The University of Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy is currently training students, faculty and staff on administering the COVID-19 vaccine to the public.
According to the University’s website, new COVID-19 health regulations allow pharmacy technicians to conduct vaccinations. Because of this, it is required for workers at clinics, hospitals and pharmacies to receive immunization training.
Mary-Jane Kanaczet, director of continuing professional development for health professions, said her office is mostly focused on immunization training in lieu of the pandemic. They have also worked to design and implement programs that are relevant for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses and other healthcare providers to ensure their continued education credits are fulfilled.
“We coordinate the delivery of the immunization training into the curriculum for the students, so students now get the training in the curriculum,” Kanaczet said. “We also offer it to pharmacists who may not have received it when they were students and we’ve only been doing that for about 10 years.”
According to the College of Pharmacy, trainees are learning to: describe proper technique when drawing up and administering immunizations, recognize commonly used vaccines and their corresponding routes of administration, distinguish proper needle length selection based on vaccine and patient age and size, identify proper documentation procedures, recall vaccine storage requirements and more.
Although immunization training for pharmacy students has been available for over a decade, Kanaczet said that it’s the University’s response to COVID-19 that makes it different from past years.
“The students who are graduating to be pharmacists receive the same training as the pharmacists,” she said. “The pharmacist training is very comprehensive, it’s about 20 hours. We actually had to get another license from the American Pharmacist Association (APhA) to be able to start training technicians.”
According to Kanaczet, pharmacists have been doing much more patient care than was required in the past. Pharmacists are now required to learn more about the epidemiology of vaccines and how to set up a vaccine service in their practice, while pharmacy technicians are learning more about the physical administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.
URI’s College of Pharmacy currently has about eight faculty members who are qualified to teach the immunization program and will have completed four training sessions by the end of February, in comparison to the usual one per year, according to Kanaczet.
“When we develop these programs, they have to be evidence-based,” Kanaczet said. “Being in the college has helped us translate the science in a way that’s pretty effective in helping pharmacists and pharmacy technicians communicate to patients why this [receiving the COVID-19 vaccine] is a good idea.”
Brett Ferret, director of experiential education and a clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy, has helped to coordinate the course on immunization delivery to pharmacy students entering the spring semester of their first professional year. His office is also in charge of matching sixth-year pharmacy students with sites for their rotations such as hospitals and retail pharmacies.
“Students learn everything from all the different types of vaccines, how to manage emergencies, how to actually do the administration and storage and record keeping of resources,” Ferret said. “But obviously people have a lot of questions that attend these classes. It’s mostly all about the [COVID-19] vaccine right now.”
There are people involved all throughout the college helping to safely administer the vaccine and that would not be possible without a continuing group effort. According to Ferret, many faculty and staff have been helping vaccinate people throughout the state.
Paul Larrat, professor of epidemiology and dean of the College of Pharmacy, said there are currently about 500 URI pharmacy students certified to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. He believes the college is making good progress in allowing students to explore volunteering opportunities while also fulfilling their degree requirements.
“I think where we’ve made progress is where we’ve helped to facilitate getting those students out to volunteer situations and to employment situations where they’re needed,” he said. “But they also have their regular pharmacy student duties to do. It’s a balance.”
Larrat, who has also been volunteering to administer vaccinations in Providence and East Greenwich, encourages people to listen to the science behind the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine and try to reflect on this time as a learning experience.
“You’re living through this [pandemic], which is a once in a hundred year [pandemic] and you’re learning and living through it,” he said. “What better learning opportunity is [there than] to get involved and make a difference? That’s the positive spin on all this.”