Carolyn L. Taylor-Olson, M.D.

Dr. Taylor-Olson has been a Vermonter at heart since 1976 when she began spending more and more of her weekends in the Green Mountain State.  She became a full-time resident in 1988 and opened her solo Internal Medicine practice in 1989.  However, she did not always have visions of being the guiding light behind the Vermont Medical Society.  In fact, she hoped that many of the policy issues plaguing physicians would simply “go away.”  Like many other physicians, she wanted to focus on what had brought her into the field: caring for people. 

Dr. Taylor-Olson was born and raised in Los Angeles.  She attended college at the University of California, San Diego.  After graduating, she worked in rheumatology research for a year before deciding that she needed more contact with people and wanted to attend medical school.   She attended medical school at the University of Southern California and completed her internship and residency at USC and LA County Hospital.  She took leave from her residency to work as a general practitioner and locum tennum in New York City.    She eventually finished her residency in LA, moved back to New York and opened a practice in 1985.  In 1988 she moved to Brattleboro, Vermont.

While not immediately drawn to the Medical Society, Dr. Taylor-Olson had not shied away from leadership roles.  She was the president of her class in medical school and quickly joined the leadership ladder at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, eventually serving as the medical staff president.  For the past ten years she has taught medical students and residents from Dartmouth and the University of Vermont.  Eventually, Dr. John Chard asked Dr. Taylor-Olson to run for VMS Vice President, leading to being President the following year. 

Dr. Taylor Olson accepted the offer and views being VMS VP and President as a “great decision.”   She explains that for the past 100 years, physicians have allowed policy to be legislated without them being at the table.  She now believes that if physicians want to care for people, they also have to be involved in creating the policy.   She views some of the greatest accomplishments of her presidency as: having a successful annual meeting joint with other specialty societies; working with the State Department of Prevention, Assistance, Transition and Health Access (PATH) to implement the preferred drug list formulary and creating the Drug Utilization Review (DUR) Board; hosting several gubernatorial forums, including the first that all candidates attended; and hiring Paul Harrington as the Executive Vice President to bridge the gap with federal issues. 

Now that Dr. Taylor-Olson’s time commitment to VMS has lessened and her son is in his first year of college, she has dedicated some time to pursue other interests.  Most of all, she is hoping to have more time for singing and performing with an amateur opera group in Brattleboro.

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