Veteran’s Health Clerkship co-director Linda Cragin (right) gives final pointers to medical students Ryan Caserella and Laura Ting as they ready to greet patients at the Veterans Inc. free flu vaccine clinic.
Medical and nurse practitioner students from UMass Medical School ran a free influenza vaccination clinic at Veterans, Inc. in Worcester during the Medical School and UMass Memorial Health Care’s observance of National Primary Care Month. Vaccine was provided by the Worcester Department of Public Health, and the students were deputized as members of Worcester’s volunteer Medical Reserve Corps.
The clinic was the students’ service learning project for the Veterans Health Population Health Clerkship. Veterans health is one of 30 choices for the clerkship, a curricular requirement which introduces all second-year medical and first-year graduate nursing students to public and community health through interdisciplinary teaching, field research and community engagement, including hands-on service projects like the flu clinic.
Veterans Health Population Clerkship participants who provided free flu shots at Veterans Inc. in Worcester, were Graduate School of Nursing students Elizabeth Terhune, RN, Elizabeth Tomkinson, RN, and Shanell Vance, RN, and School of Medicine students Ryan Caserella, Dhimiter Kondili, James Strassner, Laura Ting, and Aimie Zale. On hand to guide them were clerkship faculty co-directors Linda Cragin, MS, director of the Massachusetts Area Health Education Center; Janet Hale, PhD, professor and associate dean of nursing; and Christine Runyan, PhD, clinical associate professor of family medicine & community health.
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