Ford Vox, M.D. is a physician and journalist living in Atlanta. A brain injury specialist, Dr. Vox is a staff physician at the nationally-ranked Shepherd Center caring for inpatient and outpatient survivors of acquired brain injuries. He also treats patients who have suffered both a spinal cord and brain injury in the same traumatic event.
Dr. Vox is an attending physician working with three teams of highly trained specialty therapists, leading the treatment of patients through all levels of recovery, from the vegetative and minimally conscious states (the Disorders of Consciousness Program) through to the highest level of function possible. Shepherd Center specializes in caring for people healing from the most complex and serious brain and spinal cord traumas in America at any given time. The Center admits patients direct to its ICU from trauma centers across the country and the world.
Dr. Vox is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and Brain Injury Medicine. He completed his residency in PM&R at Washington University in St. Louis and his fellowship in brain injury medicine at Boston University. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rhodes College before earning his doctorate in medicine from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.
Dr. Vox was formerly the medical director and attending physician for the acute inpatient acquired brain injury program at New England Rehabilitation Hospital, leading that program through its Joint Commission disease-specific certification process. He also served as an Assistant Clinical Professor for Tufts teaching brain injury medicine to residents rotating on his service.
As a journalist and commentator Dr. Vox is a contributor for CNN and the medical analyst for Atlanta NPR's station WABE 90.1. He writes about the practice of medicine, the health care industry, health care policy and medical science. On the radio he presents a weekly segment (every Thursday) dissecting the health news worth knowing about. His byline can also be found at The Atlantic, Bloomberg, U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Slate, Newsweek, Forbes, Outside and The Telegraph. Click on Portfolio to see an assortment of representative clips.
Dr. Vox also serves as an independent consultant, making himself available for special projects that draw on his areas of expertise as a physician, investigative researcher, writer and communicator.
Dr. Vox was raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as Ford Baxter. He and historian Lisa Roy took up the new surname Vox together in 2002 when they married. More people should pick their own names, he advises. "Names have to come from somewhere, why not you? But act quickly! Soon you'll have too many legal entanglements."