Member Spotlight: Tara L. Dall, MD

When Tara Dall, MD, began her medical career, it was in 2001, after she graduated from medical school and completed her residency at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She started as a family practice physician with no specialization in lipidology. That changed quickly, however, when she saw how much lipid management impacted her patients’ everyday lives.

"I began using advanced biomarkers, such as NMR and apoB, in most patients from the day I started my primary care practice," Dr. Dall said.

In 2005, she left her job as a primary care physician to prepare for a career transition into Clinical Lipidology. That summer she attended the NLA’s inaugural master’s course and "was very humbled by what I didn’t know that I didn’t know."

For the next nine months, she pored over biochemistry textbooks at the local medical school library, studying the complexity of lipoprotein metabolism. Her free moments were spent drafting a business proposal for a lipid clinic and searching for organizations that would take a leap of faith in hiring her.

In January 2006, Dr. Dall opened an independent lipid clinic practice, Advanced Lipidology, in Delafield, Wisc., and has been its president ever since. Around that time, she also began lecturing about utilizing advanced testing to guide practitioners’ risk management and assessment.

In early 2012, Dr. Dall also accepted the position of Chief Medical Officer for Health Diagnostic Laboratory in Richmond. She frequently commutes between Wisconsin and Virginia and continues to lecture at educational events both abroad and throughout the U.S.

"The chief medical officer position was a natural fit for me as I have been using advanced biomarkers in every patient I have seen for more than a decade now," Dr. Dall said. "I also realize there is a great need for education and research in this area and feel I will be able to do so in my new position in ways I was not able to do independently."

She takes particular interest in furthering education and research about biomarkers, and wants to help increase acceptance of their utilization in primary care and specialist communities as well as among patients worldwide. This interest also inspired her to cofound Lecturepad.org, a non-profit web portal that provides the medical community with educational resources about biomarker testing.

Outside the office, Dr. Dall is married with two beautiful children and dreams of participating in church mission work abroad.

Her family and the community inspire her because she believes that, with the help of many passionate clinicians, the statistics for diabetes and heart disease can really improve within the next decade.

"My children and the world’s children are my real motivation," Dr. Dall said. "I don’t want them to have to fight this pandemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. I want to someday tell them that we have found a way to beat it."