Having graduated from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 1970 with an interest in Emergency Medicine, Dr. Buttaravoli was disappointed that there was very little education devoted to the minor medical and surgical problems that he had encountered in their ER as a medical student. He then did a rotating internship at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose California. Following this, Dr. Buttaravoli traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio where he became one of five of the country's first residents in Emergency Medicine at the University of Cincinnati at Cincinnati General Hospital. From there he became the U.S. Armed Forces first residency trained Emergency Physician and was given the position of Chief of Emergency Services at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

After completing his military obligation he took over as Medical Director of the Emergency Room at George Washington University Medical Center where he was asked to provide a 1 hour lecture for the medical students on Emergency Medicine. He took this opportunity to give these students an introduction to managing the minor emergencies that he felt was lacking from his own education. His 1 hour lecture on "Common Simple Emergencies" was expanded to 6 hours during his time teaching at Georgetown University where he was asked by a local Emergency Medical Services publishing company to turn his lecture series into a book. This first book, entitled "Common Simple Emergencies" was published in 1984. With some revisions, this was again published in the year 2000 under the title "Minor Emergencies, Splinters to Fractures". After this, comprehensive revisions with a major expansion of the book were made in 2007. In 2012, the 3rd edition came out under the shortened title "Minor Emergencies", which has again been revised and updated in 2021 with the 4th edition.

Over these years, up until 2003, Philip Buttaravoli has chaired several Emergency Departments in the Washington, D.C. area as well as in South Florida. He has since done locum tenens work in Emergency Departments in Vermont, Maryland and Florida where he has also practiced in several urgent care centers. In the later years of his career, Dr. Buttaravoli also spent significant time working as a Cruise Ship Doctor for Norwegian Cruise Line and Silverseas Cruises. He retired from the VA Hospital Emergency Department in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2020.