Lisa Hatcher has changed professions more often than some people change hairstyles.
She’s been a high school teacher, a nurse and a hospital administrator. Her degrees include an associate in nursing, a Bachelor’s of Science, a master’s in education and a Master of Business Administration.
So when Hatcher decided to go to medical school at age 38, her friend Bridget Johnson wasn’t surprised.
“It was a natural fit for her to say, ‘I can do more. I want to care for patients directly,’” Johnson said. “She’s such a caring person, and she has leadership ability.”
Dr. Lisa Hatcher, 65, will have an opportunity to flex those leadership muscles as president of the Indiana State Medical Association.
The Columbia City obstetrician and family medicine physician stepped into the one-year position this fall. The state’s health care providers are struggling with increased vaping among teens, various obesity- and smoking-related illnesses and a lack of access to mental health treatment.
A nomadic start
Hatcher, the daughter of a Lutheran minister and a former schoolteacher, was the oldest of seven children, four girls and three boys.
“They would all say I’m the bossiest,” she said.
The family moved often, including to Ohio when Hatcher was an infant. She started kindergarten in Ohio but finished the school year in Indiana.
They moved to Ontario when she was in third grade but returned to the U.S. in time for her to graduate high school in a small Missouri town.
“I think of myself as this dweeby little teenager who battled to make friends when she returned to the United States,” Hatcher said.
But it was the death of her infant sister, born prematurely, that left the most profound mark. Hatcher was 9 at the time.
“The moment my dad told us that Ann Marie had died was the first time I remember thinking that I wanted to be a doctor,” she said in her profile on Parkview Health’s website.
Hatcher settled in Columbia City as a young adult. Her first job after college was teaching health, physical education and biology. She also coached girls’ tennis and basketball, leading the basketball team to a sectional win in the first girls’ state tournament.
Rung after rung
Hatcher started working as a night-shift nurse at Whitley County Memorial Hospital, first in obstetrics then in coronary care and the emergency room.
After giving birth to her second child, Hatcher moved to the day shift. As in-service director, she taught nursing assistant classes, coordinated orientation for new nurses and scheduled continuing education programs.
Hatcher climbed the administrative ladder to become director of nursing and then the hospital’s chief operating officer. In the midst of doing that work, she was divorced from her first husband. She left to enter Indiana University School of Medicine in 1993.
Never one to sit idle, Hatcher devoted the summers before medical school and between her first and second years of courses to her medical school research project. She juggled that work with shifts as a home health care nurse.
Johnson, who retired last summer from Parkview Health, has known Hatcher since before Hatcher started medical school.
“She makes good use of time. She’s very disciplined,” Johnson said of her friend. “That’s just her stride” to stay constantly busy.
But even super-students have limits.
“My brain didn’t absorb things and keep them like it did when I was 18 or 20,” Hatcher said.
Commuting presented another challenge. She had hoped to take classes in Fort Wayne but was assigned to the Gary campus, where IU officials thought the experiential learning program was a better fit for a returning student.
As if all that weren’t enough, Hatcher married her second husband, John Hatcher, a hospital administrator, one month after entering medical school. And they raised six children, including two from her first marriage.
Professional priorities
Hatcher was 45 when she completed her residency and started private practice.
She managed an independent practice about 13 years before joining Parkview Physicians Group. It was tough to give up control, but increasing federal requirements have made it harder for doctors to remain in private practice, she said.
As head of the Indiana State Medical Association, Hatcher is working to address some of the challenges facing Hoosier communities and the medical students who hope to practice in them.
That includes addressing the doctor shortage by encouraging med school students to specialize in primary care, internal medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry and general surgery.
The association is also working to expand residency slots for medical school graduates.
Hatcher has her own priorities, including a focus on vaping. She’d like to see the minimum age for buying cigarettes and vaping cartridges increased to 21.
Another area of concern is the lack of addiction and mental health resources, especially for people released from jail.
Hatcher, Whitley County’s former health commissioner, wants to create a support system that addresses numerous needs, including spiritual ones.
“I’d like to see a unified effort,” she said. “And we’re seeing some progress on this.”
The doc is in
Hatcher, who directs her church’s bell choir and wrote this year’s children’s Christmas program, treats patients from newborns to senior citizens.
Johnson noted that Hatcher takes things in stride, including patients who don’t believe in vaccinating children against childhood diseases.
“She’s very nonjudgmental. She accepts people where they’re at,” Johnson said. “She listens. She’s kind.”
Hatcher acknowledged those are tough conversations. But she shares information with parents, assuring them that medicine doesn’t conflict with faith.
“I see science as a gift from God,” she said.
Hatcher adopts the same respectful attitude when interacting with coworkers, John Hatcher said.
“She treats her associates – no matter where they are in the line of care – as professionals,” he said. “I am extremely proud of her.”
Family matters
The Hatcher family has expanded from six children to include 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Instead of shopping Lisa Hatcher spent Black Friday baking Christmas cookies with her granddaughters, carrying on a tradition she shared with her mother.
Over time, it became more difficult to schedule gatherings around everyone’s activities. So now, the extended Hatcher family is invited to Lisa and John’s house the third Sunday of every month for food and fun.
“Whoever can come, can come,” she said.
John Hatcher, now retired from Parkview, recalled growing up without really knowing cousins who lived nearby. He doesn’t want that for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Lisa Hatcher loves spending time with multiple generations of her family. When her parents were unable to live on their own, they moved in. Her father, who had Parkinson’s, died four years ago. Her mother died in February at age 96.
Hatcher took the opportunity during those years to learn more about her family’s history.
“I think that intergenerational homes are so blessed,” she added.
When she isn’t working or strengthening family ties, Hatcher swims and kayaks, her favorite forms of exercise. And she makes time to read the Bible.
“My favorite time of day is 4:30 in the morning because nobody bothers me at that time,” she said, adding that she drinks coffee, tea or warm apple cider as she reads.
Hatcher credits God for her successes.
“I’m just flabbergasted sometimes,” she said, “at all the opportunities he’s put in front of me.”
sslater@jg.net