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My name is Caroline Rochon. I’m a transplant surgeon and I am an hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeon, which is a fancy term to say that I do surgeries for diseases of the liver, pancreas and biliary tree. I perform kidney transplants, living donor nephrectomies, colicystectomies, which is removing the gallbladder, bile duct explorations for biliary diseases that cause obstructions and jaundice, liver resections, liver cyst unroofing, bile duct resections, pancreatic surgeries, and the Whipple procedure, as well as hepaticojejunostomies. I’m an Associate Professor of Surgery at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn. And I’m also Chief of Transplantation Surgery here. I’m originally Canadian and I did my medical school training and surgical residency at the McGill University in Montreal. I came to New York in 2007, for transplant and hepatobiliary surgery fellowship, which is the specialty training. And after that, I stayed in the greater NYC area for a few years until I settled in Hartford, Connecticut.
And I worked there for nine years, before coming back to Brooklyn. In Hartford, I worked for the Hartford Healthcare Group, which is associated with the University of Connecticut. And since 2016, I served there as the Surgical Director of the kidney transplant program. I’ve done some research and written quite a few articles. And my passion is really about looking into maximizing organ utilization and finding the best organ for the right recipient. I like to look into breaking barriers to transplantation for patient and improving access to care for everybody. In my spare time, I mainly enjoy tea parties and painting with my daughter. I also like running, mainly half-marathons. Spending time with family really is what’s most precious to me. And sometimes I like to pretend that I’m a chef and cook and bake. I come from a tiny little town in Northern Quebec called [inaudible] and it’s just below the Arctic Circle.
And over there, when I was growing up, there was often shortages of doctors and access to care was difficult. Anybody who had anything more than a scratch, skin scratch, had to be flown out. And so I was sensitized quite early about the seriousness of delivering healthcare where people are and breaking barriers in access to care across the world. My mother’s very caring nature, very over caring even to this day, has had a big influence in my career choices, as well as my godmother, who was a chief nursing officer and has had a career in healthcare quality. They’ve really influenced, shaped, what I do and what I love.
