Phyllis Hendry, MD
Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of Research
UF College of Medicine - Jacksonville
Pediatric emergency medicine physician: 20 years of excellence
Dr. Phyllis Hendry has worked for the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville for 20 years—all of her professional career—yet, in many ways, her perception of it is brand new. Fresh from her term as the second president of the 2-year-old UF COM-Jacksonville Faculty Council, she has a clearer understanding and appreciation of the diversity and strong leadership behind UF's global reputation for superior patient care, education and research.
Phyllis Hendry, MDAn associate professor, division of pediatric emergency medicine, and assistant chair of research in the department of emergency medicine, Hendry described her term as a wonderful experience that changed her life. "I came away so impressed with the quality of people who run this campus," she said. "Dr. Nuss totally embraces the concept of a faculty council and shared governance." Faculty councils at UF's medical colleges in Jacksonville and Gainesville share a constitution but have separate bylaws. Officers are elected by their peers. Nuss, dean of Jacksonville's regional campus, frequently solicited Hendry's advice on such topics as benefits, policies, education, finance, and promotion and tenure when she represented the faculty as council president.
"It made me want to be involved with University of Florida leadership and represent the needs of our faculty," said Hendry, who, as past president, continues to serve as a council officer. "We have a lot of great programs, physicians and diversity."
Hendry, who hasn't seen a typical day in at least two decades, wedged council committee meetings into her already bulging schedule without slacking on her clinical, administrative, academic or research duties. She works an average of two to three evening shifts a week in the pediatric emergency department at Shands Jacksonville. In her second year as assistant chair of research, she is passionate about teaching pediatric emergency medicine to emergency medicine and pediatric residents. She helped develop numerous national pediatric resuscitation courses and taught them on campus. During her UF employment, she has made nearly 30 international, national, state and local medical presentations and authored as many medical publications. For seven years she served as medical director of the state health department's Emergency Medical Services for Children Program.
"What I really like to do is take a complex system and fine tune it, especially in pediatric care," she said. "I like to figure out what the components are, organize them and make them better."
"Phyllis has the ability to focus like few others; it's not finished until it's right," said Dr. David Vukich, chair of the department of emergency medicine. "She accomplishes huge amounts of work and is tireless. She's held numerous leadership positions and appointments and has significantly improved the health of this nation's children as a result."
Vukich said he and Hendry have worked together since the late 1980s, when she was a fellow in pediatric emergency medicine. "We connected because she was extremely helpful to me as the department leader," he said. "Her skills were obvious from even this early stage of her career. Fortunately for us, she never left, joining the faculty in 1991. I wanted her on my staff for several reasons: she is thoughtful, kind, intense, dedicated, fast, serious, painfully thorough and accurate. I cannot think of better attributes for an academic emergency physician."
 Hendry recalls her early days at UF as difficult, innovative, fun and extremely rewarding. As a pediatric emergency fellow, she parked in a dirt field, had no duty hours or meal card, discovered a back road to travel back and forth to Wolfson Children's Hospital while on call from Friday morning to Sunday night and tossed an old mattress into her makeshift office in the pediatric ER to nap when she could. Back then, pediatric AIDS was just starting and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, septic shock and haemophilus influenza still killed many children. "Pediatrics has changed so much because of preventative medicine," Hendry said. "We did not have the training we have now."
Acknowledging that emergency physicians often are a "tougher type of person," Hendry—who framed a photo of a young leukemia survivor for her office—confided that she's also sometimes wimpy. Dr. Robert Luten, a professor of emergency medicine, division of pediatric emergency medicine, called Hendry committed, hard working and fun loving. "She came to us fresh out of residency and has matured into an extremely competent, well-rounded physician who has garnered a wealth of experience, which she imparts to fellows and residents, as well as administrative skills that set her apart as a leader within the institution," he said.
"As the editor in chief of an important textbook for Emergency Medicine, I actively recruited Phyllis to head up the Pediatric Emergency Medicine section for the book. Predictably, she took on what is a truly major task with her usual humor, fastidiousness and dogged determination to make her section the very best it could be," said Dr. Ann Harwood-Nuss, a professor and assistant dean for program development, UF COM-Jacksonville. "The textbook has received wonderful reviews over the years and most reviewers single out the pediatric section as particularly great. Serving as a section editor for a major textbook in addition to all of her other duties is representative to me of the kind of person she is: dedicated beyond all measure and committed to excellence."
Hendry took a diversion into children's hospice for a year, fulfilling a career long dream to work with chronically ill and dying children and their families. "Phyllis had a particular ability for this but in the end she knew she needed to return to the emergency department," Vukich said.
Hendry's profound professionalism could be partially why she turns heads and elicit smiles when she drives onto campus in her blue diesel pickup, pours coffee into her "Every woman should be queen for a day" mug and welcomes visitors to her homey office decorated with family and patient photos, inspirational sayings and comical plaques. For relaxation, she enjoys antiquing, gardening and fishing. "But I don't do any of that anymore," she said, "because I have a 17-year-old daughter who barrel races." Hendry uses the pickup to haul a horse trailer to weekend shows, where her daughter, Erin, competes. She also has a 21-year old son, Gerald, a student at UF in Gainesville.
The most satisfying thing about her career is saving a child's life and making a family happy, Hendry said. "The most challenging is how to balance being a good clinician and administrator, learning the field of research, taking care of the house and children and paying the bills. The work is never really done."
Pursuing degrees in microbiology and food science and technology while many other girls from her Minden, Louisiana, hometown were studying to become teachers, Hendry received a doctor of medicine degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport. She chose UF COM at Jacksonville because of its impressive pediatric emergency medicine fellowship program, the friendly people who interviewed her and an opportunity to live at the beach for the first time. Reflecting on that decision, she is proud to have been a part of the college of medicine's tremendous progress and grateful for the privilege to represent her colleagues the past year on the faculty council. She begins her third decade particularly excited about her new research opportunities. At her 20-year milestone, Hendry briefly considered moving closer to Louisiana. "But this is home," she said.
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