Sticking it to the flu
(From left to right) First-year nursing students Jamie Bortel, Sai-Han Ackerman and Alexandra Craig prepare to administer a flu shot outside the School of Law patio. The flu shots were administered as part of an event put on by the Ashe Center on Friday, which aimed at giving students a jump start on flu prevention.
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Clarification: The original version of this article was unclear. The undergraduate nursing students at the flu shot fairs operate under the surveillance of registered nurses, in addition to UCLA’s graduate nursing students called Masters Entry Clinical Nurses.
Jackie Jones holds a flu shot injection in her hand.
“Left arm okay?” she asks the patient in the chair beside her.
The patient nods, and Jones administered the shot ““ one of her first as an undergraduate nursing student.
Jones and 11 other third-year undergraduate nursing students participated in the second Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center flu shot fair of the year on Friday, braving rain showers dousing the Center for Health Sciences patio.
The annual series of Ashe Center fairs give UCLA students a free jump start on personal flu prevention. They are also the first opportunities undergraduate nursing students have to work with actual patients.
“It’s a wonderful way for (nursing students) to get started. … They are well-supervised by their clinical faculty and other staff from the Ashe Center,” said supervising nurse practitioner Evi Desser. “It’s just so much more fun for them to be able to serve the population they’re a part of.”
Jones and fellow student Ryann Engelder worked as a team, rotating between batches of students. Like many of the nursing students there, Jones and Engelder had never administered shots before.
“You imagine how it’s going to go and you imagine how great it’s going to be, but … it does get a little nerve-wracking when you’re actually face-to-face with patients,” Jones said.
By the end of the day, however, Jones said she felt comfortable administering shots.
“It felt like we’ve been doing it for a really long time,” she said.
The undergraduate nursing students at the flu shot fairs operate under the surveillance of registered nurses, in addition to UCLA’s graduate nursing students called Masters Entry Clinical Nurses.
Meynard Villa, a third-year nursing student, is the only male in his lab group and only one of 10 men in his class. Although a certified nursing assistant for five years, Villa had never given patients injections before the fair.
“I’ve injected nine patients so far, and I’ll get to maybe nine more,” Villa said in the middle of his shift. “It’s been a good experience. I think it’ll help me.”
Up until this point, Villa and the other undergraduate nursing students practiced exclusively with dummies. Jones and several others said it was more difficult to administer shots to dummies than to humans.
“When we actually got in there, we knew it was going to be somewhat different, but it was actually much easier to give (a shot) to a person,” Jones said. “That was probably a good thing in that we got used to a more difficult, fake patient.”
Along with mastering the procedure, all undergraduate nursing students working at the fairs are trained in ethics and bedside manner.
“It’s really about keeping a rapport with your patients. Nursing is about the human contact and about being there to take care of (patients),” Jones said. “It’s not just giving a pill.”
Desser said students are encouraged to take advantage of the free flu shots because outbreaks are less likely to spread if more people are vaccinated before the peak of flu season.
Flu shots especially benefit those who live in close quarters, Jones said.
There are three more fairs on campus planned for November. Students can also make appointments for shots at the Ashe Center until June, though winter is the peak of the flu season.
