Having evaluated more than 11,000 corneas on the slit lamp microscope over her 10-year tenure with SightLife, Caroline Hoover, CEBT, has probably scrutinized more corneas for transplant than any other individual in eye banking. This total will continue to climb as she puts her sharp eyes to the test daily in leading the 24/7 Distribution and Processing team at SightLife's laboratory in Seattle, WA.
As Director of Surgical Services, Caroline also personally trained each of the four Tissue Processing Technologists and three Distribution Coordinators on her team. Her unparallelled commitment to ensuring that every surgeon obtain the highest quality corneal tissue, along with her organizational skills, uncompromising adherence to standards, technical knowledge, work ethic, and intensity have helped SightLife achieve a 99.9% success rate in filling scheduled requests from surgeons and a 99% on-time delivery rate.
Caroline's contributions to advancement of eye banking include service on the Eye Bank Advisory Committee for the Cornea Preservation Time Study. She is just as committed to ensuring the most efficient distribution systems all over the world, having traveled to India to train surgeons attending a Global Medical Advisory Meeting in slit lamp evaluation. The surgeons came away surprised and impressed by the complexity of factors to be addressed and the experience required to perform thorough corneal tissue evaluations. Following the training, Dr. Audrey Rostov, a corneal surgeon in Seattle, WA, gave this assessment: "It was both exciting and humbling to see corneal surgeons, including myself, learning from Caroline. She just adds value in everything she does."
Caroline came equipped with laboratory skills acquired as an undergraduate researcher at Bakken Research Laboratory when she joined SightLife in 2004 as an Eye Recovery Technician. She gained further experience as an Eye Bank Coordinator before joining the Distribution Department as a coordinator in 2005. She was promoted to Distribution Manager in 2007 and then again to Director of Surgical Services in 2011. She was made Vice President in 2014.
Caroline graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology.