Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | Janaury 25, 2021 | wbjournal.com University leaders are pitching a vaccination corps to innoculate the public and end the pandemic, with Worcester as a testing ground UMass vaccination effort a sign of what might be PHOTOS/COURTESY OF UMASS MEDICAL SCHOOL M assachusetts has millions of residents to vaccinate in hopes of ending the coronavirus pandemic. UMass Medical School hopes it can serve as a testing ground for how to quickly administer doses statewide – and potentially beyond. To start, it may all depend on how things go in Worcester. UMass Medical School students – both nursing students and the School of Medicine students they've trained to give shots – began administering the first vaccines on Jan. 11 to the first few BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor hundred police officers, firefighters and other first responders in Worcester and six adjacent towns. Before too long, leaders of the effort will review what worked best and what didn't in order to gauge how such an effort could be replicated elsewhere in the state. e program may be tapping into a broad eagerness in the medical community to play a role in helping to bring an eventual end to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 400,000 Americans. "I sense that there's a desire for national purpose at the moment," UMass Medical School Chancellor Dr. Michael Collins said. "We all have to come together." Training a team in Worcester In Worcester, that begins with students like Jacqueline Mbugua, a UMass Medical School student who's studying to become a family nurse practitioner in UMass' graduate school of nursing. Mbugua was among nursing students who trained roughly 160 medical students a few days before vaccinations began. "It's been extremely exciting for me," said Mbugua, who, as a woman of color, said she feels a particularly strong responsibility to help fight the pandemic. Minority communities have been acutely hit by the virus. "For me, it's really been an opportunity I didn't see coming," she said. Jill Terrien, a UMass Medical School professor who is helping to lead the program, began talking to students as early as last fall about training for vaccinations. at early-stage focus mirrors in many ways what was another key moment locally: when the medical school graduated its doctoral students early so they could join the pandemic fight in local hospitals. at effort was initiated by students who told Collins they wanted to help. Like Mbugua, Terrien finds the effort both medically critical and inspirational. "It's an awesome feeling, and it's hopeful," she said. at doesn't mean the effort has been as smooth or easy as it may look. Planning and replicating e pandemic is about a year old, but the school's mass vaccination efforts date back more than a decade when H1N1, or the swine flu, hit. In early 2020, school leaders dusted off that plan and began to think about how it could use its hundreds of students as volunteers to help get out vaccination doses. is time, such a large scale effort was needed. "is didn't happen overnight," said Dr. Michael Hirsh, the medical director of the Worcester Division of Public Health and a surgeon at UMass Memorial Health Care. Some challenges remain, and they're not unique to efforts in Worcester. e vaccines require 15-minute observation periods aerward, to make sure patients don't have harmful reactions. ere's also the aspect of scheduling second doses – each vaccine requires two rounds – when Pfizer and Moderna, the two main manufacturers, require different lengths of time in between. "It's a monumental task that is going to UMass Medical School nursing students trained their School of Medicine counterparts to help vaccinate the public against COVID-19 as quickly as possible.

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