Sherri Mendelson: Supporting doctoral students
Inaugural awards given to five PhD students in April Heading link
The UIC College of Nursing has always been a family affair for Sherri Mendelson, PhD, MS ’84, BSN ‘77.
Not only did she meet her husband, Tom, at the Urbana campus while she was an undergraduate, Mendelson also overlapped with her sister, Ellen (Garber) Bronfeld, MS ’84, BSN ’78, as students at UIC Nursing.
Mendelson’s daughter even got to “audit” a master’s level course, though she was just a baby at the time. Mendelson recalls bringing her to school for lectures the week after she was born, nursing her on the commute.
Encouragement from faculty and classmates made Mendelson feel comfortable enough to bring her newborn to class, while financial aid helped her afford the program.
“I was supported physically, financially and emotionally during my master’s degree at University of Illinois Chicago,” she says. “Without that support, I probably couldn’t have done it.”
Mendelson, now nurse scientist and Magnet program director at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, California, wanted to pass on that same sense of support to a future generation of nurse scientists.
She and her husband made a gift in 2020 to endow the Tom and Sherri Mendelson PhD Awards. The inaugural awards were given to five doctoral students in April.
“My current position as a research scientist for a large hospital system really helped me understand how much support nurses need in order to do their research and to move forward in understanding evidence-based practice and research,” she says.
Driven by the 'why' Heading link
Driven by the ‘why’
After getting her bachelor’s degree from UIC Nursing, Mendelson took a position as a postpartum nurse, then spent a year as a nurse on a kibbutz in Israel. She landed at Lutheran General Hospital (now Advocate Lutheran General) and spent 13 years there on various units: high-risk obstetrics, adolescent medical/surgical, maternal/child, and more.
With two kids and with a third on the way, she pursued her master’s degree from UIC Nursing because she was passionate about helping other nurses take a highly scientific approach to care.
“I was interested in helping nurses expand their use of evidence-based practice in the clinical area,” she says.
After earning her MS and becoming a clinical nurse specialist, Mendelson relocated to Los Angeles with Tom for his job with Northern Trust Corp. There, she pursued her PhD, driven by a desire to understand the “why” behind nursing practice.
She says she’s always asking: “Is this the right way to be doing things? If not, how could we be doing things better?”
In her current role, she is still chasing the “why” and is currently part of a study looking at patients hospitalized with COVID who are on antidepressants.
Since 2007, she’s also successfully led Providence Holy Cross Medical Center through three MAGNET designations, the gold standard for hospital nursing.
Mendelson says she continues to value the camaraderie she developed at UIC Nursing.