Jessica Gerhardt had not planned on becoming a nurse until a life-altering hospitalization changed the course of her career. In 2021, she was hospitalized with COVID-19 that quickly progressed to pneumonia and then sepsis, ultimately leaving her in need of a liver transplant.
During her time at University Hospital, the care she received from the healthcare team, especially the nurses, left a lasting impression. It inspired Gerhardt to leave her career in PR and communications and pursue nursing. Despite facing many obstacles, she completed the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program at the Indiana University School of Nursing in May 2024.
“I just remember thinking, ‘I should be doing a career that’s more impactful in a field that needs me,’” Gerhardt recalled. “It was a good motivator to getting stronger and getting better, getting well after my transplant.”
Even after her successful liver transplant, Gerhardt faced a long road to recovery. She had to relearn basic activities such as walking and working to rebuild her mobility and strength. She also needed additional surgeries. For a time during her ABSN program, she scheduled surgeries during academic breaks—meaning spare time from classes and studying were spent in surgery and recovery.
“One of the biggest challenges for me coming back from that was obviously relearning to walk but also building strength to be able to prove to myself that I could work a 12-hour shift, and if I could lift patients. Can I move them safely? What are my limitations?” Gerhardt said.
Now a RN at the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) at Riley Children’s Health, Gerhardt primarily treats pediatric patients who have or will undergo heart transplants. Initially, she wanted to be a transplant nurse on the ICU floors where she was once a patient, but found it took too large of an emotional toll on her working with others in the same position she had been just a few years before.
At the CVICU, she still gets to connect with transplant patients through a shared experience but finds their age differences and diagnosis provide enough distance from her own experience to not be an emotional trigger.
Gerhardt believes that sharing her experience can be an inspiration to families by showing what’s possible for a transplant patient.
“I think it does provide families a ton of hope when they see me, as a transplant patient, running around a busy CVICU fully functioning,” she said.
Gerhardt is also able to educate current students and new hires at Riley, including her capstone preceptee, IU Indianapolis BSN student Hannah Shely. Shely has been inspired by her preceptor’s personal journey as well as the advocacy-focused and attentive way she approaches nursing.
“As a CVICU nurse, Jessica is an extraordinary advocate for her patients,” Shely said. “Not only being super attentive to their needs but also standing up for them to make change if she noticed a previous intervention wasn’t working. She went above and beyond to make the families involved in the care of their loved ones and always offered clarification on a subject if they needed it.”
Gerhardt also uses her communications background to educate patients and their families to ensure everyone has a complete understanding of the diagnosis and treatment plan. Her parents’ own experience while she was in the hospital is frequently at the back of her mind when speaking with families.
“I remember how scary it was for my parents who do not have medical backgrounds,” Gerhardt said. “When all these people would come in and say a bunch of stuff to them, they were just left sometimes like, ‘Well, what does that mean?’”
“Now, I have the ability, like all communications specialists do, to go in and read a room,” she added. “I can read emotions, I can read people’s understanding, and I know what questions to ask to make sure they really understand what was just said to them.”
Shely says that Gerhardt’s experience has shaped her into an especially empathetic nurse.
“I feel as though her perseverance throughout a very monumental part of her life is what makes her such a great nurse,” Shely said. “She is able to see the patient as a whole and understand what they may be going through.”
Gerhardt hopes to keep bridging communication gaps in healthcare and provide excellent care to Riley patients like she received at University Hospital.
“We have some little gaps in healthcare that we are bridging slowly, but I think that people that come from different backgrounds are helping to bridge that gap,” she said.
