Carolyn Oliver, M.D., J.D., is a tireless champion of patient rights, advocacy and empowerment. As founder of the Cautious Patient Foundation, she is committed to educating and empowering patients in their quest for quality healthcare, using her expertise in both medicine and law. With its family of educational programs and technology-based tools, Cari and the Cautious Patient Foundation are working to ensure that people are engaged and proactive in managing their health and healthcare providers.
Driven by a significant change in her philosophy about medicine and patient care, Cari started a non-profit organization in 2004 called Patient Always First, and volunteered her time and money to fund a clinic where she saw financially disadvantaged patients who often had no insurance. In 2006, she led the non-profit to a more universal purpose of educating people on how to obtain better healthcare, providing tools that they could use to get better healthcare and worked to educate them on being more participatory and careful in their interactions with physicians. This arm of Patient Always First is called the Cautious Patient Foundation (www.CautiousPatient.org).
A 1977 graduate of the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, with an M.D., Cari lives in Texas with her husband of 26 years and is an avid tennis player. She has three sons, all in their twenties.
