A graduate of the University of Western Australia, Dr Wearne trained in Perth and later began paediatric training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. He then worked in adolescent psychiatry in New York and completed a Fellowship at the Royal Children's and Royal Women's Hospitals in Melbourne. 

Dr Wearne was a Neonatal Paediatrician at the Royal Women's Hospital and the Assistant Director of the Newborn Emergency Transport Service (NETS) before coming to Bendigo thirty years ago. In addition to his paediatric practice he has trained as a forensic physician. 

Dr Wearne has broad interests in general, neonatal, developmental, behavioural and forensic paediatrics. For the last thirteen years he has been a member of the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity. In 2019 Dr Wearne retired the Director of Paediatrics and Child Health for the Monash University Regional Clinical School, but he continues as a lecturer.