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, was born in Lexington, Kentucky. He completed his B.S. at the Morehead State University in Kentucky in 1971. Gearhart received his M.D. from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1975. After an internship in surgery and residencies in surgery and urology at the Medical College of Georgia, he completed a fellowship in pediatric urology at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital of the University of Liverpool School of Medicine in 1981.

Following two years as a urologist at St. Mary’s Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, he completed a second fellowship in pediatric urology at Johns Hopkins in 1985 and joined the Johns Hopkins faculty as an associate professor of pediatric urology. In 1991, Gearhart was named director of pediatric urology at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1995 he was appointed professor of pediatric urology.

Gearhart’s expertise covers ambiguous genitalia, bladder exstrophy, urologic birth defects, and pediatric urologic surgery. His research interests include congenital birth defects, disorders of sexual development, and childhood urinary cancers. He also directs a long-term follow-up study of children born with ambiguous genitalia.

Throughout his career Gearhart has published hundreds of articles and contributed chapters to many scientific texts. He has been invited to lecture across the U.S. and overseas. In 2008, he was awarded Fellowship ad hominem of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. Gearhart received the Distinguished Alumnus award from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2009. He is a founding member of the Society of Reconstructive Genitourinary Surgeons.