John L. Phillips, MD

Dr. Phillips is a board-certified urologic oncologist, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urology. He received his undergraduate education from Wesleyan University and double majored in Classics and Biology receiving University Honors. He graduated from Yale Medical School where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Student Research Scholar and received his urologic at Yale New Haven Hospital. He completed a fellowship in urologic oncology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and published original research in the genetics of kidney and prostate cancer. Dr. Phillips was invited to serve as staff surgeon at the NCI at the Walter Magnusson Clinical Center of the NIH and also served as Program Director of the Department of Urology at the United States National Naval Medical Center. He then joined the urologic staff at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York in 2003 at the dawn of robotic surgery for urologic cancers and became a specialist in robotic prostatectomy, partial nephrectomy, and cystectomy. He performed the first intracorporeal urinary diversion in New York in 2005. He has a strong focus on research to improve patient care having been awarded the Edward Beer Research award in 2007 and an Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program (ECRIP) award in 2019.

Dr. Phillips is an active member of numerous professional medical societies, including the American Urological Association, the Society of Urologic Oncology, and the Society of Academic Urology. He has participated extensively in organized medicine at both the national and regional levels and served as President of the New York State Urologic Society.

In recognition of his leadership and contributions to the field, Dr. Phillips was selected for the American Urological Association Leadership Program in 2008 and was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons the same year.

Dr. Phillips has authored numerous articles and books on urology, education, engineering, and history, serves as the Historian for the AUA, and created and serves as the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Urologic History (www.ijuh.org).

His focus as director of service in urology has been on improving patient access to care, communication, and outcomes research. He has a strong commitment to compassionate and innovative care and to reducing the burden of prostate cancer treatment­– physical, psychological, and monetary. He is a vocal advocate for standardizing an active surveillance regimen in patients with low-volume, early stage prostate cancer and began the focal therapy program in prostate cancer using Nanoknife at Westchester Medical Center, the first north of Manhattan. At the same time, by improving early prognostic capabilities, Dr. Phillips strives to identify which men may benefit from more aggressive early therapies.

Dr. Phillips also demonstrates his concern for patients’ quality of life in the operating room. His drive to perfect robotic nerve-sparing prostatectomy, continent forms of urinary diversion such as the 'neo-bladder', among others has led to many technical innovations. Dr. Phillips is proud to assist the clinical practice of 7 full time faculty members to be the outstanding center of clinical urology in the Hudson Valley.