Originally from southeastern Ohio and western Kentucky, Dr. Ford completed medical school ('07) and residency in Pediatrics ('14) at University of Kentucky College of Medicine and Kentucky Children's Hospital. Following residency, he completed a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine / Texas Children's Hospital ('17). His fellowship research comparing microbiome development and clinical outcomes among infants receiving mother's own milk vs. infants receiving primarily donor's milk was awarded the Fellow's Clinical Research Award by the Society for Pediatric Research at the 2017 PAS Annual Meeting. Dr. Ford joined the Department of Pediatrics - Division of Neonatology at University of South Florida College of Medicine in 2017, where he works primarily as a clinician-educator in the NICU at Tampa General Hospital.

Additionally, he also serves as the Director of Neonatal Nutrition at TGH, in which role he led the formation of the NICU's intestinal rehabilitation team. In 2017 this team developed best practice guidelines for the management of intestinal failure and short bowel syndrome; this included the implementation of alternative lipid strategies for reversal of TPN-related liver disease, which is the basis of today's presentation.