Phillip Ley MD, FACS is a fellowship-trained surgical oncologist whose practice is now focused on breast cancer, melanoma, sarcoma, endocrine surgery and hereditary cancer risk assessment.
Originally from Needville, Texas, he obtained a BS in Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, then attended Baylor College of Medicine. After completing residency training in general surgery at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center/Baylor-Scott & White Clinic in Temple, Texas, Dr. Ley served as an NIH T32 Fellow in Surgical Oncology at the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston 1993-1996.
Arriving in Jackson in 1996, Dr. Ley brought new approaches such as sentinel node biopsy for breast cancer and melanoma, cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation of liver tumors, neoadjuvant therapy for breast conservation and sphincter preservation for low rectal cancers, to Mississippi.
He has published peer-reviewed articles on sentinel node biopsy and serves on numerous industry speakers’ bureaus and advisory boards. He spearheaded an effort to obtain federal and state matching funds to implement the CDC Breast and Cervical Screening program for low income women in Mississippi, along with lobbying the Mississippi legislature to approve the Mississippi Breast Awareness vehicle registration tag that has raised over two million dollars for breast cancer awareness, research and treatment through the Komen Foundation.
Dr. Ley’s current interests at Merit Health Surgical Oncology are oncoplastic breast surgery, genomic profiling, genetic counseling and hereditary cancer risk assessment, intralesional therapy of advanced melanoma, and regional nerve blocks for enhancement of patient operative experience, pain management and opioid-use reduction. He holds clinical faculty privileges at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and is building a hereditary cancer risk assessment outreach network in rural Mississippi using monthly satellite clinics and telemedicine. He was an attendee of the inaugural School of Oncoplastic Surgery at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas in 2007.