Steven J. Phillips, M.D.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL STEVEN J. PHILLIPS, M.D.

Dr. Steven Phillips is the Director, Specialized Information Services, and Associate Director, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health & Human Services. Dr. Phillips was on active duty from 1968-70. He served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne, the 27th Surgical Hospital and then at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. In 1970 he returned to Vietnam with a research team to study the effects of altitude on the wounded being flown from Vietnam to the Philippines and Japan. He remained a reserve officer until his retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1993. He is a life member of the 101st Airborne Association and an invited Associate Life Member of the UDT/SEAL Association. Dr. Phillips is on the Board of the Vietnam Wall Memorial Reception Center.

On February 1, 2007, Dr. Phillips returned to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), as an Associated Director to lead the NLM in establishing a Disaster Information Management Research Center. The Center, which he directs and is located in the NLM Division of Specialized Information Services, is totally devoted to disaster informatics. It is the first of its kind in the world. Dr. Phillips is a graduate of Hobart College and Tufts Medical School and is board certified both in general and thoracic surgery.

In 1967, Dr. Phillips was on the team that implanted the first intraaortic balloon pump in a human, and performed the first heart transplant in the U.S. In 1974 he co-founded the Iowa Heart Center that has grown approximately 60 physicians, all specializing in cardiovascular disease. Dr. Phillips pioneered techniques for emergency coronary bypass surgery for evolving heart attacks, implanted the first artificial heart in Iowa, performed the first heart transplant in central Iowa, and invented the technology for percutaneous cardiopulmonary bypass.

In 1997, Dr. Phillips was interviewed by the White House search committee for the position of Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and in 1998 testified before the Full Committee on Commerce as a witness on the Implementation of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997. Dr. Phillips has received numerous military, scientific and humanitarian awards. He serves and has served on numerous corporate and medical society boards, and as president of national and international medical societies. He has approximately 125 peer reviewed medical publications and has been granted six patents.