Donald Phillips MD, MPH, FACNS

Dr. Donald J. Phillips is a board-certified pediatric epileptologist and neurophysiologist at CHOC in Orange County, California. As an expert in pediatric epilepsy, Dr. Phillips cares for babies, kids, teens, and young adults with a wide variety of epilepsy-related health conditions such as infantile spasms, Lennox Gastaut Syndrome (LGS), Dravet Syndrome and CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder. He specializes in medically complex epilepsy syndromes, surgical epilepsy, epileptic encephalopathy, tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), and pediatric intraoperative neuromonitoring.

Dr. Phillips is the interim medical director of the CHOC Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, medical director of the neurodiagnostic/EEG laboratory, and medical director of the CHOC Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) Clinic. In these roles, Dr. Phillips has worked to facilitate high-quality, accessible, and comprehensive care for all patients and families living with epilepsy and TSC.

His research interests include electrographic status epilepticus in sleep (ESES), epileptic encephalopathy, computational EEG, and epilepsy quality improvement (QI). Dr. Phillips is the site principal investigator for several clinical trials evaluating emerging pharmaceutical and medical device therapies for a variety of rare epilepsy syndromes.

Dr. Phillips earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Michigan and his master’s degree in public health from Boston University before obtaining his medical degree from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He completed his internship, residency, and fellowship in pediatric epilepsy at the University of California Los Angeles. He is a fellow of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society and a member of the American Epilepsy Society and the Orange County Medical Association.