Loretta Ford

Dr. Loretta C. Ford
Nurse Practitioner Movement Founder
1920 -
INDUCTED 2012

Loretta C. Ford is an internationally recognized nursing leader who is known as the founder of the nurse practitioner movement worldwide.

In the late 1940’s and 1950’s, Loretta Ford worked as a public health nurse in rural Colorado. As a nursing educator, she was the first to recognize that nurses with advanced education and practice opportunities could provide diagnostic and treatment services that would not only improve patient care, but would also solve the critical shortage of health care providers and provide access to quality care in rural and underserved areas. She furthered her innovative programs at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, where she served as founding dean from 1972 until her retirement in 1985.

"It's not easy when you have to buck some of the old prejudices and some of the demands of faculty that's set in its ways.” — Dr. Loretta Ford