I'm Ford Vox, I'm medical director of the disorders of consciousness program at Shepherd
Center.
I'm also chair of our medical ethics committee.
Originally I went to Rhodes college in Memphis, Tennessee for my undergraduate, I cam back
to Alabama, where I'm from, to UAB for medical school, and through the course of my medical
training, through my specialty and everything, I've been at Washington University in St.
Louis and also Boston University.
At the age when folks are choosing careers, in their teens and twenties, they don't necessarily
know what to expect out of a career, it's often a lot to expect from a young adult,
the best you can do is ask about what friends and family and those around you know.
Ultimately in your teens and twenties, you have an idea of what that career might be
like, there are certain aspects of it that might draw you to it, they idea that you're
going to work everyday to help people rather than just make money, the idea that you're
going to be involved in the advancement of science, those are kind of the great lights
out there that kind of draw people towards medicine, I think that pulled me as well.
I came to Shepherd fortunately relatively early in my rehabilitation medicine career.
I'd only had a year out in practice on my own, which I'd done in Boston before here.
Like a lot of folks, our training is very long, but I've been at Shepherd Center since
2012, so a good while now.
I know this hospital in and out, and the best decision of my career was the one to take
Shepherd Center up on their offer of employment here.
My day to day role is overseeing a large cadre of folks going through ABI rehabilitation,
acquired brain injury rehabilitation.
This is often severe traumatic brain injuries and strokes, most typically, as my patient
population.
I oversee three teams, three and a half teams, of therapists, treating these patients, I'm
also a bit more responsible for our disorders of consciousness program, so I'm the clinician
in charge of making sure that program is staying abreast and at the top of the field.
These are the patients who are admitted to Shepherd Center in a vegetative state, or
a minimally conscious state.
They classically can't be treated in a lot of rehabilitative hospitals, which are set
up first for patients who are already following commands.
These patients may not be conscious yet or following commands, but there's a lot that
we can do medically for them and help edge them toward rehabilitation level.
I also have somewhat of a side career in advocation and medical journalism.
I view this as actually part of my medical mission in terms of education the general
public as best I can about the medical questions of the day that are in the headlines, and
so forth.
As part of that, I'm a columnist for CNN on CNN.com, and I occasionally do some feature
writing as well.
I try to focus on issues that are of major importance to public health.
You know, I think a philosophy of medicine evolves a little bit over the course of a
career, I do think one of the most important lessons that any good doctor recognizes is
to remain humble to a certain extent.
We like to think we are masters of a body of knowledge, but that body of knowledge is
shifting underneath us.
Medicine is advancing rapidly.
The things that we thought we knew ten years ago are proven to be wrong today.
Any doctor who is staying at the top of their field, who is trying to be the best, is recognizing
that the scene is constantly moving, and our role is to shepherd patients through that.
I see folks who are in states of enormous stress, one of the most important things to
recognize is that this is mostly like the most stressful event of your family's life,
of your loved one's life, and as a patient, your life, and all bets are off, to a certain
extent.
Sometimes it's still life or death here at Shepherd Center as well, not always just about
function.
But function is incredibly important as well, what's the rest of our life going to be like?
And in order to help people see their way through that process, which can be somewhat
chaotic and dangerous, we have a lot of resources available here for people.
Remain open to that, but you've got to care for yourself first in terms of your emotional
state, you've got to seek out counsel from friends and family, and you have to get sleep,
and rest, and eat, and drink water.
It can be a very high intensity period, certainly, early on, and recognize that there's no one
right way to do it, to get through it, but the resources are available here for you to
find your way.
I think all of us who are working here at Shepherd Center, through the course of our
careers, want to see this institution continue to do well and endure through the decades,
so certainly, if I could be seen as moving one of those stones into improving the foundation
of Shepherd Center, and the long arc mission of what we're doing here, and be remember
by my patients and families as having some level of contribution to their ongoing recovery
and the rest of their lives, those two things, I would be very proud.