Philip Adler, MD

St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital

Tampa

“An agent of change to provide equal medical care for people of all races,” is how a local Public Broadcasting Station recently described Dr. Philip Adler.  They were specifically referring to bold action that championed the complete racial desegregation of a Tampa hospital in the 1960s, but could just as easily have been describing his visionary role in the 1990s that led to mandatory chicken pox vaccinations for all children in Florida.  Because during a medical career that has spanned nearly 50 years, Dr. Adler has made countless impressions on the community he serves – one patient at a time.

Colleagues describe Dr. Adler’s absolute commitment to children and their families as “untethered.”  This passion was evident shortly after Dr. Adler’s arrival in Tampa back in 1958.

Then a sleepy, backwater community, Tampa was not unlike most other Florida cities where housing, schools, places of worship and healthcare were segregated.  With a number of “white” hospitals but only one “black” hospital, the differences were huge. While a “white” hospital could boast state-of-the-art technology, air-conditioning and a highly-trained medical staff, the “black” hospital was just a collection of ramshackle wooden buildings at the bottom of a dirt road by the Hillsborough River.  There was no A/C or comfortable rooms for the patients served here – just some hard-working nurses stretched beyond their capabilities without any doctors committed solely to the facility.

One morning in 1964, Dr. Adler was in the midst of his quarterly rotation to Clara Fry (the “black” hospital) when he came upon a haunting sight.  Fifteen small, premature babies weighing less than five pounds each were dying, even as a brand new NICU stood just a short distance away.  Shook up by the sheer volume, and overwhelmed with responsibility to save these infants, Dr. Adler conceived a plan:  call for backup and transfer these smallest of patients to the local community hospital.  The fact that no black patient had ever been admitted there was just something he would deal with once the infants were safe.  Dr. Adler’s compassion for the most fragile in our community opened doors for all the minority patients in our community.

Dr. Adler has since become the benchmark for child advocacy.  His original practice, which was located across from the original St. Joseph’s Hospital, was the referral center for unfunded children who were discharged from the hospital’s emergency department because no one else would see these patients.

As the community grew, so did the need for its children to have a hospital of their own.  Despite many hurdles that often seemed insurmountable, Dr. Adler worked with his colleagues to push the effort.  Finally, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital became a reality.  Today, Tampa enjoys one of the most successful children’s hospitals in the country because of Dr. Adler and his leadership.  A member of St. Joseph’s medical staff since 1958, Dr. Adler not only continues to practice medicine here but also serves as vice-chairman of the board of St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Adler is board-certified in pediatrics.  He received his undergraduate degree and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Vermont.  He completed his internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and served as Chief Resident for the Medical Out-Patient Department and as a teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School.  He has published several articles in professional journals and is active in the community serving as Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee for Accent Health and as a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics for the University of South Florida.  Dr. Adler is a member of the Hillsborough County Pediatric Society, the Hillsborough County Medical Association, the Florida Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Michael D. Aubin, COO,

St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital