Your Pee Is Full of Bacteria (And That's Great News)

Philippe Zimmern

Dr. Philippe Zimmern Philippe E. Zimmern, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Urology at UT Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center. Dr. Zimmern received his medical training and completed his doctoral thesis at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris. After completing a Urology residency training program in France, Dr. Zimmern spent a fellowship year at the University of California, Los Angeles with Shlomo Raz, M.D. This year was a turning point in Dr. Zimmern’s career, as he elected to take the Federation Licensing Examination (FLEX) and redo his Urology training in the United States. After graduating from UCLA in 1988, Dr. Zimmern joined Gary Leach, M.D., at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Los Angeles, where he assumed the position of co-director of the Urodynamics Laboratory and director of the Urology Research Program for the next seven years. After the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, which demolished part of his home, Dr. Zimmern and his family moved to Dallas, where he joined the faculty at UT Southwestern. Dr. Zimmern assumes journalistic responsibility for several journals of urology, including in France and the United States. He has co-authored more than 445 peer-reviewed publications, 71 book chapters, and 43 films on female urology reconstructive procedures related to the management of urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapses. He has also edited the textbook Female Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery (2003) with Professor Stuart Stanton, the textbook Multidisciplinary Management of Female Pelvic Floor Disorders (2006) with Drs. Chapple, Brubaker, Smith, and Bo, and a third textbook, Vaginal Surgery for Incontinence and Prolapse, with Drs. Norton, Haab, and Chapple (2007). A fourth textbook edited by Springer, Native Tissue Repair for Incontinence and Prolapse, was released in April 2017 with Elise J.B. De, M.D. Dr. Zimmern is a well-established national and international lecturer who continues to deliver presentations annually at main specialty meetings such as the Society for Female Urology and Urodynamics (SUFU), the International Continence Society, the European Association of Urology, and the American Urological Association. Dr. Zimmern is the recipient of the 1997 Paul Zimskind Urodynamic Society Award and was appointed to the Felecia and John Cain Distinguished Chair in Women’s Health in honor of Philippe E. Zimmern, M.D., in 2019. In 2021, the Marie and Bernard Zimmern Fund in Female Urology was established in his honor. He is a past president of SUFU and in 2011 was the recipient of the SUFU Distinguished Service Award. In 2012, he received the prestigious Continence Care Champion Award from the National Association for Continence. He is certified in urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery (URPS) and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. In 2019, he received the inaugural Leaders in Excellence Award at UT Southwestern. The Cain Foundation recently provided a major endowment for a new “John and Felecia Cain Center for Bladder Health”, which Dr. Zimmern started to direct in February 2024. In 2026, he received the Inaugural UTSW Medical Student Research Mentor of the year award and the SUFU Blaivas Lectureship – Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Zimmern, in association with Gary Lemack, M.D., Maude Carmel, M.D., and Christina Sze, M.D., directs a two-year ACGME-approved program in urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery. In tribute to Dr. Zimmern, this URPS fellowship program has been endowed in perpetuity by the Cain Foundation. Dr. Zimmern’s clinical and research interests include female urology (incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse), urinary tract infections, mesh complications, voiding dysfunction, vesicovaginal fistula, urethral diverticulum, robotics, and urodynamics.