D epartment
of
M edicine
Con ne c ti ng T e c h n o lo g y , Ed uca t i o n a n d D i s cove ry w ith H um anis m in Me dicine
Vol. 10 Issue 2 Apr. 2021
Vaccine Roll Out A significant challenge was not knowing when the vaccine would be approved, and, once approved, not knowing when and how much vaccine we would receive. UTMC was notified of the number of doses we would be receiving for the first round just 48 hours before they arrived. It took tremendous organization to get eligible team members vaccinated in a timely fashion without allowing any doses to be wasted. “We had a great deal of support from RNs who work in administrative positions who came out to help with the vaccination effort, giving shots, monitoring people for reactions, and helping with paperwork.” Dr. Rasnake said. Careful planning and flexibility have been key. “At first, neighborhood pharmacies were going to administer the vaccine,” Dr. Rasnake said. There were even plans to have drive-thru vaccinations. However, after the CDC and FDA received notification of a small number of suspected anaphylaxis cases following COVID-19 vaccination, the rollout changed significantly. CDC guidelines included monitoring people for 15 minutes after vaccination, which meant that distribution had to be done in places that had enough space for socially-distanced waiting for 15 minutes after administration of the vaccine, as well as having the ability to store the vaccine at the appropriate temperature. Dr. Rasnake and his team tried to anticipate problems early on, in order to be ready for anything. “We practiced everything,” he said. “And we practiced a lot.” As of mid-January, 9,000 doses had been administered without a single wasted dose. To commemorate the effort, Dr. Rasnake engaged another one of his skill sets: woodworking. He has built display cases for several of the vials that held the first doses. “The wood for them came from a downed limb from the ginkgo tree that stands in front of the old Preston library,” he said. One of these will be displayed in the new Preston Library/ Health Information Center, in recognition of their graciously lending their space for the vaccination effort.
The rollout of the vaccine for COVID-19 has been a very bright spot in a dark time. On December 17, 2020, the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were administered to UTMC employees. Vaccine rollout began in the Preston Library/Health Information Center, then moved to the Heart Hospital conference room. By any measure, it has been a success. “It takes a huge team effort to make something of this magnitude go smoothly,” said Dr. Mark Rasnake. Teamwork from the state level down to individual institutions have made it possible to get shots into arms. “Two years ago, when there was a hepatitis A outbreak, we worked closely with the state to roll out that vaccine,” recalled Dr. Rasnake. “The connections and protocols we developed then have helped with this vaccine rollout.” Similarly, collaboration between the regional hospitals and the Knox County Health Department has helped facilitate vaccine distribution just as it has earlier in the pandemic with other measures like PPE acquisition and guidelines, visitor restrictions, and so on.
Points of View
on most weekdays. Fortunately, we had a new department manager, Cassandra Mosley, who is very tech savvy and had previous experience working with Zoom. With her guidance and Jenny Roark’s help we immediately switched to virtual conferences. Despite their hectic schedules, Drs. Norwood, Morris, Lubas, Pierce, Purkey, Williams and Rasnake stepped up to ensure that teaching conferences were not interrupted and arranged for them to be held remotely. Our residents and faculty had to go through a steep learning curve, with some hands on coaching, of course. With the help of our residents, fellows and attending physicians we kept the clinical services operational throughout this period. Unfortunately, we had to make the residents Graduation Party a low key affair last year because of the restrictions on social gatherings. We also had to prepare for the resident recruitment to be done virtually. This required that all the websites had to be updated before the interview season began. Coordinating all the interviews was a grand
Virtual Resident Conferences The devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic posed many unprecedented challenges. In the initial phases of the pandemic the predominant concern was to keep everyone safe and protect them from getting SARS-CoV-2 infection. In the Department, we adapted to the uncertainty and took several unique measures so that Rajiv Dhand, MD, Chair we could function in this “new reality”. For example, we had to continue our teaching conferences so that our trainees’ education did not suffer during the lockdown and to allow our staff to work from home. We have a very active teaching schedule with at least 2 conferences daily
continued on page 2
1