SPOTLIGHT
Off Clock THE
JOE PHILLIPS, DIRECTOR OF CLINICAL SERVICES – DIAGNOSTICS AT CONNECTICUT CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL BY MATT SKOUFALOS
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or all his life, Joe Phillips has been a lover of the outdoors, music and science. Growing up in Chicopee, Massachusetts with a dad who worked in the aerospace industry and moonlighted as a saxophone player on weekends, he got plenty of all three. “As a young guy, I always thought of myself as somebody who couldn’t get enough out of these experiences in life,” Phillips said. “Since I was little, if I could’ve worked in being a fisherman, I would have.” Indeed, his initial inclinations would have led Phillips to a career as a fish biologist, but after discovering the statistics-heavy nature of the job, he transitioned into nuclear medicine. He still kept up with his passions, however. “I’m from a Polish background: hard-working, 16
ICEMAGAZINE | MARCH 2020
blue-collar people,” Phillips said. “My parents pushed hard for me to have a better life than they did, and along the way, the culture of fishing and music was important to me.” Fishing holds special significance for Phillips because, even as a hobby, it’s “very technical and very artful,” he said. He enjoys fly fishing, a pursuit that requires hours of dedication, making tiny lures out of feathers and thread. Each is designed to appear and behave like an insect species native to the waterways he fishes, and to approximate the real thing, Phillips will study the bugs he’s approximating “at the Latin level,” he said. Tying flies for the upcoming season is one of Phillips’ favorite ways to pass the wintry hours. He’ll take them to Lake Ontario to fish for salmon and steelhead in the fall, or up to the Battenkill River in Vermont, studying the river and the fish to see what they’ll bite and what they won’t. Put the wrong fly over a fish, and it’ll stop eating and scatter. ADVANCING THE IMAGING PROFESSIONAL
