Makary is an advocate for disruptive innovation in medicine and physician-led initiatives, such as a surgical checklist that he developed at Johns Hopkins.

[4][5][6][7] In November 2024, President-Elect Donald Trump announced Makary would be his nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as its commissioner.

Makary completed a surgical residency at Georgetown University[10] in Washington D.C. where he also worked as a writer for The Advisory Board Company.

[19][20] Makary's research led to several partnerships, including a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, to study obesity treatment,[21] and a grant from the same agency to implement safety programs at 100 U.S. hospitals, a project he collaborated on with Peter Pronovost and the American College of Surgeons.

[citation needed] Makary also advocates for price transparency and has led efforts to ask hospitals to stop suing their low-income patients.

His article "The Orphan Drug Act: Restoring the Mission to Rare Diseases",[26] covered by Kaiser Heath News,[27] led Senator Chuck Grassley's office to announce an investigation.

[33][independent source needed] Makary has also been an outspoken opponent of vaccine mandates, various FDA and CDC policies, and restrictions at colleges and universities.

[34] In addition Makary called for a national lockdown to help slow the spread of the virus and enable the healthcare system to respond and reduce morbidity and mortality.

[verification needed] In May 2020, Makary advocated for universal masking in an effort to enable businesses and schools to re-open to minimize economic and educational damage across the United States.

[42] Makary is the author of the New York Times Best Selling book Unaccountable, in which he proposes that common sense, physician-led solutions can fix the healthcare system.

[45] Makary is also the author of Mama Maggie a personal story about his distant relative Magda Gobran, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee working in the garbage slums of Cairo.

[46][47][48] Makary's 2018 book The Price We Pay describes how business leaders can lower their healthcare costs and explores the grass-roots movement to restore medicine to its noble mission.

[51] In this book, he examined cases where medicine got science wrong, such as the insistence that opioids are not addictive or urging consumers to avoid foods high in fat.