Lamont Cardon was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and came to the Bay Area on a football scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated from Cal with a degree in Microbiology and Immunology. After a year of research at UCSF, he attended The Chicago Medical School in North Chicago, Illinois, earning his M.D.

Dr. Cardon completed his residency in Orthopedic Surgery at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. As part of his training, he spent two months at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and four months at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware. He went on to complete a fellowship in Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery at The CV Starr Hand Surgery Center in New York, where he trained under Drs. Richard Eaton, Steven Glickel, Alton Barron, Vincent Fietti, and Ben Rosenstadt. He was also fortunate to interact with Professor William Littler, one of the founders of modern hand surgery.

Following his fellowship, Dr. Cardon pursued additional microsurgical training as a traveling fellow. He studied microsurgery with Dr. Roberto Adani at Policlinico di Modena in Italy, and later with Drs. Katsutero Doi and Satoshi Toh at Ogori Daiichi Hospital and Hirosaki University Hospital in Japan, respectively. He also completed a focused two-month program in Pediatric Hand Surgery at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, Texas, with Drs. Mary Beth Ezaki and Peter Carter.

A committed international volunteer, Dr. Cardon first volunteered with Orthopedic Overseas in Thimphu, Bhutan, in May 1996, returning in September 2000. In February 2002, he worked at the Sihanouk Hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in January 2005 with the SIGN intramedullary nail program in Hanoi, Vietnam. He served with Operation Rainbow in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in November 2005 and in Machala, Ecuador, in May 2006. In January 2007, he traveled with the Philippine Medical Society of Northern California to Naga City, Philippines, and in late 2007 to AIMS Hospital in Kochi, India.

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, Dr. Cardon joined the Partners In Health team in August 2010 at Saint Nicholas Hospital in St. Marc, Haiti, and returned there in March 2013. He has since been active with Operation Rainbow, with trips to Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in 2016–2018, 2024, and 2025, and to Cuenca, Ecuador, in April 2023. In 2019, he performed more than a dozen elbow reconstructions for malunited fractures in children in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

Dr. Cardon continues to combine clinical excellence with humanitarian service, advancing care for patients both locally and abroad.