By Laura Kate Zaichkin, Herald staff writer
Rachael Ward doesn't like shots.
That's why the Columbia Basin College second-year nursing student didn't get her first flu shot until this year -- when she got it from another student.
"I haven't been sick, I didn't get sick from it," said Ward, 26, of Kennewick. "Being around so many sick people, I think it's a good idea."
CBC, Kadlec Medical Center and the Benton-Franklin Health District emphasized the importance of flu immunizations -- especially among health care providers -- during a flu shot clinic Thursday for the college's health science students.
"They will be exposed to multiple bugs and germs," said Susan Spohr, vice president of nursing at Kadlec, which donated 150 doses of vaccine to CBC. "I want them to be able to take care of me."
Hospitals, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations encourage health care professionals to get vaccinated against the flu every year.
But data from the 2005-06 flu season show only about 42 percent of doctors, nurses and other health professionals were vaccinated.
"There are still a lot of misunderstandings, even in the health care world, about flu shots," said Heather Hill, the health district's communicable disease program supervisor.
Some of these myths include thinking a flu shot can cause the flu or that people are immune if they've never had the flu in the past, she said.
Many area hospitals encourage their staff to get vaccinated and offer free flu shots to employees, but the vaccination rate at those hospitals still hovers at around 50 percent, Hill said.
"We start good practices at this stage in their career," Hill said, referring to the CBC clinic, where second-year nursing students were vaccinated and then vaccinated fellow students in return.
Gloria Garcia, a 37-year-old first-year medical assisting student, rolled up her left sleeve Thursday morning as Adam Sommer readied the vaccine.
"You ready?" the 24-year-old nursing student asked Garcia before giving her the vaccine in the upper arm.
"That's it, over and done with," Sommer said. "Do you need a Band-Aid?"
