Elizabeth B Ford, MD

  • Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
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Overview

Dr. Ford specializes in the care of individuals with mental health needs who are or have been involved in the criminal justice system. She has been in direct care and leadership positions throughout her almost 20-year career, including at Bellevue Hospital and Rikers Island. She has also been involved in the training of medical students, psychiatrists, and forensic psychiatrists, as well as a variety of non-medical mental health professionals. She co-founded and chairs the Workgroup for Justice-Involved Behavioral Health in the Department, focused on using the Department's research, training and clinical expertise to improve the awareness, understanding, treatment and care of justice-involved individuals and to do so through collaboration with those most affected by the criminal justice system.

Email: Elizabeth.ford@nyspi.columbia.edu or ef2694@cumc.columbia.edu

Academic Appointments

  • Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry

Administrative Titles

  • Director, Clinical Services at NYSPI

Gender

  • Female

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • 1994 Yale University
  • 2000 University of Virginia
  • Internship: 2001 New York University School of Medicine
  • Residency: 2004 New York University School of Medicine
  • Fellowship: 2005 New York University School of Medicine

Committees, Societies, Councils

  • American Psychiatric Association (Council on Psychiatry and the Law; Chair of Workgroup on Jails and Prisons)
  • American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

Research

Selected Publications

  1. Ford, E. 2021. Finding a Voice. Psychiatric Services, 72(9): 1103-1104. 
  2. Zhou H, Ford E. 2021. Analyzing the relationship between mental health courts and the prison industrial complex. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 49(4): online, 8/27/2021, DOI: https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.210012-21
  3. Ford E, Smith A, Bell C, Solimo A, Leung J, Katyal M. 2020. Clinical outcomes of specialized treatment units for patients with serious mental illness in the New York City jail system. Psychiatric Services, 71(6): 547-554.
  4. Ford, E. Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on Bellevue Hospital’s Psychiatric Prison Ward. ReganArts, New York, NY. Publication date April 25, 2017 (hardback); April 2018 (paperback)
  5. Ford, E, Gray S, Subedi S. 2017. Finding Common Ground: Educating General Psychiatry Residents about Forensic Psychiatry. Academic Psychiatry, 41(6):783-788.
  6. Glowa-Kollish S, Kaba F, Waters A, Leung, Y, Ford E, Venters H. 2016. From Punishment to Treatment: The “Clinical Alternative to Punitive Segregation” (CAPS) Program in New York City Jails. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, doi:10.3390/ijerph13020182
  7. Gosein, V, Stiffler, JD, Frascoia, A, Ford, E. 2016. Life Stressors and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a Seriously Mentally Ill Jail Population. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 61(1): 116-121.
  8. Ford, E. 2015. First episode psychosis in the criminal justice system: Identifying a critical intercept for early intervention. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 23(3): 167-75.
  9. Tedeschi, F, Ford E. 2015. Outliers in American juvenile justice:  The need for statutory reform in North Carolina and New York. Int J Adolesc Med Health 27(2):151-61.
  10. Landmark Cases in Psychiatry and the Law (2014).  Edited by Elizabeth Ford and Merrill Rotter.  Oxford University Press.