Nursing faculty Barbara Remington (left) is happy to work with her first student vaccinator Emily Paris at the Station 11 of Loyalist’s on-campus COVID vaccination clinic. Photo by Deanna Myrie
By Rhythm Rathi
BELLEVILLE – Student nurses are getting hands-on training at Loyalist College’s on-campus COVID vaccination clinic.
Students from nursing, practical nursing and paramedic programs are gaining experience working along with the Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Unit‘s professionals.
A few students are training to innoculate people while others assist in greeting, documentation, and other clinic-related services.
Emily Paris, 20, from Belleville, a second-year practical nursing student says it is a great experience to be able to work on injecting real human beings as hospital placements do not give them this opportunity this often.
“Usually at the hospital, we only have one maybe two patients where here we are seeing 700 people a day,” she said.
The clinic provides lots of additional experiences as various people arrive with a range of health issues, as well.
“They are on different medication. They have different health concerns. So being able to use the knowledge that we learned in our class and apply it to that certain patient, you learn a lot more I feel,” she added.
Paris said just being in her second year she has never had such an opportunity.
This placement has helped her learn a lot. The professionals at the clinic are very skilled, she said. By listening to their conversations when discussing each patient’s history, and then working it out together, is a great experience to have, Paris said.
Being able to learn the different tips and tricks of the trade will be helpful for her nursing career, Paris said.
“To be able to put this on our resume for our future jobs is also a great opportunity for us as well,” she said.
Barbara Remington, a practical nursing professor at Loyalist College, said this experience is something the students have really looked forward to.
“One student today, for example, said, because of COVID her placement had been limited and she actually had not given a needle to a human until today. (And) today she gave, I think, 13 needles,” she said.
Remington said it is more than just giving needles. From a student’s perspective, they must calm and comfort their patients and also get the patient’s background. It is someone whom they know nothing about compared to hospitals where the research on patients beforehand.
Remington supervises the clinical aspect of the students’ training and is a registered nurse. She said the students are doing great and are passionate.
“The clinic, I don’t know how it would run without students, and I am not only talking vaccinators, but I am talking the greeters,” she said.
“These nursing students are needed to fill the gaps, to fill the need for staff later on,” she added.
Sarah Leitch is a registered practical nurse with the vaccine-preventable disease team at Hastings Prince Edward Public Health. She works with students at the clinic and said that they are doing a great job.
She said the patients are very excited and grateful after getting their doses. Some even bring gifts.
“Many clients have donated things to our vaccinators in the clinic. Like comic books … one client actually had knitted some little bears that have removable masks on their faces,” she said.
Working with the students has inspired some to consider a career in public health, Leitch said.
She was also a nursing student at Loyalist for three years and recently got the opportunity to vaccinate one of her professors.
“She specifically wanted me to do it. She said it was a 360 moment for her,” she said.
Public health units often do not hire students straight out of college, looking for young nurses to get some experience first. This opportunity the Loyalist College clinic gives experience to students even before graduating is great for their resume someday down the line, Leitch said.
Nursing students are not the only ones benefitting from the clinic.
Vanessa Brooker, Loyalist’s program coordinator for the paramedic program, said students are getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
She said the experience is very valuable as students have an opportunity to engage with members of the public directly.
“We can provide all kinds of scenarios and practices and inject into oranges or simulation pads. But when you are injecting a needle into a real person and able to have that connection and that communication with a real-life person, I think it just augments their education that much further,” she added.
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