While the initial weeks of COVID vaccinations got off to a rocky start, the incoming administration is doing its part to make sure that supply keeps up with demand. With more and more people signing up and lining up to get poked, LVN students in California are doing their part and volunteering to help administer vaccines.
It’s not just nurses and LVNs in California who are getting in on it. Throughout the country, nursing students everywhere are volunteering to make sure there are enough healthcare and frontline staff to give those vaccines to their friends and neighbors in their local communities.
Southern California Nursing Students in News!
Throughout the southland, nursing students are taking part to make sure that vaccine injection sites can keep up with demand. In the Inland Empire, “local providers turned to nursing students from across the region to help get shots in health care workers’ arms as quickly as possible.”
And in our own backyard, Los Angeles nursing students are working hard and standing up for their profession and the region. We loved this story in the L.A. Times about students throughout the metro area feeling inspired and called to participate in the largest vaccination drive in U.S. history.
“I felt pretty confident about my technique,” the 23-year-old Cal State Long Beach student said. “You just pinch the arm at the deltoid and go in, straight like a dart.”
But, she said, “I was nervous to get it right.”
By the end of her first shift in December, she had administered 40 shots, joining a growing corps of volunteer student nurses from Cal State universities who are jump-starting their careers at a time when there’s a great need for healthcare professionals trained to administer vaccines.”
Read the full L.A. Times story:
Nursing students help deliver COVID-19 vaccines
Just to our south in neighboring San Diego, 200 nursing students at San Diego State are “rising to the challenge of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.” From a television news story, “Students underwent additional training for COVID-19 vaccines. They had to learn what reactions to look for inpatients and they practiced administering doses using vials of water.”
Check out the full story here.
While it’s certainly heartening and inspiring to see students making sacrifices and serving their nation, it’s more important to note that the pandemic is providing an opportunity unlike any other for nursing students to gain real-time, clinical hours in a historic way.
Nursing Students Gaining Real-World Nursing Experience
Regionally, Las Vegas student nurses at UNLV are also getting clinical hours and experience working to administer COVID shots. From the outside, it certainly looks like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. How do the students themselves feel?
“It’s so cool. It feels like I’m apart of history,” UNLV nursing student Kelsey Thompson said. “It’s why I got into nursing, right? To make a difference.”
For the full story:
Nursing students gain clinical experience administering COVID-19 vaccines at UNLV
Most students are getting credit in addition to professional experience. Take these students at a community college program in North Carolina. Nursing students are volunteering an average of two days a week at a state health clinic, all of which counts towards their clinical hours.
“Students learn to administer vaccinations in their first semester of the program. Now in their second semester, volunteering at the clinic allows them to further their training and technique while being surrounded by other medical personnel from local agencies.”
Read the full story:
Nursing students volunteer at COVID-19 vaccination clinic | Education | morganton.com
Nationwide Call for Nursing Students to Give Out COVID Vaccines
What about the rest of the U.S.? Nationwide, more and more states are leveraging the experience, curiosity and drive of nursing students to shore up demand for vaccine distribution.
From a Reuters story: “At least seven state health departments are seeking volunteers for their vaccination sites, some partnering with local universities or nursing schools to offer incentives such as tuition discounts and hands-on training. Others are teaching first responders to administer shots.” Check out the full story here:
U.S. states enlist medical, nursing students to give out COVID-19 vaccine
To help protect their safety, many states are also including nursing students in the early rounds of vaccine distribution. For example, nurse student volunteers at the University of Northern Alabama are eligible as first responders for a COVID vaccine.
We are so proud of the nursing community and the nursing student community for all of the lifesaving work they do. Become a nurse today, and your impact will last for a generation. To join one of the top paying and most in-demand professions in the U.S. in just 13 months, contact us today to enroll in our online class.
