Lindsay Phillips
Lindsay Phillips is the Physician/Medical Director in the Student Health Center.
Dr. Lindsay Phillips is a family physician. After 20 years of practicing full spectrum family medicine (caring for patients of all ages) in the Rochester community, she joined RIT as the Medical Director of Student Health in 2018. She enjoys teaching medical students and residents. Current volunteer work has been with the UR Well free clinic at St Joseph’s Neighborhood Center and with Keeping Our Promise supporting newly arrived Afghan refugees.
1-3. How do you teach or exemplify Applied Critical Thinking? Why do you think Applied Critical Thinking is important in your domain or role? Can you share a story where quality Applied Critical Thinking was key to your success?
Writing this, I collapsed these three questions into one response. Critical Thinking is important for each of my professional roles at RIT. In my role as Medical Director for the Student Health Center, I provide advice and guidance for issues that may impact the health of the entire RIT population e.g. influenza, GI Illness or sexually transmitted infections. I also provide care for individual students in the Health Center. Recently as the COVID pandemic was unfolding, we had to review and digest information from multiple sources in order to provide guidance for RIT COVID policies. In that process, we evaluated the information sources for credibility; assessed the biological plausibility to help extrapolate information as needed and; the considered the potential impact of various interventions. Working through those steps is crucial to inform good policy and furthermore helps one explain the recommended course of action in logical, understandable ways. It’s important to note that this process, as I experienced during the pandemic, is an ongoing process with action yielding new information and questions that then need to be incorporated into future action and policies.
A similar mental discipline is needed when evaluating a person for illness. Information is gathered initially through conversation and observation. This then directs the physical exam for more relevant details. Finally lab testing or imaging may be needed. Each of these steps takes us through developing a differential diagnosis or list of what could potentially be wrong. Critical thinking in this instance involves weighing the relative importance of particular symptoms and assessing the risk involved in particular diagnoses to ultimately determine what testing to do and then treatment path to undertake.
4. How do you use critical thinking in other areas of your life outside of RIT?
Outside of my professional role, I recently purchased a house. That process involved assessing the house and what features mattered most to us, the neighborhood, the potential resale value and personal finances. This was done with my partner and so involved those steps in evaluating which was the right property. He wanted a garage. I wanted a walkable neighborhood. Two bathrooms was a plus. Even as I find the surprises inherent in a new home (huge tree limbs over the roof, no lights in the closets, steep road to get out of the neighborhood…) I take comfort in knowing the process we went through to make this decision was sound.
5. Any last critical thoughts?
Critical thinking emphasizes logic and yet emotion is an important component of the human experience. It is important to acknowledge and incorporate emotional context and consequences into our decision making processes as well. Critical thinking doesn’t negate that; it is a way to include logic and fact with emotion in developing a direction.