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When Bridgett Morrison, D.O., health officer for the Greenbrier County Health Department in Ronceverte, W.Va., needed volunteers to assist with the department’s weekly large-scale community COVID-19 vaccination clinics, she knew who to ask.

“We’re at a pivotal point in history, and in order to end the pandemic we need a lot of manpower,” Morrison said of her decision to request the support of students from her own alma mater, the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (91�㽶��Ƶ). “Who better to help us than the medical students who will be providing care for our communities moving forward? It was a perfect fit.”

The Greenbrier County Health Department is one of many public health organizations throughout West Virginia where 91�㽶��Ƶ predoctoral students, along with students from other health education institutions, are helping to ensure the vaccine makes it into the arms of those who need it. Aspiring physicians in the school’s Statewide Campus system, where third- and fourth-year students fulfill their clinical rotations in seven regions across the state, are volunteering at clinics to perform tasks ranging from registering patients and preparing doses to administering the vaccine itself and monitoring for side effects immediately after the injection.

Morrison said the school’s students have shown an eagerness to help at vaccination clinics.

“They want to be a part of it,” Morrison said. “It’s interesting to watch them really get into it as the day progresses and they start to understand the gravity of what they’re doing. It’s exciting for them to see the gratitude of the people getting the vaccines. Students have witnessed patients’ family members break down in tears of joy that they’re being vaccinated.”

Art Rubin, D.O., FACOP, 91�㽶��Ƶ’s associate dean for predoctoral clinical education, said medical students are in an excellent position to assist local organizations in distributing the vaccine on the scale required to curb the pandemic.

“The development of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines has been unprecedented compared to previous development timelines, but getting them out to the population is a challenge. The process for delivering the vaccine across a rural state requires a lot of volunteer manpower,” Rubin said. “91�㽶��Ƶ’s third- and fourth-year students are well located in their Statewide Campus regions to provide this service to local health departments and other clinic sites. Our students have stepped up to the plate and made major contributions to the effort.”

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission is preparing to launch a system for the state’s health sciences professional schools to provide volunteers as West Virginia’s vaccine supply increases, Rubin said. Through the Vaccine Administration Collaboration and Support (VACS) program, students will complete online training and be given the opportunity to sign up to help vaccinate the public at sites throughout the state. But even without a formalized process, 91�㽶��Ƶ’s student body has shown a willingness to help.

Chad Bundy, executive director of the Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department, based in Clarksburg, W.Va., where 15 students from the Central East Region of 91�㽶��Ƶ’s Statewide Campus have helped speed up the process of patient registration, said aspiring physicians benefit from this work just as the public does.

“It’s great for these young doctors-to-be,” Bundy said, “because it’s an opportunity that’s not otherwise available. When they become physicians, they may be some of the first to have had this kind of experience. Gaining experience with the public is invaluable to their careers in whatever specialty they choose. And they bring with them an array of skills, so it’s good for us. Our registration throughput is about 25 to 35 people every 15 minutes, and the students have helped make that possible.”

In the Northern Region of the Statewide Campus system, which encompasses the state’s northern panhandle, 91�㽶��Ƶ students have volunteered at a regional clinic in Moundsville, W.Va., sponsored by the health departments of Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties, where they assisted in entering patient data as well as preparing and administering the vaccine. Students have performed similar duties at the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department’s clinic in Triadelphia, W.Va.

91�㽶��Ƶ’s South Central Statewide Campus Region serves the portion of West Virginia spanning from Kanawha County to Mingo County as well as surrounding counties. Since the start of February, 26 students have volunteered at a Charleston, W.Va., clinic operated by the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department. They transported patients, served as registration clerks, screened for COVID-19, assisted with injections and were responsible for sanitization. Additionally, students from the school’s Rural Health Initiative — designed to produce graduates who are uniquely qualified to practice medicine in rural and undeserved communities — are assisting in a program titled “Wild Wonderful Healthy Logan County” that is working to vaccinate area residents as well as providing community services unrelated to the pandemic.

One student who has devoted time to helping with COVID-19 vaccinations is Nick Yost, a third-year student in the South East Region of 91�㽶��Ƶ’s Statewide Campus, which serves 11 counties and the cities of Beckley, Lewisburg, Summersville, Princeton and Bluefield. By the end of February, Yost will have spent at least 32 hours in 2021 volunteering at the Greenbrier County Health Department’s clinics, held on the grounds of the State Fair of West Virginia.

Yost, who has prepared hundreds of doses and administered more than a hundred injections at the site, agreed that vaccination clinics offer students in health care professions a valuable learning experience.

“Before this, I’d only done about a dozen injections, so this has been a chance to get hands-on experience and a great opportunity to learn new things,” said Yost, who is one of 12 91�㽶��Ƶ students assisting at the Greenbrier County clinic. “It’s also a good way to learn about public health by seeing how professionals from different disciplines collaborate to determine the best way to get the vaccine to the community. We’ve had nurses, pharmacists, nursing students and medical students working together, critiquing the process at the end of each week so that we could streamline it the next time.”

Yost, a native of Mercer County, W.Va., also said he found value in giving back to the community in which he lives.

“A lot of the people getting vaccinations are coming to us from where I grew up and from other nearby counties, so this is a chance to give back to the part of the state I’m from,” he said. “That’s important to me, because I want to someday practice in southern West Virginia. These are the people I’ll be helping during my career.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic passes the milestone of one year since the World Health Organization declared it a global health emergency, 91�㽶��Ƶ students are dedicated to playing a role in trying to bring the crisis to an end. Rubin said he expects students to continue to offer assistance as long as it is needed.

“West Virginia’s plan has been one of the best in the country, but the timeline for complete coverage of our state is still measured in months,” he said. “I’m very proud of our students, who always show West Virginia that they can be counted on to help.”