Dr. Theresa Lynn White Caron is a medical consultant and reviewer building on more than 30 years of expertise in nursing and medical administration. As a child, her mother was diagnosed late with vascular disease that required surgical intervention, and became the first patient to undergo closed-heart surgery in 1967. A young Dr. Caron grew up going back and forth from the hospital with her mother and helping while she recovered from her many surgeries and often-taxing medical interventions.
Her time spent in medical settings, coupled with explanations from her father, an engineer, about how her mother’s treatments worked, helped her develop a keen interest in science and medicine and a desire to study nursing. She was awarded both a Bachelor of Science in nursing and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Elmhurst University in 1982, and continued to pursue further education and professional development throughout the 1990s. Dr. Caron earned a Master of Science in human resource development from National Louis University in 1990 and a Doctor of Education in adult and continued education in 1999.
A registered nurse in the state of Illinois, Dr. Caron’s career began as a vascular surgery staff nurse at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Medical Center in 1982. She rose to become the medical center’s national vascular study nurse coordinator and a clinical research technician the following year, and the hospital’s medical quality management specialist in 1991. Dr. Caron relocated to the West L.A. VA Medical Center in 1991 as a surgical quality management specialist and the acting assistant director in 1992. She continued to rise, serving as the center’s Ambulatory Care Services quality management program director from 1993 until 1994. During her time as an administrator and clinician at the West L.A. VA Medical Center, Dr. Caron also served as a consultant to the Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dr. Caron remained with the VA through the 1990s, transferring back to the Edward Hines Jr. Medical Center in 1997 as manager of their Reactivation Center. At the same time, she and her husband established a private neurosurgical practice where she served as director of clinical services until 1999. After leaving the VA that year, Dr. Caron spent 15 years as an independent medical-legal consultant, moving back into medical-legal review in 2015.
Dr. Caron is a former chapter co-director of the National Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Association, a current member of the National Association of Healthcare Quality, the Society for Vascular Nursing, and an invited member of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. She has been proudly featured in several prior volumes of Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare, and considers it a privilege to have been able to live out her professional goals. Dr. Caron is passionate about sports and the outdoors and is an accomplished hunter, golfer, and scuba diver in addition to enjoying cycling and skiing. In her personal time, Dr. Caron enjoying spending time with her husband, three adult children, and one grandchild.