Nurse Volunteers on the Front Lines of the Vaccination Effort

Joanne Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN, is professor ad honorem at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, Minneapolis, and Ellen Elpern, MSN, RN, is a retired advanced practice nurse, formerly at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago.

Nurse volunteers as an essential resource.

As of April 15, 2021, there have been over 31 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States and over 561,000 deaths. Sobering numbers. But there are some heartening numbers as well: 198 million vaccination shots have been administered so far, with 3 million doses now being given per day. To reach and continue to meet the current pace has required an extraordinary ramp-up of sites—and of the number of individuals administering the vaccines. An essential resource that’s emerged is the use of nurses as volunteers to help staff these sites.

For more than a year, the public has witnessed the compassion, competence, and heroism of nurses who are on the front lines of the COVID pandemic. Those of us who are nurses and not in the clinical setting watched with pride and empathy, knowing better than most what these nurses were experiencing—and wishing there were something that we could do. Stepping forward to volunteer for service in a vaccine clinic is one way to make a difference. These volunteer opportunities are as varied as the vaccination sites themselves, but in all cases the effort is being enriched by the active engagement of nurses, retired and otherwise.

Defuniak Springs, Florida

Jane Barnsteiner and Joanne Disch, who both spend their winters on the Florida Panhandle, contacted the Walton County Public Health Department to volunteer to help. The process for being accepted was rigorous: background and fingerprint checks, eight hours of continuing education, and a phone interview.

The clinic we were assigned to is in the county fairgrounds. A large county (stretching from the Alabama border to the Gulf), it is rural and sparsely populated, with about 70,000 residents, the vast majority of whom are White, of modest socioeconomic status, and with multiple health challenges. Our clinic is held on Thursdays from 8 am to 5 pm and sees from 500 to 600 people.

Our assignment has been to help staff the registration area, welcoming and triaging residents, checking paperwork, and conducting health assessments. Our nursing background has been invaluable, as we have provided health education, counseling, and support—as Jane did this last week when reassuring an agitated woman: “No, the needle isn’t that long . . . that’s the entire syringe that you’re thinking of.”

Our experience at the fairgrounds has been profoundly touching, reminding us that there are actually many front lines for nurses.

Chicago, Il

Ellen Elpern is one of more than a dozen retired nurses who serve as volunteers at Rush University Medical Center’s vaccine clinics. Rush coordinates vaccine clinics at the downtown medical center campus and at a site in the Austin neighborhood. The medical center clinic has been up and running since January, operates 13-hour clinics four days per week, and typically delivers 1600 shots per clinic day.

With rare exceptions, staff are all volunteers and nurse participation is key to the clinic’s success in several ways.  First, the entire vaccine clinic endeavor was coordinated by Patricia Nedved, a dynamic nurse executive who appreciated the potential contributions retired nurses could make. Second, Rush had in place a senior nurse engagement council that facilitated recruitment of retired nurses as clinic volunteers.

Most importantly, nurse volunteers interact with the public in key roles: in pre-vaccination triage, as vaccinators, and in the post-vaccination observation area. All areas provide ample opportunities for information, reassurance, education, and encouragement. Nurses find they are often able to counter misconceptions about the vaccine (“Is the vaccine you’re giving me still frozen?”), immunity (“If I don’t have side effects, does it mean the vaccine didn’t work?”), follow-up (“Now I can get rid of these masks!”), and general health (“Should I stop taking any of my usual medicines today?”). Finally, nurse volunteers assume roles in familiarizing other professional volunteers to the clinic and to the vaccination process.

Reflections…

In 2018, we wrote an article describing the benefits of using the knowledge, skill, experience, and judgment of motivated retired nurse volunteers to provide meaningful contributions to health care. Little did we anticipate that a pandemic would offer such a vivid opportunity for retired nurses to step forward. The extreme circumstances of the COVID pandemic have inspired opportunities to create viable strategies to meet unique demands—and the success of this particular strategy suggests that there are many situations in which retired nurses can help.

The legions of nurses who have stepped up to meet ambitious national vaccination goals only provide additional validation for the trust the public places in nurses. What a proud moment for our profession and our colleagues!

(See also the profile of Ellen Elpern—”What Would Ellen Do?“—in the July 2020 issue of AJN, in which she discusses her retirement decision.)