Malcom E. Phelps
Malcom E. Phelps
“In the field of medicine he has been an innovator and a leader almost since the day he earned his medical degree.”
Biography
Dr. Malcom E. Phelps was born and raised in El Reno, Oklahoma, and graduated for the University of Oklahoma in 1926 before receiving his medical degree from Iowa State University in 1929. The son of Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice James I. Phelps, Dr. Phelps returned to El Reno to open his medical practice in 1931 and was field director of Project Vietnam, the American Association’s Volunteer Physicians for Vietnam, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. A founding member of the Southwestern Surgical Congress and a founder and former president of the American Academy of General Practice, he served in the Far East as an inspector of military medical facilities and native hospitals as a special consultant for the U.S. Army Surgeon General in 1959.
Fun fact
In the late 1960’s Dr. Malcom Phelps supervised the creation of 21 civilian hospitals for sick and injured Vietnamese, giving up his own hometown practice to serve two consecutive assignments to direct the staffing of volunteer doctors from the U.S. to come to the war-torn country.
Oklahoma connections
Phelps was born and raised in El Reno, Oklahoma.