SICHC physician fills gaps, counts ability to serve “a huge blessing”

Educator. Global healthcare education service. Passion for practicing rural medicine, especially in filling gaps in obstetric services.

A year into her new role at the Paoli clinic of Southern Indiana Community Health Care (SICHC), Kara Beth Thompson, M.D., MEHP addresses a broad spectrum in rural healthcare in addition to her role as a family physician. “SICHC provides a critical role in meeting many medical challenges unique to rural areas,” explained Dr. Thompson. “A pregnant woman in a rural area can face significant travel and other issues from prenatal to delivery, which can create a high-risk situation.”

When she is not in Paoli, seeing SICHC patients and being on call, she devotes considerable amounts of time in teaching at conferences and advancing global medical education and maternal health, having spent more than a decade building postgraduate training programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Her international work earned her the Global Achievement Award from Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association in Baltimore, where she previously completed a Master of Education in the Health Professions (MEHP) degree. The Global Achievement Award will be formally presented this October, which she regards as “very humbling.”

Dr. Thompson notes that she “is privileged to be involved in a special time of a woman’s life” in providing prenatal, delivery and post-delivery, and newborn services in southern Indiana.  She enjoys being able to care for obstetric patients at the IU Health Paoli Hospital, including delivering babies by C-section and addressing issues such as potential breech births. “One of my favorite procedures is externally turning a baby in the womb to avoid a breech birth and possible surgery,” she said.

“SICHC brings a lot of resources to southern Indiana and what it is doing is essential,” she emphasized. Previously Dr. Thompson served in a similar role at the now-closed Ascension Dunn Hospital in Bedford. “That situation created a maternal desert in Lawrence County with limited services, and SICHC has been resourceful and creative in addressing the issue for surrounding counties,” she said.

After completing her undergraduate degree at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, Dr. Thompson earned her M.D. from the University of Louisville. She completed her residency at Florida Hospital (now AdventHealth) in Orlando, Florida, followed by an obstetric fellowship.

Dr. Thompson cited a friendship with Yolanda Yoder, M.D. as a key reason she began working at SICHC in 2025. Dr. Yoder, who serves as SICHC Medical Director, had first reached out to Dr. Thompson following the closure of Dunn Hospital, and maintained contact with her.

“It’s no easy task to recruit medical professionals for rural areas,” she said. “You have to have a heart for the work, and it’s a huge blessing to be able to be part of what SICHC is doing for the region.”

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About the Southern Indiana Community Health Care nonprofit organization

Well-known as a high-impact health care provider committed to continuity of care, the nonprofit Southern Indiana Community Health Care (SICHC) organization is committed to providing high-quality, comprehensive, community-sensitive health care utilizing Christ-centered principles to medically underserved, rural communities. As a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), SICHC serves as a “safety net” provider for vulnerable populations and focuses on increasing access to primary care services for Medicaid and Medicare patients in rural communities. SICHC offers medical care in medically underserved areas of Crawford, Lawrence, and Orange counties. Southern Indiana Community Health Care is a member of the National Health Services Corps and receives program funding from Health Resources and Services. For more information, please visit: https://sichc.org/