2001 DCMS President's Profile - Carolyn Evans, MD List of Past President Pages

Carolyn Evans, MD, can’t remember a time in her life when she didn’t want to be a physician.

“As long as my memory serves me, I wanted to be doctor,” she says. “I always loved science and was a good physical chemist—I can’t figure out why I’m not a good cook.”

It’s just as well Dr Evans’ talents lie in organized medicine, and as the Dallas County Medical Society’s 118th president, she will have a year to cook things up on behalf of DCMS members. As the second female and second minority president of the society, Dr Evans has an interest in highlighting minority issues. One way she’ll do this will be working closely with the DCMS Alliance on its family violence campaign. “Violence is robbing youth and minorities,” she says.

Dr Evans was born in New Braunfels and moved to San Antonio when she was nine. As the oldest of five children, it may have been through her role as “big sister” that she grew to love children and aspire to become a pediatrician.

She graduated from Duke University with a degree in chemistry and English in 1975, and went to medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, where she graduated in 1979. Dr Evans completed an internship and residency at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas and began her practice at North Dallas Pediatric Associates, where she has remained.

As soon as she opened her practice, Dr Evans began serving on committees at Medical City Dallas and Children’s Medical Center, where she caught the eye of then-DCMS board member and otolaryngologist Wayne R. Kirkham, MD.

“At the time, I was a delegate to TMA and I thought we needed more female representation,” Dr Kirkham says. “It was my opinion, Dr Evans would be an advantage to DCMS and TMA. She has what it takes to be involved in organized medicine.“

Dr Evans admits that before becoming a TMA delegate, she thought the work would be tedious and boring. “I used to think organized medicine didn’t represent me,” she says. “But if you don’t get involved, you don’t have anybody to blame if things aren’t going the way you want.”

Now, Dr Evans says, she finds the process fascinating. “It’s very democratic,” she says. “As an alternate delegate, I served with Jane Admire, Kim Vernon, and Winfred Parnell—we started on the delegation at the same time. We felt like rebels because we were a lot younger than the rest of the delegation.” As president, Dr Evans plans to get members interested and involved in the process of the delegation, so as to increase its diversity.

In 1982 she married Richard E. Turner, a pilot with Southwest Airlines. Their five-year-old son Richard is the joy of her life. “I don’t know what we did before we had him,” she says.

For one, she served on numerous medical committees. “People would ask, ‘How can you be on all these committees?’ My husband is a pilot for Southwest Airlines, was gone half the week and we didn’t have kids then. Now I’m a lot more selective. I’m a single mom half the week when my husband is flying. Juggling babysitters, soccer, and karate practice is difficult. I have two full-time jobs and I take them both seriously.”

Perhaps she is an accomplished “juggler” because she is a superb communicator. While serving on the Medical Advisory Committee for Met Life, Medical Director Warren Tingles picked up on this skill and recommended her to chair the TMA Council on Communications, which she served for nine years.

When TMA formed the Young Physician Section in 1989, Dr Evans was on the steering committee and became its chair in 1991. That same year she was nominated to the TMA delegation for AMA. One position kept leading to another, she says.

“Carolyn Evans is a great communicator and a great listener,” says ophthalmologist Robert M. Tenery, Jr, MD, a fellow AMA delegate. “Her ability to articulate issues well and relate to doctors are her greatest assets because she can bring physicians together and help them arrive at a consensus.”

She relates equally well to children, especially to her son Richard. On Monday and Thursday nights, the two attend ice skating lessons. “I get exercise while he gets exercise,” Dr Evans says. “It keeps me interested in the things he’s interested in. That’s important to me. I still can be Mom, but we’re on the same level. Actually, he skates much better than I do—I am so bad at it.”

But Dr Evans is a self-professed worker bee. If she continues to work hard at it, she’ll move up, just like she has in organized medicine.

“She has a way of getting people to do what she wants them to do and has a grasp on what’s happening in the trenches,” Dr Kirkham says. “As the head of our society, she’ll know what’s happening on the front lines. She will shine. I look forward to her being our president.”