EVMS students helping to vaccinate
NORFOLK — Jovanna Tracz knows how to run a tight ship.
She planned massive events when she worked in finance in Boston. Little did she know that the experience would come in handy when she started her first year at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Tracz is coordinating the effort to get EVMS students trained and able to help administer vaccinations around the region.
“It’s a great way to be involved and volunteer my time and the skills I have honed from a different career,” she said.
Since early January, EVMS students have been running COVID-19 vaccine clinics for the EVMS community and are now stepping in to lend a hand to the Virginia Department of Health. They had about a week to lay out plans to get the effort going.
“I think at the beginning of the pandemic, we were so eager to do something. We all stayed home, sewed masks and did what we could, but we hadn’t even started medical school yet,” Tracz said. “Now that we can, everyone has been so excited to help.”
More than 250 students have volunteered. They aren’t just putting shots into arms, but planning out logistics and other aspects of the vaccination clinics.
“We’re very very excited and humbled to be in a position where we can help with the efforts,” Tracz said.
Every locality in the state is now in Phase 1b, which includes administering the vaccine to hundreds of thousands of people. Virginia has administered about 1.2 million doses, and about 270,738 people were fully vaccinated as of Friday. So far, about 11.4% of Virginians have at least one dose, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
In Norfolk, about 20,000 doses have been administered and about 4,000 people are fully vaccinated, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
Dr. Cynthia Romero, a former State Health Commissioner for Virginia, has been working with the students on the vaccination effort. She’s also the Director of the M. Foscue Brock Institute for Community and Global Health, which is part of EVMS.
She said the students are fulfilling the mission of the school by helping.
“It only makes sense that our students are part of the solution to improve the health of our community and in this case be part of the immunization effort part of the pandemic,” she said.
She was thrilled so many students were willing to help.
“It’s amazing and it affirms that the students that are drawn to and eventually matriculate at EVMS are the type of compassionate, caring and community-focused students we know are going to be that way as healthcare professionals,” she said.
It doesn’t surprise Lydia Lukomski, another first-year medical student who has been helping Tracz coordinate.
“It was awesome to see so many of my peers want to be involved and help and do their part,” she said.
She said she got involved because she wanted to do her part to bring an end to the pandemic. It’s influenced her career path as well, exposing her to different parts of the medical field. She’s undecided, but is leaning toward being a front-line emergency room physician.
Dr. Robert Bradshaw, an associate professor at EVMS and the occupational health medical director for the EVMS group, also has been working with the students.
He was part of the health department during the H1N1 pandemic.
“When you think of 300 million people to get vaccinated, and not once, but to get the vaccine twice, it’s going to take a huge herculean effort,” he said. “I just really admire their wanting to be part of that process,” he said, of the students.
He knows they’ll remember this experience for years to come.
“I think they have a sense of that history, I think they have that perception, I think they understand that and are eager to be part of it.”
Tracz said the students are humbled to be able to help.
“A friend said she felt like Santa Claus giving out presents,” she said.
Romero said EVMS was established and maintained by the community it is serving, so it only makes sense that the students are part of the solution to improve the health of the community.”
“We’re all in medicine to try to help people and make them feel better,” Lumoski said.