Dr. Ira Ferguson, Sr., was born in Anniston, Alabama, on February 5, 1896. His parents were farmers and owned a dry goods store. Shortly after graduating from Alabama Presbyterian College in 1917, he joined the Marine Corps and served on the 23rd Ambulance Co. during WWI in the French and German campaigns. When the war ended he enrolled in the Medical College of Alabama, later transferring to Emory in 1920. After graduating at the top of his class, he did his internship and residency in surgery and gynecology at Grady Memorial Hospital and was the first chief resident in surgery at Wesley Memorial Hospital, renamed Emory University Hospital in 1932. Upon completing his residency, Dr. Ferguson began private practice in Atlanta while supervising residents at Grady. By 1939, he was an Associate Professor of Surgery of the Emory School of Medicine.

In June 1940 as a preparation for WWII, the Department of Defense asked Emory to reactivate the 43rd Base Hospital Unit, which had served in WWI. Dr. Ferguson was appointed Colonel and Chief of the Unit’s Surgical Service, which was primarily comprised of Emory faculty, staff, residents, and graduates. The 43rd served in North Africa for eight months, then sailed to Italy on D-Day. Upon their arrival, Dr. Ferguson and several others were assigned to the 11th Evacuation Hospital for the invasion of southern France, a tour of duty for which he received the Bronze Star.

When he returned home, Dr. Ferguson resumed teaching at Grady. To supplement his practice income he became a consultant to the Veterans Administration, regularly inspecting hospitals throughout the southeast and conducting disaster training courses for national defense. As a consultant to the VA he came into contact with Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital and was instrumental in initiating Alabama's first residency program for African-American surgeons at the institution in 1948.

He was appointed Chief of Surgery at Grady in 1956 and took a vital role in integrating it with Emory and the Atlanta VA hospitals to create the Emory University Affiliated Programs, a unification that streamlined the curriculum and increased its effectiveness. In 1961, he retired from Grady to work solely at The Emory Clinic until his complete retirement in the late 1960s. After a lifetime of considerable academic, clinical, and national service, Dr. Ferguson died in February 1970.

The establishment of the Annual Ira A. Ferguson Lecture was made possible by a generous gift from Dr. Ira Ferguson, Jr., to honor his father. Ira Jr. retired from Emory in 1990 after thirty years of exemplary service as a general surgeon.