Jean Ford, MD

Dr. Ford is a physician educator and a clinical investigator with over 30 years of experience in medical practice, education, research and leadership. He currently serves as the Senior Associate Dean for the Barbados Campus at the Ross University School of Medicine. He began his career as a faculty member at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where he rose through the ranks to serve as Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Columbia University/Harlem Hospital Center and director of the training program in pulmonary diseases. While at Columbia/Harlem Hospital, he received numerous grants and contracts, including as Principal Investigator of the New York Center of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute’s Asthma Clinical Research Network. 

Subsequently, he served as an Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and served as the Founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities. Thereafter, he served as Chair of Medicine at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in Brooklyn, New York, and then at the Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Most recently, Dr. Ford served a predominately rural population as a practicing pulmonologist at the Bingham Memorial Hospital in Blackfoot, Idaho.  

He has led numerous clinical and community-based programs and research that address clinical problems, as well as disparities related to respiratory diseases — especially asthma — and cancer. He has authored well over 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and he served as principal investigator for multiple programs and projects, with supports from NIH.  He has also contributed to global health and advocacy programs in Southern Africa, Central America, Guantanamo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and in his native country, Haiti.