Alistair Phillips, MD

About Alistair Phillips, MD

Alistair Phillips, MD, is a pediatric and congenital heart surgeon in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute. He sees patients at Cleveland Clinic main campus.

Specialty Interests: Neonatal congenital heart surgery, Arterial switch, Norwood, Hybrid Stage I, Repair truncus arteriosus, Interrupted aortic arch; Repair aortic arch and coarctation complex congenital heart disease; single ventricle repair (including bi-directional Glenn Comprehensive Stage 2 and Fontan procedures); vascular rings; atrial, ventricular and atrioventricular septal defects; Tetralogy of Fallot; Down syndrome; aortic surgery, including Marfan and Loeys-Dietz syndromes; adult congenital surgery; pulmonary valve replacement; electrophysiology in congenital heart disease; blood conservation; heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support; valvular heart disease – Ebstein’s Anomaly, Ross Procedure and complex valve repair. Quality Improvement and Process Improvement.

Education: Dr. Phillips earned his medical degree from the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University, New York, NY. He served his surgical internship and residency at The New York Hospital followed by a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at Cornell University, New York. He continued his training as a surgical resident at New York Presbyterian Hospital - Weill Cornell Medical Center, serving as Chief Resident in the final year of his residency. During his residency he completed a separate six-month fellowship in thoracic surgery at Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center, also in New York. Following his surgical residency, he served a pacemaker/defibrillator fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital – Columbia University Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in pediatric cardiac surgery at Children’s Hospital of New York, also part of Presbyterian Hospital - Columbia University Medical Center. He was named to the Cleveland Clinic medical staff in 2018.

Experience: Cleveland Clinic congenital heart surgeons annually perform more than 150 adult surgeries and nearly 200 pediatric surgeries. In 2017 the Cleveland Clinic mortality rate was 0% for adult congenital and 2.95% pediatric congenital surgeries, both lower than the expected rates. Over the course of his career, Dr. Phillips has performed nearly 5,000 heart surgeries.

Research, Speaking and Publications: Since 2009 Dr. Phillips has been involved in more than a dozen laboratory and clinical research projects related to advancing the understanding and treatment of congenital heart disease in children and adults. He has been an invited lecturer and presenter at more than 150 medical conferences across the United States and around the world, speaking on innovations for managing and treating congenital heart disease. Dr. Phillips has coauthored numerous papers and abstracts published in peer-reviewed national and international medical journals, including Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, and has coauthored chapters in pediatric cardiac surgery textbooks.

About Dr. Phillips: “I am very fortunate to be able to use my skills working as part of a greater team to help my patients with congenital heart disease to live a fuller, longer life. By working as a team, including the family and patient, we can decrease the impact of the heart condition over the patient’s entire lifetime. We are able to do this by designing the best hearts for life for each patient using innovation, teamwork and long-term planning.”

Leisure Activities: In his leisure time Dr. Phillips enjoys spending time with his family, skiing, golf and volunteering on medical mission trips to Latin America. As Surgical Team Captain for Heart Care International, a nonprofit organization that provides life-saving congenital heart care to children around the world, he has participated in more than a dozen medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peru and Mexico.

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