Eliot Phillipson received his MD with distinction in 1963, and his Master of Science (Medicine) in 1965, both from the University of Alberta.
Following postgraduate training in internal medicine, he undertook research training at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California San Francisco. In 1971 he was recruited back to Canada, to the University of Toronto, as a clinician-scientist, with a research focus in the regulation of respiration. From 1987 to 1997, Dr. Phillipson served as physician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1993 he was appointed Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine, a position he will hold until June.
The Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto is the largest academic department of any university in Canada, with over 400 full-time and 300 part-time faculty. During Dr. Phillipson’s tenure as chair, research funding of the department doubled to reach over $60 million annually, with over 50 members of the department holding external career support awards. The department recently underwent a formal external review that has placed it among the leading departments of medicine in North America.
Throughout his career, Dr. Phillipson has received numerous honours and awards. Notably, he is an elected member of the prestigious American Society for Clinical Investigation (1979) and the Association of American Physicians (1991), and past president of the Canadian Association of Professors of Medicine (1997-1998) and the Canadian Institute of Academic Medicine (2000-2002). Later this year, he will receive the President’s Award of the European Respiratory Society. He has been a continuous recipient of Medical Research Council/Canadian Institutes of Health Research funding support since 1971. Dr. Phillipson’s research has allowed the development of a conceptual framework of the physiological mechanisms involved in the regulation of respiration during sleep, and forms the basis for understanding several sleep-related breathing disorders.
Eliot Phillipson will begin his new responsibilities at the Canada Foundation for Innovation on July 1, 2004.
