William C. Alford, Jr. MD, graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1952 and received his M.D. degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1955. His graduate training began with a surgical internship at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, from 1955 to 1956. He was an assistant resident in surgery at Vanderbilt University Hospital from 1956 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1962. Dr. Alford served as a lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy aboard the U.S.S. Shangri-La from 1957 to 1958 and at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Miramar, California, from 1958 to 1959. He was chief resident in surgery at Vanderbilt University Hospital from 1962 to 1963 and senior registrar in thoracic surgery at Leeds Infirmary in Leeds, England, from 1963 to 1964. He returned to Vanderbilt University as an assistant professor in September 1964. He was among the founding members of Cardiovascular Surgery Associates in 1974, and served as an associate clinical professor of cardiac and thoracic surgery from July 1985 through June 1993, and he was appointed a clinical professor of cardiac and thoracic surgery in July 1993. Dr. Alford holds membership in a number of prestigious professional societies, including the American College of Surgeons, the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Until his retirement, he was an active member of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville and a clinical professor of cardiac and thoracic surgery at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. From Vanderbilt Register, May 7, 2001