I had an interest in the musculoskeletal system which is why I chose orthopedics. I was actually thinking about neurosurgery as well, so the spine was a kind of natural middle ground for orthopedics with a specialty in the spine.


Left and Above: Dr. Caron performing a minimally invasive spine decompression through a small tube. He removes the overgrown bone and ligaments that impinge nerves and cause back and leg pain for the patient.


Caron has found hospital leadership not only ac- cessible but responsive to the needs of physicians. When he worked in St. Louis, he lobbied for a spinal navigation system that would boost the precision of surgical procedures. “It was like, ‘Ah, it’s too much money, blah, blah,


blah,’” he said. “By the time I left, they still didn’t have that technology up in the big city because of all the bureaucracy you had to go through. Whereas, I came down here and was able to negotiate with the compa- nies to get a navigation system. I mean, the first day I came down, we had computer navigation. “I love not having as much red tape to go through


to get better care for our patients.” Orthopedics and Caron were basically made for one another. A lifelong athlete and gym rat, he’s al- ways had a keen interest in the science behind health and performance. “I’ve always kind of been into health and fitness, working out and playing sports at school. Just health in general, I was always interested in that,” he said. “I was interested in going into physical therapy initially, and when I was in undergrad, I was basically looking at a master’s of PT versus med school. “It’s almost as hard to get into master’s of PT pro- grams, so I went the medical school route because I


“ ”


could do more with it. From there, I had an interest in the musculoskeletal system which is why I chose orthopedics. I was actually thinking about neurosur- gery as well, so the spine was a kind of natural middle ground for orthopedics with a specialty in the spine.” Caron landed with Ozarks Healthcare in 2020 and quickly settled into seeing patients, many of whom are older and suffering from a degenerative process where the spinal canal narrows with age. He deploys the full complement of treatment options for these patients. “Typically, we treat those conservatively at first with injections and physical therapy,” he said. “But if they get to the point where they need surgery, I’ll do that too. Minimally invasive decompression of the lumbar spine is probably the most common sur- gery that I do.” Here again, Caron said, working in a small hospi-


tal environment gives him an advantage over larger health systems. “We have the same team that I pretty much work with all the time in the OR, so you get that kind of family-type approach taking care of patients,” he said. “We’re all on the same team in the same family taking care of our patients, whereas in the larger sys- tems, you work with different people every day, and it doesn’t have that kind of small-town feel to it.”


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