Loretta Lee Ford, a leading scholar within the nurse practitioner field, passed away on January 22. She was 104 years old.
Forced to support her family during the Great Depression, Dr. Ford began her nursing career in New York City at the age of 16. She went on to earn a nursing diploma from Middlesex General Hospital in New Jersey in 1941. One year later, she enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force and was stationed at a hospital base in Denver, Colorado during World War II.
After the war, Dr. Ford worked as a public health nurse, earning an appointment as director of nursing for the Boulder City County Health Department. By 1955, she had joined the faculty at the University of Colorado College of Nursing as an assistant professor. In 1965, she helped to develop the first pediatric nurse practitioner training program at the University of Colorado Medical Center.
In 1972, Dr. Ford became founding dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Rochester in New York. During her tenure, she oversaw the establishment of new doctoral and post-doctoral training programs. She retired in 1986, but continued to give lecturers and serve as an academic nursing consultant for the remainder of her life.
In honor of her contributions to the field of nursing, which includes more than 100 scholarly publications, Dr. Ford was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including several honorary doctorates, the Living Legend Award from the American Academy of Nursing, the Gustav O. Lienhard Award from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, an induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Surgeon General’s Medallion presented by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2020.
Dr. Ford received a bachelor’s degree in nursing, a master’s degree in public health, and a doctorate in education from the University of Colorado.