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Meet Kaiser Permanente local doc, Carol Venable (sponsored)

Kaiser Permanente doctor Carol Venable is living her childhood dream in the mountains

By Jessica Smith, brought to you by Kaiser Permanente

Carol Venable was introduced to the beauty of Colorado at the age of five. From the backseat of the family car, she watched the landscape unfold, so different from the surroundings of her Nashville, Tennessee hometown. Before she knew where her career path would take her, when the idea of becoming a doctor held equal sway with the titles of teacher and veterinarian, she fell in love with the mountains during those summer vacation drives.

Recently, Venable moved to Summit County with her husband and two children, to join the Kaiser Permanente team in Frisco. After having lived nearly a decade in Colorado, they’ve made it, at last, to the mountains.



“It was always a dream to come back, but I never thought that would happen,” Venable said. “The mountains are my favorite. It’s really a dream come true from childhood.”



Learning and teaching

Through high school and by the time she reached college, Venable had become more certain that medicine was her calling.

“I liked the fact that there were a number of different things you could do in medicine,” she said. “I wound up working in a number of different kinds of environments.”

Venable completed college, medical school and her internal medicine residency all at Duke University in North Carolina. Following that, she did her second residency in emergency medicine with Boston Medical Center. Throughout her 15-year medical career, she has had experience working with clinics, emergency rooms, urgent care and in-patients at the hospital, as well as teaching both residents and medical students.

While there are a few other doctors in her family, Venable’s family is mostly made up of teachers — a connection she credits with helping her as well.

“Certainly you learn a lot from having family members who are teachers,” she said. “There is a lot of our job that is teaching and, just like a teacher, learning from people you’re teaching.”

Finding her place

After experiencing a variety of different options in the medical field, Venable decided that clinical medicine was the best fit for her.

“I enjoy working with all ages of patients, and the nice part about the clinic is that you get to do a variety of things — a lot of prevention, which I enjoy; you get to see people at moments of acute illness and help them through that. But the piece about clinic that I particularly like is you get to establish a relationship with patients,” she said. “You get to see them many times and get to know them in a way you often don’t if you just saw them in the hospital or emergency room. To me, that part is very appealing, that you get to know them over time and help them make medical decisions over time.”

Venable added that she’s looking forward to getting to know her colleagues better as well.

“I feel like I really joined a fantastic group here, because the other providers are also highly experienced, and we all come from a variety of backgrounds,” she said. “That’s exciting for me.”

Adjusting to altitude

Outside of the office, the Venables are just like the typical mountain family. They enjoy hiking and biking in the summer, and snow sports in the winter, though Venable jokingly describes herself as a “regrettable” skier.

“I like gardening,” she said. “I’m not sure yet I know how to do it at 10,000 feet, but I’ve always done a bit of that.”

She’s also looking to test her baking skills at high altitude, and eventually finish reading the new Harry Potter book with her kids. And that’s only


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