杰西卡·托马斯（Jessica Thomas）是威尼斯人娱乐城药学院的二年级学生，当她的同学希尔·帕特尔（Sheel Patel）轻轻地将注射器插入她的手臂时，她做好了准备。
“Wow, that didn’t hurt whatsoever,” Thomas exclaimed.
Thomas and Patel are two of the more than 180 first- and second-year students across 威尼斯人娱乐城’s three pharmacy school campuses in Kansas City, Columbia and Springfield who participated in an all-day training the week before classes started and then two days of immunization injection training during the first week of the school year.
The training has been part of the 药学院’s curriculum for more than a decade. 然而，直到今年，这种情况发生在学生从课程的第二年过渡到第三年的时候，就在他们开始第二次介绍性临床经验之前。
现在，所有马里兰大学堪萨斯分校的学生药剂师都将在他们进入药学学院的第一年开始接受培训。
Cameron Lindsey, chair of the school’s Division of Pharmacy Practice and Administration, said the school moved the immunization training to the beginning of the curriculum in order to give students more opportunities to help with public health needs such as administering COVID vaccines as well as other necessary vaccines.
“Now they’ll have that skill before they go out on their first (clinical) experience,” Lindsey said. “We look at this as an opportunity for our students to learn a skill, practice it and be able to help the pharmacists, and actually, the whole health care system.”
Thomas and Patel said they’ll see an immediate benefit. 托马斯目前在大学健康-杜鲁门医学中心的药房工作。 帕特尔在当地一家沃尔玛药房工作。 按照之前的计划，他们将在明年春天接受免疫培训。 现在，所有马里兰大学堪萨斯分校药学专业的学生在进入药学学校时都将接受培训并获得免疫认证。
“I’m really excited,” Thomas said. “Working in retail pharmacy, you can’t have enough people who give immunizations. I’ve been asked several times, ‘Can you do them? 我们需要有人来做。’ There’s a need out there and I’m glad that we can help meet it. I’m glad we don’t have to wait another year to get the training.”
Patel admitted being a little nervous about sticking a needle in someone’s arm. 第一次练习注射后，神经消退。 Now, he says he’s ready to take on added responsibilities at work.
“When we work in retail (and administer vaccines under pharmacist supervision), it gives the pharmacists more time to do other things than give shots all day long, and that helps them out,” Patel said.
疫苗接种培训是许多学生药剂师参加的第一批病人护理经验之一。 希望通过在他们开始药学学校的第一年之前提供这种培训，学生们将在他们的教育早期感受到更多的病人护理。
“Those first semesters are very science heavy, and now our students are going to be right in the midst of doing something that’s hands-on, that can be applied to patient care, and they can be more involved with patients early on,” Lindsey said.
First-year student Madison Crawford said she wasn’t expecting to learn immunization skills so quickly when she enrolled in pharmacy school.
“I’m really excited to be able to do it so soon,” she said. “I feel like I’ll be able to get more involved in the community by giving vaccinations early on.”