Dr. Phillips has a unique practice focus that is a combination of plastic and reconstructive surgery, peripheral nerve surgery and hand surgery. His areas of interest include upper and lower extremity compression neuropathies, fractures of the hand and wrist, soft tissue reconstruction, arthritis of the hand, brachial plexus injuries and nerve transfers.
He found his passion for plastic surgery during his Emergency Medicine residency at Brown. From the onset of his training, he was drawn to the hand; its form and function are fascinating. He feels privileged to have trained under one of the country’s premier nerve surgeons, Dr. Susan McKinnon. Previously, Dr. Phillips worked in Virginia, splitting his time at the Medical College of Virginia Medical Center and the orthopedic hand clinic at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center. That combination exposed him to everything from carpal tunnel syndrome to finger replants.
His approach to patient care is to focus on getting people back to their regular activities, as the functional aspect of the hand is so important. But he believes his responsibility transcends that and spends a lot of time with patients to understand the mental impact of their injuries as well as the physical ones. He feels if he looks at what he does as just healing a wound or repairing a joint without taking into consideration how this affects a person’s quality of life, he is doing the patient a disservice.
Outside of medicine, everything focuses around his family. He and his wife have two young children. They never forget they are not only a doctor and a nurse; they are also a dad and a mom. One of their favorite things to do as a family, and that includes the dog, is to walk the town beach in Narragansett together. Dr. Phillips is also a runner and a huge professional sports fan. He loves to cook, and if he weren’t a doctor he would be a chef.
You may have heard the phrase “Medicine is an art.” At its earliest conception, the arts and humanities were integral to the practice of medicine. In Greek mythology, Apollo was the god of music and dance, healing and disease, poetry, truth and prophecy and more. The Hippocratic Oath is....
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For some they are a badge of honor after a wild mountain biking trip and for others they are a memento of a cut that occurred while attempting to remove an avocado pit with a steak knife. For many wound healing and scar formation occurs behind the scenes and little thought is given to it. But for some scarring can cause discomfort, decreased range of motion and emotional stress. The general approach is...
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Imagine having hand surgery without having to go to an operating room, fasting the night before or even changing out of your clothes. Wide awake hand surgery is well described by its other name, WALANT, which stands for wide awake local anesthesia no tourniquet. This surgical technique utilizes lidocaine and epinephrine to eliminate pain and decrease bleeding. With this approach there is no need for intravenous insertion, monitoring or a tourniquet.
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