Vaccinating the world takes a herculean effort, and local nursing students have stepped up to help in California’s effort to protect its residents against COVID-19.
The Nursing Program at California State University Channel Islands is full of qualified students who are gaining real-world — and historically significant — health-care experience in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
“We partnered with area hospitals that were offering the vaccines on their campuses,” said Lynette Landry, chair of the CSUCI Nursing Program. “Faculty were involved in recruiting student volunteers and assuring students were competent to do the tasks that they would be performing at the clinic.”
Student volunteers had already shown skill when it came to giving vaccines, so they were ready when the opportunity to vaccinate community members presented itself.
“Students learn how to administer a vaccine in our labs,” Landry said. “All students who administered vaccines at the clinics had demonstrated competence in administering a vaccination.”
Since February, Nursing sophomores, juniors and seniors have been working with local hospitals to give vaccinations and help with other tasks. Even Nursing students who are not yet able to give vaccinations volunteered to help.
“First-year students did not administer the vaccine,” Landry said. “They provided administrative support such as checking people in and observing for a post-immunization reaction.”
CSUCI has Nursing classes at its main campus in Camarillo and at its satellite location in Goleta, where Nursing students have also teamed up with Cottage Health to provide vaccines at a drive-through clinic at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital.
Nursing students in Ventura County helped the Ventura County Public Health Department with completing documentation, answering phones and doing other administrative work. They also administer vaccines at St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo.
In addition to being trained in the CSUCI Nursing program, the students who give vaccinations are supervised while on-site to ensure everything goes smoothly.
“All students who participated in the vaccination clinic were supervised by either a faculty member or a licensed registered nurse,” Landry said. “Students are not able to administer vaccinations without a nurse supervising them.”
The extra help means more people can be vaccinated, an important step to achieving population immunity, the point at which enough people are protected from a disease because they’ve had it or are vaccinated.
“Population immunity makes it hard for the disease to spread from person to person,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It even protects those who cannot be vaccinated, like newborns or people who are allergic to the vaccine.”
Because the percentage of people who need to have protection to reach population immunity varies by disease, there is still some question about how many people need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to reach that point, according to the CDC.
More than 26 million vaccines have been administered throughout California, according to the state’s COVID-19 information website. Vaccinations are open to all Californians 16 years and older.
“COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and 100 percent free,” the state website says. “Sign up for your appointment today and join the millions who are putting an end to this pandemic.”
As more residents sign up for their vaccinations, Nursing students will continue to volunteer as they do their part to end the pandemic.
Click here to learn more about the CSU Channel Islands Nursing Program, the No. 16-ranked nursing program in California.