Jordan Ross, MD
After studying biochemistry at Samford University, I returned home to Memphis for medical school, Med/Peds residency, and Med/Peds endocrinology fellowship at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. As part of my four-year fellowship, I rotate through pediatric and adult endocrinology clinics each week; this latter half of fellowship has a heavy emphasis on adult inpatient endocrinology after two years of inpatient service at Le Bonheur, our children’s hospital.
My primary research project in fellowship focuses on quality improvement for young children with congenital hypothyroidism at Le Bonheur, and I am also involved in the diabetes transition program with my mentor, Dr. Grace Nelson. I am particularly interested in metabolic bone disease (transition of care and otherwise) and hope to become a certified clinical densitometrist in the future, as well as to help guide the endocrinology curriculum for medical students more broadly.
I entered medical school committed to pediatrics, but I enjoyed learning about physiology and pathology across the lifespan so much that I made a slight pivot to Med/Peds. The long-term patient relationships and social dynamics integral to primary care were important to me, but in endocrinology I found a way to enjoy these same privileges but dive deeply into an area that I always wanted to understand better in medical school and residency.
My first real interest in Med/Peds came from rich conversations with Dr. Elisha McCoy early in medical school in a faculty mentorship program, and in residency I trained under Dr. Michael Kleinman, a Med/Peds hospitalist and primary care physician who started the transition clinic for adolescents with complex care needs at Le Bonheur—a model for my own future career goals in endocrinology. Lastly, Dr. Alicia-Diaz Thomas, my pediatric endocrinology program director, was instrumental in helping me build a combined fellowship at UTHSC and continues to be my primary sounding board for clinical and professional decisions as I prepare to complete fellowship next year.
Dr. Greg Armstrong, one of my research mentors in medical school and the principal investigator of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, involved me in projects in childhood cancer survivorship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As part of a research experience at St. Jude after my first year of medical school, I was able to shadow pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Wassim Chemaitilly, which was my first clinical exposure to endocrinology and the day when my passion for the discipline began.