Dr. William Ballard received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. He received his medical degree from the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia in three years where he was president of his class and was honored with the Franklin Award for most outstanding student in the Department of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in medicine as well as his cardiology fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina where he was also bestowed with the Rosemond Award for Most Outstanding Cardiology Fellow. He then moved to Atlanta and began working for Piedmont Hospital in 1992. Dr. Ballard has authored and edited several scientific papers, participated in more than 100 multi-center research trials as an investigator and was one of the authors of national certification guidelines for interventional cardiac procedures for the ACC/AHA. He has been director of the Cardiac Cath Lab and Coronary Intervention at Piedmont for over a decade. He is also a member of the Institutional Review Board and is currently director of Inpatient Quality and Safety for the Piedmont Heart Institute, physician director of the STEMI program and is cardiology director of the Chest Pain Center and Network and Mission Lifeline for PHI. Dr. Ballard is board certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Fellow of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions and is a member of the American Heart Association and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He is also a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Georgia Health Sciences University.