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More Than a Shot in the Arm

This spring, some Kent State nursing students are getting a lot of practice giving shots. 

They are assisting at mass vaccination events, led by the Portage County Combined General Health District, that are being held by appointment only at the ������ Field House every Tuesday through the spring. Future dates may vary based upon the amount of vaccine received by the county.

At the first event on March 23, approximately 60 nursing students volunteered to give the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to more than 2,000 area residents, including some ������ employees. 

Kaley Kralovic, a senior who will be graduating with a BSN this spring, was eager to sign up when the College of Nursing offered the volunteer positions. “This is history and I wanted to be part of it,” she says. “It was really cool to participate in this as one of the first groups of nursing students to go through a pandemic in our lifetime. Everyone was just so excited to be there and get their vaccinations. 

“I thought I was just going to be giving shots and moving people along. But we also got to sit down with people and ask questions; for example, to see if they had any allergies. And we’d document which vaccine they got and at what time. So it was a lot more than just putting a needle in an arm. It was making small talk and connecting with people as they came in.”

Kralovic also gained experience in handling people who are terrified of needles. “I learned very quickly that you don’t say, ‘All right, I’ll count to three and then I’m going to give the shot,” she says, laughing. “Instead, I would say, ‘All right, are you ready for this?’ And as they were answering, I was sticking the needle in. You’ve got to hit them at an unexpected time so they’re not nervous. And then they’d say, ‘Oh, that’s not so bad—but you tricked me!’ And I’d say, ‘I know I did, but it didn’t hurt, did it?’ ”

“The nursing students give more IM [intramuscular] injections in one day than they’re most likely going to give in their entire careers,” says Taryn Burhanna, MSN, APRN, community health nursing coordinator for Kent State’s College of Nursing. “And we’re rotating them through all the stations so they don’t just administer shots, but they also get to see what it’s like to run a mass-scale point of distribution center. Even better, students of all levels, sophomores to seniors, are interacting, which brings a new level to experiential learning. It’s wonderful to see that peer-to-peer teaching and comradery in these times.”

For Kralovic—who was selected for a six-week internship at Cleveland Clinic in 2020 and recently finished an ICU intensive care unit rotation—volunteering at the vaccination clinic was one more good opportunity to gain real-world experience before she graduates.

She’s already accepted a position with Cleveland Clinic at the main campus in the emergency department. “It will be very fast paced, very exciting,” she says. “I figured I might as well just throw myself completely in as a new nurse. I’m a little nervous, but I think it’s going to be a great experience.”
 

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