Doctor Karon is a native Minnesotan, a graduate of the University of Minnesota with degrees in political science and physiology. After graduating from medical school at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, he underwent all of his medicine and cardiology training at Mayo Clinic prior to joining the staff.

He is a noninvasive clinical cardiologist. His special interests include congestive heart failure and echocardiography. He is the heart failure clinic associate chair for inpatient and outpatient practice. He chairs the echo Quality Assurance committee, and sits on the echo lab executive and clinical practice committees. He handles heart failure lectures for the Mayo Internal Medicine residency program and both the Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Board Review courses. He co-directs the long-running annual Success with Failure Mayo CME program as well as two echocardiography CME activities co-sponsored by Mayo Clinic and the American Society of Echocardiography. Though fundamentally a clinician, he is a co-investigator on many Mayo heart failure protocols.