New Patient Appointment Accepting Virtual Visits or 214-645-8765
Philippe E. Zimmern, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Urology at UT Southwestern 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 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 430 peer-reviewed publications, 68 book chapters, and 43 films on female urology reconstructive procedures related to the management of incontinence and vaginal 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 significant endowment for a new John and Felecia Cain Center for Bladder Health, which Dr. Zimmern started to direct in February 2024.
Dr. Zimmern, in association with Gary Lemack, M.D., Maude Carmel, M.D., and Ramy Goueli, 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 prolapse), urinary tract infections, mesh complications, voiding dysfunction, vesicovaginal fistula, urethral diverticulum, robotics, and urodynamics.
Philippe Zimmern, M.D., has a message of hope for people who suffer from incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.
“Just because your mother and grandmother lived with it, that doesn’t mean you have to,” he says. "Providing quality of life is the essence of what we do."
As Director of the Bladder and Incontinence Treatment Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dr. Zimmern treats a variety of conditions that affect women (and some men), offering solutions that range from rehabilitation to medications and surgery.
“I enjoy giving people the chance to sleep at night, to travel, to not have to wear protection or pads – activities that their conditions might otherwise have limited,” says Dr. Zimmern, a Texas Monthly Super Doctor.
One of Dr. Zimmern’s particular areas of specialty is vaginal surgery for pelvic organ prolapse, a condition in which the bladder, uterus, or rectum “drops,” or prolapses, into the vagina. He offers a procedure that uses a patient’s own tissues to fix the problem. He’s also an expert in repairing complications stemming from other procedures performed to repair prolapse, including mesh complications.
In addition to his work with patients, Dr. Zimmern actively participates in research related to incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and recurrent urinary tract infections. He and a team from UT Southwestern were integral members of the National Institutes of Health’s Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network, a multicenter group at the forefront of clinical trials and high-quality research in the field. His current research focuses on women’s health topics related to urology, with NIH grants (R 01 and R 21) in collaboration with several Ph.D. collaborators on the UTSW campus, and at UT Dallas and UT Arlington.
Dr. Zimmern leads the research section of UT Southwestern’s fellowship training in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery (FPMRS), one of only a few such programs in the country.
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New Patient Appointment Accepting Virtual Visits or 214-645-8765
