Dr. Alexander S. Ford is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Osteopathic Board of Family Physicians and is a registered dietitian. He received his medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Ford completed his family medicine residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Lakewood, OH, and served as Chief Resident. He earned his Bachelor of Science in dietetics from the State University of New York College at Buffalo in Buffalo, NY. Dr. Ford is also a member of the American Osteopathic Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians. He is particularly interested in disease prevention, lifestyle medicine, nutritional counseling/weight loss, osteopathic manipulative medicine, medical education, and sports medicine. Dr. Ford was awarded the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Resident Teacher, the Cleveland Clinic/Lakewood Family Health Center MVP Resident Physician Award, the Nicholas S. Nicholas, DO ’41 Endowed Memorial Scholarship, Bernard Master, DO ’66 Endowed Scholarship, and the Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Undergraduate Clinical Scholarship.
During his senior year of his dietetics program, Dr. Ford completed an elective at Erie County Medical Center’s Regional Center of Excellence for Transplantation and Kidney Care as part of their multidisciplinary healthcare team. This experience allowed him to appreciate each clinician’s role in the healthcare team. As a dietetics student, Dr. Ford encountered countless patients who did not understand the impact of lifestyle behaviors on their health. He saw this as an opportunity to use his dietetics background to help patients more by attaining his medical degree and expanding his clinical knowledge.
Dr. Ford loves empowering patients to take control of their health through patient education. He believes reflective listening, motivational interviewing, reviewing medical history, validating patient concerns, and patient empowerment are most important when caring for his patients. Dr. Ford practices a holistic, whole-body approach when managing patients that utilizes therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to help treat chronic conditions and prevent disease. His nutritional counseling skillset and expertise in osteopathic manipulative medicine and osteopathic manipulative techniques are additional patient options to assist in pain management, functionality, and injury prevention.
Dr. Ford is a native of Albany, NY, and attended Christian Brothers Academy and wanted to return to his community to provide medical care. He has been involved with 4th Family Inc., a local nonprofit organization, for the past eight years, where he has organized various wellness events and provided nutrition education to community members. Outside medicine, Dr. Ford enjoys hiking, boxing, basketball, gardening, paranormal podcasts, and music.