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Rachel Richter has discovered all the similarities between two very different careers, courtesy of a life-changing visit to Ivy Tech’s Peru office.

Richter now is a surgical nurse, a “circulator” in the operating rooms at Parkview Hospital in Wabash. As one of her nursing preceptors told her, the job would be the hardest thing she’d ever done – and, as Richter says, “He’s right … and I love it.”

As circulator, Richter stays outside the sterile field of the operating table where the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and the surgical technologists are plying their trades on behalf of the patient lying there. As circulator, Richter is there to handle any problems that arise.

“Let’s say you have a surgeon and an open patient, and something isn’t working right with the equipment,” she said. “The circulator, the one outside the sterile field, is the one who assesses the problem, finds it, and fixes it quickly.” It’s a vital job that’s ever changing – and requires rapid problem-solving as if a life depends on it, because it does.

Richter had spent 23 years working with the family business, Victoria’s Favorites Flowers and Gifts located in “a cool French mansard mansion on Third Street” in Peru, an unlikely place to gain experience she’s found helpful in the operating room.

“At the flower shop, I wore all the hats. With a small family business, you handle customer service, ordering, delivering …,” she said. “I can remember many days where I’d start with something like putting a bouquet of roses together for a husband’s anniversary gift. Next up might be a baby’s casket spray, and then a wedding.

“That flipping of the service that you provide, that switching up what becomes your ‘nurse face’ as you deal with people and where they are coming from, not only prepares you for nursing, it prepares you for life,” she continued, with a smile. “I think everyone should work at a flower shop to get that experience.”

Then came the time the family decided to close the flower shop. After a year as a “housewife,” boredom set in and Richter decided to take a stroll down Main Street to talk to Cynde Lees, then an academic adviser at Ivy Tech’s Peru instruction center, who had been a Victoria’s Favorites customer for years.

Then came the time the family decided to close the flower shop. After a year as a “housewife,” boredom set in and Richter decided to take a stroll down Main Street to talk to Cynde Lees, then an academic adviser at Ivy Tech’s Peru instruction center, who had been a Victoria’s Favorites customer for years.

“I wanted to take some classes but had no idea of what I wanted to do,” she remembers. “I talked to Cynde about getting a certification in medical billing. You know, maybe something I could do at home.”

Lees suggested Richter start with some science classes and, well, as they say, one thing led to another. While she was wracked with doubt about her abilities, Richter began building a 4.0 GPA, straight As. Lees’s next bit of guidance? “Rachel, you should be a nurse.”

“I told Cynde she was crazy,” Richter said. “I was in my mid-40s. No one wants a new nurse that old.” The answer came back: “No, the nursing profession needs some older wiser nurses. Know now, we absolutely do.”

Lees was just the first in a series of Ivy Tech advisers, instructors and mentors who helped Richter overcome “a constant state of denial.” Despite her doubts and fears at every step of the process, Richter passed the entry “TEAS” test, she was admitted into Ivy Tech’s highly selective Nursing program, she aced her classes, she passed the national NCLEX licensure examination. From that first conversation with Cynde Lees in 2017, Richter had completed an Associate of Science degree in Nursing in December 2019 and earned her designation as a Registered Nurse in January 2020.

Richter says,” There’s not a day go by that I am not drawing on the knowledge I gained at Ivy Tech or taking one of my professors from Ivy Tech with me.”  

• There’s Dr. John Miles, her podiatrist when she was a child and her anatomy instructor at Ivy Tech in Peru? “That man … I hope I have just a few drops of the knowledge he has.” 
• There’s Marian Henry, recently retired dean of Ivy Tech Kokomo’s School of Nursing. “Such a force! As an older student, I was the only person that got her joke about nursing being the second oldest profession for women.”
• There’s part-time instructor Jill McCarty who, as a nurse at Parkview, presented the value and pride she found in working for the rural hospital system that helped Richter set another goal she has achieved.
• There’s then-instructor Kelly Williams and Marian’s successor as dean. “The professionalism Kelly taught us … Nurses are part of the most highly esteemed profession in the world because of our advocacy for our patients.”

By her own account, Richter now works in a job she really loves, a job that’s challenging, that allows her to pull all the information she learned at Ivy Tech together and apply it to achieve the best outcomes for her patients. “If you don’t have critical thinking, if you don’t know how to apply the skill set you have, you won’t be successful,” she said. “Ivy Tech’s instructors hone those skills as you go through the program. That’s what you’re going to pull on when you’re on the job.”

She may be working the schedule of a full-time surgical nurse (five days a week plus 24-hour calls 10 days a month) but Richter isn’t done at Ivy Tech. After getting a call from Kelly Williams just two days after starting work at Parkview, Richter now spends off -duty time as a popular tutor for current students in Ivy Tech’s Nursing program.

“Rachel was an outstanding student. During her time in the Nursing program, she demonstrated the attributes that make an excellent nurse, including caring, compassion, integrity and professionalism,” Kelly said. “These traits have served her well in her nursing career, so we were glad when she accepted the invitation to share her knowledge and skills with our current students.”

And for Richter, it’s more than wanting to be “just a tutor.”

 “I want to be a mentor,” she says. “When students come to me and say, ‘This is so hard. Do you know how hard this is?’, I can say, ‘Yes, I went through it.’ As I am an advocate for my patients, I am an advocate for my students. I can remember what it’s like to be a student and when you never forget where you came from, you’re relatable.”

Richter says her message to others about Ivy Tech is “Enroll in some classes. Try it!”

“When I told my family I was in college in my mid-40s, they were surprised,” she said. “As I got going and ended up in Nursing, you could have knocked Mom and Dad down with a feather. How did I get from ‘taking some classes’ to becoming a surgical nurse?

“Every person within this College wants you to succeed and they’ll do anything and everything they can to help you succeed. Is it easy? No. Will they do it for you? No. But they will give you all the resources you need to make it happen.”

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