The majority of his surgical training was undertaken at The Royal Melbourne Hospital with a Fellowship year in Cardiac and General Thoracic Surgery at The University of Virginia, Charlottesville Virginia USA. His current work includes all aspects of Adult Thoracic Surgery including care of patients with malignancies of the chest. His practice spans advanced Bronchoscopy with Laser and stenting to advanced pulmonary resections, including advanced Bronchoscopy with Laser and stenting to advanced Pulmonary resections including video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) Lobectomy. He is the Director of the Lung Tumour Stream at RMH and has a strong interest in multi-disciplinary lung cancer care, having consolidated the Multi-Disciplinary Clinic at the Royal Melbourne Hospital into a busy and comprehensive clinical and research service. He also has an active role in the Trauma Unit at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Phillip is committed to research and teaching and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery at the University of Melbourne. He pursues an active teaching role for medical students, residents and nursing staff as well as specialist trainees in Cardiothoracic Surgery. He has developed and runs a Thoracic Fellowship program for training senior registrars in advanced Thoracic Surgical Oncology, as well as training medical students, residents, trainees and nursing staff. He also acts as a preceptor for industry in training other Thoracic surgeons in minimally invasive thoracic surgery including VATS lobectomy.
Special interests in medical informatics has led Phillip to develop systems including electronic patient records and audit and research databases.

As well as medicine, Phillip studied music at the University of Melbourne and is an active musician and viola player. He founded and directs the highly acclaimed doctors’ orchestra in Melbourne called Corpus Medicorum, which performs regularly, including international tours, and raises funds through the Royal Melbourne Hospital Foundation for Lung Cancer Research. In January 2020, Phillip received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to Thoracic Surgery and to Music.