Russell S. Phillips, MD, is Director of the Center for Primary Care and the William Applebaum Professor of Medicine and Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a devoted primary care general internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). Within the Center, he leads programs that are transforming education and care systems, developing entirely new approaches to improving primary care and health, and performing research on high-performing health systems and practices,and the impact of changes in payment and primary care practice structure on the finances of primary care practices. 

His prior work at BIDMC included serving as Chief of the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care for a decade. At the state level, he served on the Massachusetts Coordinating Council on the Patient Centered Medical Home.

A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University School of Medicine, he has held leadership roles in the Society of General Internal Medicine, serving as Chairperson of the Research Committee, and as President of the Association of Chiefs and Leaders in General Internal Medicine. His research has spanned disparities in care, screening for infection in office practice, patient safety, end-of-life care, and interventions to improve care for patients with chronic disease. He held a Mid-Career Mentorship Award (K24) from the NIH to support his mentoring activities.