{"id":413650,"date":"2026-01-17T21:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T21:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413650\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T21:05:12","slug":"dr-tom-kim-founder-of-kim-health-center-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413650\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Tom Kim, founder of Kim Health Center, passes away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Kim founded the Free Medical Clinic of America, later renamed Kim Health Center in his honor. <\/p>\n<p>KNOXVILLE, Tenn \u2014 Sources confirmed on Saturday, Jan. 17, that Dr. Tom Kim has passed away.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbir.com\/article\/news\/community\/free-medical-clinic-of-america-rebranded-as-the-kim-health-center-to-honor-dr-kim-on-january-25-2023\/51-69e86027-f827-4288-90b7-05caca57d89f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Dr. Kim<\/a> started providing free health care for people who were working but uninsured in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>He founded the Free Medical Clinic of America over 30 years ago, which was renamed Kim Health Center in 2013 in his honor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kim was also awarded the Federal Bureau of Investigation&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbir.com\/article\/news\/local\/south-knoxville\/fbi-honors-dr-kim-with-leadership-reward\/51-95423432\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Director&#8217;s Community Leadership Award<\/a> in 2013 for going above and beyond to serve the community.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Kim Health Center&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/kimhealthcenter.org\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">website<\/a>, Kim retired in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dr. Kim was a successful oncologist who felt inspired by his Christian upbringing to give back to the community that had given him so much,&#8221; the website says. &#8220;He began offering free services in 1993 and was responsible for the start of multiple free clinics in East Tennessee.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mayor of Knoxville Indya Kincannon<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/19cFnDUwM6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">\u00a0posted about Kim&#8217;s death,<\/a> in addition to the passing of Natalie Haslam.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dr. Kim started the Free Medical Clinic of America, and has helped thousands of East Tennesseans access healthcare through his free clinics,&#8221; Kincannon posted. &#8220;Thank you both for your lasting legacies of giving \u2013 your work will continue to impact countless generations.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Kim founded the Free Medical Clinic of America, later renamed Kim Health Center in his honor. KNOXVILLE,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-413650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}