Health care workers within the Southern Indiana market are using their diverse perspectives and experiences to be able to navigate the challenges that come up through the daily work.
Health care workers within the Southern Indiana market are using their diverse perspectives and experiences to be able to navigate the challenges that come up through the daily work.
Renee Yates is the labor and delivery nurse manager at Norton Clark Hospital, and has been for seven years. Overall, she has worked at that hospital for around 47 years.
Yates is originally from the Southern Indiana area, growing up in New Albany and currently lives in Clarksville.
After high school, Yates earned a scholarship for a licensed practical nurse school. and charting than they did several years ago to ensure meticulous records.
Yates said that throughout her whole career, she can think of only one instance in which someone picked on her because of the color of her skin.
“ Everybody has always treated me with respect,” she said. Yates said people ought to respect other people they work
She said she was uninterested at first of going to the school and wanted to just work. However, her grandmother, who raised her, told her she must go.
“ Which was the best thing that could’ ve happened to me,” Yates said.
After she earned her LPN license, she worked at the Old Methodist Hospital, and then shortly began working at Clark.
She said she then became more interested in the labor and delivery unit after providing some assistance there. She decided to go back to school to earn her registered nurse certification so she could work there fully.
Yates said she has worked there long enough that she has come across those she had helped be born into the world come back to the hospital to give birth.
With her labor and delivery experience she now manages these same nurses who work in the unit now.
She said technology is one aspect that has changed a lot in the healthcare field.
“ I saw the first computer come in here,” she said.
Another aspect she feels has changed in healthcare is that workers now have to do much more documentation
Jackie Singleton is the chief nursing officer at LifeSpring Health Systems in Jeffersonville.
July | August 2025 DIVERSITY 23