APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Student nurses across the country have been stepping-up to help in the COVID-19 vaccination process.
At Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, they’re now doing the same.
“I don’t think any of us really thought when we started nursing school that we would be going to school during a pandemic,” Mallory Konopa, second-semester nursing student at FVTC said.
FVTC students probably never guessed they’d possibly be a part of helping to also bring that pandemic to its knees.
“I’m ready for this to be done, so to do whatever it takes!” said Christine Schuessler, also a second-semester nursing student at the college.
After several health organizations reached out to the college, asking for students to help out at COVID-19 vaccination clinics, Fox Valley Tech. decided to add itself to the list of those on standby.
More than 160 students at FVTC are ready to answer that call, if needed at vaccination clinics.
“We don’t know what their role will be quite yet,” said Barbara Timmons, FVTC department chair of nursing. “We think it will be some of our students from second semester on that can give the vaccine, so we don’t know if that will be the role, or if they will be doing some prescreening, or if they’ll be watching the patient afterward for any signs and symptoms of any adverse reactions.”
Kimberly Lang is one of the nursing program instructors at Fox Valley Technical College.
When asked how confident she is that her students are prepared for the task at-hand, she said, “Very, because we teach them injections and normally, you know, pre-COVID, we went and did flu shot clinics, and really the administration is pretty much the same.”
Konopa has already administered the flu shot. She tells FOX 11 this is different.
“With the COVID vaccine, it’d just be an honor to be part of stopping the spread.”
One of the vaccination clinics the students may be sent off to could be the new one opening next week at the Fox Cities Exhibition Center in Appleton.
“This would be huge, because they’d be gaining multiple patients in a day,” said Timmons. “I mean, they potentially could spend 8 or 12 hours at the clinic, helping out with the vaccinations.”
“We are well-prepared, we know how to administer them,” Schuessler said. “I feel very excited, if we were to get called to do that.”
Fox Valley Tech. says, it expects to hear from health agencies soon on whether its students and staff members will be needed at their clinics.
