Students Play Critical Role in Vaccinating Oklahomans

When COVID-19 vaccinations arrived, the logistics of making them available to faculty, staff and the public were considerable. Locations and supplies needed to be secured, a workflow had to be developed and, importantly, hundreds of volunteers were necessary for the process to run smoothly. Into those roles stepped OU Health Sciences Center students, whose time and skills led to the vaccination of more than 50,000 Oklahomans in 2021.

OU College of Medicine students have been key in the effort, providing 60% of the volunteer hours among trainees and working alongside their fellow students in the Colleges of Pharmacy, Nursing, Dentistry, Allied Health, Public Health and the Graduate College. Not only have they learned about a global virus in real time, but they allowed the enterprise to vaccinate many more people than otherwise would have been possible.

“Even though we are still in the developmental phase of our careers, this entire experience with vaccine clinics has allowed me to realize my potential as a student — even though I’m not yet licensed, I can still have a pretty sizable impact on the patient population. One of our biggest goals has been to empower all students to realize the same potential in themselves,” said Tram Le, a member of the College of Medicine Class of 2023 and chair of the student-led Unity Clinic.

In January 2021, as vaccination efforts were expanding, the students of Unity Clinic were brought on board to help vaccinate the mass influx of people seeking their shots on campus. Unity Clinic is not a physical building but a mobile, student-led effort that is housed in the Office of

Interdisciplinary Programs at the OU Health Sciences Center. Typically, students volunteer hundreds of hours each year caring for patients at Oklahoma City’s charitable clinics and working at health fairs and educational events. Because many of those activities had been halted due to the pandemic, students were eager to help with vaccinations.

The students quickly mobilized to recruit and schedule additional volunteers; help create a workflow for each step of the process, from registration to monitoring patients after their shots; train students to give injections if they had not already been trained; secure personal protective equipment and plan for infection control; and more. As vaccine clinics grew in size, more student volunteers came on board — about 375 served from January to mid-July 2021. The total number of COVID-19 vaccines administered through Unity Clinic volunteers comprised 1.2% of all vaccinations in the state of Oklahoma and 11.1% in Oklahoma County.

Students draw doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in preparation for a vaccine pod at Good Shepherd Clinic at First Baptist Church in downtown Oklahoma City.

The vaccine clinics also served as fertile ground for quality improvement projects on vaccine efficiency. In January 2021, the highest vaccination rates achieved were 62, 85 and 103 vaccinations per hour. In March 2021, the highest rates were 142, 168 and 204 vaccinations per hour. Students began organizing larger clinics, including a one-day “mega-pod” clinic in Norman where nearly 4,000 people were vaccinated.

“What was so incredible about that was that we had zero doses left over,” said Danial Gebreili, M.D., founder and former chair of Unity Clinic who is now in his residency. “It was a very logistically challenging process given that there were people who registered who didn’t show up, and people who showed up who didn’t register. Throughout that process, the wait time was nearly zero and we had no waste of vaccines. During a time when vaccines were limited, that was absolutely crucial because one vaccine could save lives.”

As they continued holding clinics, the students realized that there were people who, for various reasons, were not able to make it to larger vaccine clinics. So they decided to organize “strike team vaccine pods” to offer smaller, targeted clinics in the communities where people live. They have partnered with churches, schools, community centers, charitable clinics and other venues to provide vaccines to people who were often among the most underserved populations.

“It was a humbling experience,” Le said. “We learned how to approach and communicate with each community population individually. There was no standardized process for addressing vaccine hesitancy in everyone, for example. Just because I was wearing a white coat didn’t mean that I automatically knew how to care for people in each different community.”

Students held vaccine clinics around central Oklahoma, including at Thunder basketball games

By working such a significant number of hours, students took some of the pressure off the current healthcare workforce, most of whom could not afford to leave their existing patient care roles. The depth and breadth of the students’ organization meant that only a few clinician supervisors were needed at each vaccine clinic. Without fail, students were the first to arrive at each vaccine clinic and the last to leave, in addition to their planning time in between.

“Our doctors and nurses were under a tremendous amount of stress due to COVID-19,” Gebreili said. “If we as students didn’t step up to help, there would have been an additional burden on a health system that was already overstretched.” Students also looked after each other’s well-being and schedules. When Le needed time to prepare for her board exams, she had ready help to take on her work, including students Jarad Anderson, Christa Bellack, Bryan Sloan, Brandon Moritz and Kiana Prather from the College of Medicine and Addison Davis and William Atkinson from the Hudson College of Public Health.

Working toward a health profession degree during a global pandemic has been a time of unique learning opportunities that students will take into their future careers. College of Medicine Associate Dean for Student Affairs Mark Fergeson, M.D., said students gained an appreciation for the large interdisciplinary response required for a public health emergency.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been a historic moment, and what the students will take from it is invaluable,” Fergeson said. “The bombing of the Murrah Building in downtown Oklahoma City occurred in 1995 when I was a second-year medical student. I have vivid memories of organizing students to go to the site and to work at Red Cross headquarters. Doctors, nurses, public health officials, clergy, law enforcement and everyone in between responded to the disaster together. That has stayed with me all these years. That’s what this pandemic will be for students. They’ll take the lessons they’ve learned throughout their careers and the memories of being part of a pandemic response.”