Southeast Hospital nurse executive promotes lifelong learning

~ "One of the things I am the most is a lifelong learner. I have tried to instill that vision, that concept into the nurses who work here. We have to make the education of our staff the top of our mind." --Karen Hendrickson

Karen Hendrickson believes that education is the key to a satisfied nursing staff and good patient care. Under her leadership, Southeast Hospital became the first hospital in the Southeast Missouri/Southern Illinois region and the first rural hospital to win the coveted Magnet Nursing Services Recognition Award -- and the 124th hospital out of 6,000 in the nation and fourth in the state to earn the award.

For Hendrickson, it's all about giving the best patient care.

"As chief nurse at Southeast Hospital, I have always felt it was my responsibility to have the most educated, most clinically skilled and the most competent staff positioned at the bedside to take care of patients," she said.

When she first looked at the standards for a Magnet hospital, she said she knew Southeast could meet those standards easily. Most hospitals take as many as a dozen years or more to qualify; Southeast did it in two. Most of the Magnet standards were already in place at Southeast, she said. Southeast would have reached Magnet level in a year and a half, she said, but some of the standards were toughened up during the process which added six months to the goal.

Hendrickson is one of the founding directors of the Licensed Practical Nurse program at the Cape Girardeau Technical and Career Center. That involvement led her to see that the area had a need for registered nurses and that Southeast Hospital could meet that need. Her vision led to the founding of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Hendrickson is all about education.

"I have always felt one must continue to learn, and I think learned people sometimes become leaders," she said.

In her own learning process, she took time to have a family and continued to learn and develop as a leader in her profession and in the community. Learning for her is not limited to classrooms.

"There's not a day I come to work I don't learn something," she said. "Opportunities to learn are immense in the health-care profession."

In the beginning: "I'm a local kid. I graduated from Jackson High School. My family is still in Jackson and my mother is still in Jackson. I'm proud of that."

Hendrickson's father was Rusby Crites, a longtime Cape Girardeau county clerk.

Hendrickson left Jackson to attend nursing school at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, where she worked for seven years. One of her patients was the uncle of Jack Oliver, father of the late attorney John Oliver. He was impressed enough with Hendrickson's nursing skills that he recommended to his fellow members of the Southeast Board of Directors that they offer her a job to head up a new ICU unit the hospital was building.

"Following in my father's footsteps, I learned how important relationships are," she said. "It has been my practice always to build relationships. When taking care of Mr. Oliver's uncle, I knew his family was from Cape Girardeau and I shared with them I'm from Jackson.

"I was pleased to be invited to come home. One of the greatest beliefs I have as a nurse practicing in the community in which I was raised is the privilege of taking care of people I have known all my life."

On being a professional woman: "You have to give back to your community. I have done that through the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce and serving on the board as well as being chairman of the University Relations Committee. Secondly, I am coordinator of adult ministry at Grace United Methodist Church. I believe strongly that the most successful woman is well grounded in her profession, her community, her church and her family. It's hard to be a successful professional, wife, mother, business leader and volunteer. It's demanding. To me it makes a whole person."

On her doctorate degree: "I was 50 when I went back to school to show my staff we all need to continue to learn. It was just a desire to show the nurses coming behind me that one can be doctorally prepared and stay in practice. Most doctorally prepared nurses are educators. Those working bedside in a hospital need to be prepared equally academically in whatever level of practice they're engaged in at the time. Nurse leaders have to be role models."

On nursing: "I have never wanted to be anything but a nurse. I am where I want to be. The success my nurses have had at Southeast Hospital over the past year have been significant and phenomenal. They have raised their educational level through the scholarship program. They have been invited speakers at national conferences. They have been recognized with numerous awards for their practice.

"There clearly is a shortage of nurses across the nation. There are pockets where there is no shortage. Because of the shortage there is a high degree of dissatisfaction in nursing. What I find today is hospitals who are making decisions to hire fewer nurses and pay them more. My fear is that in a short number of years those nurses will burn out, wear out and become disenchanted by the profession and the shortage will get worse.

"The work of nursing is very demanding intellectually as well as physically. It's the most rewarding profession I can imagine working in. I'm excited every day to come to work. I'm challenged every day by wonderful people in this world who are older than I and continue to be successful. I have no plans to retire. My plans are to continue to grow."

Southeast Hospital CEO James Wente on Hendrickson: "Karen has been an advocate of continuing education for her nursing staff. She is highly respected by her professional staff and has proven to me to have skills of leadership most people recognize: She's fair, understanding, she has the ability to make and execute hard decisions. She deserves a lot of credit for our nurse vacancy rate being in the 2 to 3 percent range. She's a great motivator."

Wente on the Magnet award: "I was delighted to know my staff was coming to me saying 'we want to do that; we can do that' rather than my having to go to them saying we should do this and I want to get it done. It speaks volumes for the people who work for me. There was little doubt in my mind they could do it. They did it."

Wente said he met an East Coast hospital CEO who said it took his staff 10 years to earn a Magnet award. "It made me feel real good to know it took my team only two years to do it. It's a remarkable thing."

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Meet Karen Hendrickson, EdD, RN, CNAA, BC

Position: Vice President/Chief Nursing Officer

Southeast Missouri Hospital

Education: Doctor of Education, The University of Memphis

Master of Arts, Psychological Counseling, Southeast Missouri State University

Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Southeast Missouri State University

Diploma, Barnes Hospital School of Nursing, St. Louis

Personal: Married. Husband Jim is a pharmacist at Southeast Hospital

Two sons: Rhett, who works with Health Works at Southeast Hospital, Ryan is a film editor with Anheuser Busch in St. Louis.

Awards:

Women's Impact Award, Otahki Girl Scout Council; Woman of Achievement Award, Zonta Club of Cape Girardeau; Alumni Merit Award Citation, Southeast Missouri State University; Outstanding Alumnus Award, Southeast Missouri State University Department of Nursing; Outstanding Alumnus Award, Barnes College Alumni Association; Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award, Sigma Theta Tau, Lambda Theta Chapter.

Greatest professional achievement: Two-year term as president of the Missouri State Board of Nursing.