Fred H. Edwards received his Medical degree from the University of Kentucky.  He is presently Professor and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Florida/ Shands Jacksonville.
 
Dr. Edwards has been involved with The Society of Thoracic Surgeons National
Database for 20 years.  He developed the first national risk-adjustment models in cardiac surgery and has had a key role in all subsequent STS risk models. He was appointed Chairman of the Database in 2004.  He has published over 120 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, most of which deal with some aspect of quality measurement. His present research is directed toward the use of national performance measures in quality assessment.
 
Dr. Edwards has been active in several national quality organizations, serving on the Steering Committee of the AQA Alliance and the Executive Committee of the AMA Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.  He is also Vice-Chairman of the Surgical Quality Alliance.  In the National Quality Forum, he is Chair of the NQF Surgery and Anesthesia Technical Advisory Panel and is a member of the Cardiovascular Standards Maintenance Committee. 
 
In 2007, he was awarded The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Distinguished Service Award, which is the highest award conferred by STS.