I Am an IU Nurse

Renata Hendrickson

Renata Henderson

IUSON BL Accelerated 2nd Degree student

Accelerated 2nd degree nursing student Renata Hendrickson was at IU studying to become a visual arts teacher when her mother, Ann, decided to leave her job at the hospital to open a non-medical home health care company. As the company began to take off, Renata helped her mother whenever she could. Summer breaks were especially busy, with Renata often running between answering the business phone, working back- to-back shifts as a caregiver, and filling in wherever necessary.

After Renata finished school, she continued to help with her mother’s business, but felt it was important to stick to her original plan and pursue a career in teaching. Over the next eight years, Renata worked as a visual arts teacher in Putnam County, until one day she found herself returning to health care. This time it was to support a new family business venture called Elder’s Journey Home Care. “I would leave my teaching job at 4:00 p.m. and would run the phones and triage throughout the evening, contacting nurses when needed,” she says. Working as a teacher remained important to Renata, but her responsibilities grew to the point where she was ready for a change. “I loved the school and the kids, but I was tired,” she admits.

Her mother offered Renata the opportunity to turn her attention full-time to Elder’s Journey, and Renata happily accepted. They discussed opening a company in Brazil, IN, and – if Renata could do the legwork – she could become a partial owner. Renata started Elder’s Journey and then expanded it into Terre Haute.

Once again, Renata helped where she could, but found that she needed additional skills to help her business grow. “There are parts of the business that require a nurse’s specialization and sign-off,” she says, “and that was something I simply couldn’t do.” It became clear to Renata that she needed to go to nursing school to obtain these skills and, after a conversation with Ann, she enrolled at Ivy Tech.

Renata family photo
Renata with her family (left), and with her mother, Ann (above)

“I consider myself very lucky at this point in my life to be back in a school setting because I think it’s something that my brain needed, and it’s something that my heart needed.” 

   - Renata Hendrickson

Renata soon discovered, however, that IUSON BL offers an accelerated 2nd degree program, and she decided to return to the Bloomington campus. “I already have one degree from IU,” she mused. “Why not a second?”

But there was one (major) hiccup. It was going to take Renata an extra year to earn her BSN because she needed to complete several science prerequisites and the sequence in which the courses were offered didn’t work well for her. Determined to return to the campus she loved – and demonstrating the work ethic and commitment to excellence that have become her personal trademarks - Renata doubled up on her courses, taking two as a part-time student through IU, and the rest through Ivy Tech. Renata passed three difficult, high-level science classes and health care statistics with flying colors, all while balancing work and raising a family. The result? Renata earned a spot in IUSON BL’s highly-competitive accelerated 2nd degree program.

Throughout her time in our accelerated program, Renata says her best “study buddies” are her two young sons. “I used to make them point to different places on the body and would tell them the bones, or I’d tickle their knees and tell them about the muscles,” she says.

Ever the teacher, Renata enjoys answering their questions. “It’s interesting, because they ask about how the body works. I’ll take out my stethoscope, and we listen to heart beats. We’ve checked our dog’s heart beat a number of times” she smiles. Once, one of her sons got hold of a textbook that contained “some pretty rough images” of sick and injured children. Renata chose to allow her son to view the pictures, but wanted him to ask questions. “Instead of being scared, I decided to be honest and explain that this is what sometimes happens in life, and this is how we’re going to fix it,” she says.

This spring – like so many Indiana businesses – Elder’s Journey was faced with its own grim picture of life during a pandemic. Unlike other businesses that could shut their doors, home health care needed to swiftly adapt its practices. Renate credits her mother, Ann, for leading their response and quickly implementing safety procedures for employees and clients. When there were PPE and sanitizer supply chain shortages, Renata’s office made their own. “I got a sewing machine from Aldi’s that I call my ‘easy bake sewing machine’,” she says, “and that machine has churned out at least a hundred masks!”  In between her classes, Renata continued to deliver equipment for the business, getting supplies to the locations that needed them.

As an accelerated student, Renata is taking courses through the summer and has found that she needs to spend more time focused on school – something she is happy to do. “I consider myself very lucky at this point in my life to be back in a school setting because I think it’s something that my brain needed, and it’s something that my heart needed,” she says.

Watch Renata in action as she shows us how to make a homemade protective mask to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Video removed; YouTube account closed.

I Am an IU Nurse is a regular feature of The Nursing News, in which we feature the accomplishments and personal stories of IUSON Bloomington’s student nurses and alumni.