James McKiernan, MD

James McKiernan, MD is the John K. Lattimer Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology of the College of Physicians and Surgeons  and urologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. Columbia University /NewYork-Presbyterian’s urology program ranked No. 6 in the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of America’s best hospitals and ranked 7th in NIH grant funding among academic Urology departments in America.

Dr. McKiernan graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in biology and received his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his training in urology and general surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, followed by a urologic surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. McKiernan specializes in urologic oncology, particularly surgical therapy in high-risk patients with bladder and kidney cancers. His research, funded by NIH and biotechnology industry grants, focuses on developing novel therapeutics for bladder cancer treatment as well as comparative effectiveness research in urologic oncology. Dr. McKiernan’s research has been published in Cancer, Cancer Research, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA Oncology, Journal of Urology, Urologic Oncology, and Urology. He has authored and co-authored more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters on urologic oncology.  He has served as the Vice Chair for the AJCC TNM Staging Task Force, as well as the AUA Guidelines Panel on non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. In addition, Dr. McKiernan directs is the clinical trials program of experimental therapeutics in bladder cancer at Columbia University, which investigates new agents for bladder preservation in patients whose cancer has recurred after standard therapy. In collaboration with researchers at Columbia’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, his team continues to develop new therapeutic strategies for managing bladder cancer.