He was raised with the Drewry children at the Drewry-family home "Redwood" enjoying a supportive environment and summering with his father at the St Paul farm.
He worked closely with Will Mayo, as his assistant, and in keeping with his preference and skill as a "bone surgeon", it was decided that the young Henderson would limit his practice to a precise specialty.
Although she was already denounced by many physicians and surgeons, including the AMA president, as an "ignorant quack seeking money for her own gain", Henderson chose to make his own opinions.
[3] There, she was finally given a chance to demonstrate her work to doctors Miland Knapp and John Pohl, who headed the polio treatment centers and told her that she should "stick around".
[4][5] Henderson was involved in many national and international organizations, and was a founder and first President of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons, when it was established at the Kahler Hotel in Rochester, Minnesota, on June 5, 1934.
Describing the organization of the board, the closed, socially elite Eastern establishment of surgeons, withheld endorsement, "After all, in the opinion of the East Coast establishment, Henderson (who was born in St. Paul, was educated in Canada, and had his beginning with the Mayo brothers as a clinical assistant riding a bicycle around Rochester, making house calls on the Mayo brothers' patients) was a mere upstart."