Behind The Vaccine Scenes

By Shannon Rotolo, PharmD, BCPS

Last week, large medical centers across the country started providing doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to their front-line staff. As a pharmacist immunizer, I was one of the first to administer vaccine to others in the employee vaccine clinic at my hospital. It was a dreamlike experience.

I arrived early in the morning. Even before appointments began, the space was pulsing with energy. I was standing among the largest group of people I’d seen in one place in months. I’ve been lucky enough to do the majority of my work from home, but even on days I do come on-site, the hallways and cafeterias are sparse, with few visitors on-site. Many staff work from home, and office spaces and work rooms have a limit to the number of individuals that can use them at any one time. Most days, those colleagues I do pass are often unrecognizable, whether due to the layers of PPE – masks, face shields – or the tired expressions we’re all carrying after months of what felt like fighting a losing battle.

But the employee vaccine clinic was filled with smiling eyes and a hustle and bustle that felt like Santa’s workshop. The immunizers found our rooms and partners for the shift, the runners checked to be sure each room had adequate supplies, and the schedulers pulled up lists of patients we’d be seeing that day. Pharmacists, nurses, and a few physician immunizers reviewed the instructions we’d read in preparation for this day. We touched the vials, the syringes, the needles with freshly gloved hands, and remarked on how it was real. This incredible day was here and finally real. The doors swung open and the first batch of patients flowed into the area, filling the space with even more energy, more excitement, front-line health care workers eager to be among the first to receive this vaccine.

I saw familiar faces throughout the day. Some were teammates from the various clinical areas I’ve worked over the past 8 years. Some were physicians or pharmacists I’d met during their residency training that were now attendings; individuals who I’d watched grow and learn, perhaps even helped train over the years. Some were informal mentors who I’d gone to with my own questions and frustrations. After months of no human contact, nothing more than a wave from six or more feet away, here I was actually touching them – and dozens of other people who have been fighting this pandemic day in and day out – with just a lavender glove between us, alcohol swabbing their arms with a strange amount of care, placing one hand on them and using the other to inject a liquid reconstituted from powder that felt like magic fairy dust. I fought the urge to hug them after the shot, sent them on their way, back to the clinical areas depending on them to stay safe and healthy, to keep caring for patients fighting this virus.

I love my teammates. I love my patients. But we are all human and this pandemic has worn on us all. There isn’t a single other day I can recall in the past 9 months, or maybe even in the past 8 years, where not a single person complained, or expressed frustration, or asked for something beyond my ability to provide. This was such a departure from the day-to-day. Every single person I spoke with wanted to be there, whether they were staffing the clinic or scheduled as a patient. Every single person said, “Thank you!” Most said it multiple times, to multiple people, as they exited.

I got home that evening physically tired, but mentally and emotionally restored. It was the polar opposite of many of my recent work days. My feet ached when I stepped out of the car after commuting home. It’d been a while since I’d spent a whole shift on them. I walked to my front door and rustled my keys out of my purse. I thought about the community pharmacists, on their feet every single day, managing one of the busiest seasons for flu shots they’ve had in years, on top of their day-to-day responsibilities, with an even busier stretch ahead of them if, god-willing, COVID-19 vaccines become widely available in the near future. I thought of my mom, who’d been working part-time in a grocery store up until a few months ago, when the risk of contracting the virus no longer seemed worth the meager paychecks. She’d thankfully been in a financial position to fully retire. I thought about all the essential workers that haven’t had that luxury, who continue to spend their days on their feet, with minimal PPE, with patients or customers who grumble at or even openly argue about mask policies.

I sat on my couch, asked my husband to pour a drink, stared at my Christmas tree. I stopped trying to fight my watery eyes, and just sat, sipping my drink, feeling the immense happiness of the day, mixed with sadness over how long a road and how much loss we still have ahead of us until the protection of a vaccine is available to everyone.