When you think of nurses, you think of people dressed head to toe in scrubs working in 

hospitals or doctor offices. But, school nurses have a different take on the doctor role. They share similar job responsibilities just in a different work setting.

Rebecca Shoemaker, one of our school nurses, shares that she became a nurse out of the inspiration of her mom being a nurse. She went to Scecina Memorial high school along with Ivy Tech and IUPUI.

Being a nurse, her roles are taking care of students that come into the clinic not feeling well, educating them on how to take care of themselves, and making sure they’re all up to date on their immunizations. Rebbeca has been on her nursing journey since 2005 working for nursing homes, home health care, doctors offices, and Riley hospital. Later on in 2017 she made her way to Ben Davis. She states that the hardest challenge of her job is communicating effectively with parents and students. 

“I always liked taking care of people and animals and thought it would be a good thing to do. Blood and such never scared me,” Shoemaker said. 

Brittany Hayes, another nurse at our school, says she got her inspiration to be a nurse 

from a nurse named Karma who took care of her when she was sick and made an impact on her.

Hayes graduated from South Putnam and Ivy Tech. She shares that her role of being a nurse consists of taking care of students, educating students and parents, and giving different resources.

She started her journey as a nurse in 2009 working in emergency rooms, long term care, cardiac floor, and orthopedic doctors offices. Later in 2019 she joined the Ben Davis nursing team with Shoemake. Hayes states that her biggest challenge with her job is also communicating with the parents and students.

“Because there are a lot of job opportunities and areas you can work in as a nurse,” Hayes said of why she became a nurse.