“I'm happy we can bring it to the community now, especially those we love. We want to protect our teammates, our patients, our community.”
Becky Fox, MSN, RN-BC, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, believes in the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine not just for our teammates, but for the entire community. She and her CIC nurses (clinical informatic clinicians) have been involved in helping with staffing the clinics and vaccinating teammates/patients.
On Wednesday, January 6, as the first Atrium Health patients over the age of 75-years old lined up in their vehicles outside Carolinas Medical Center to receive their vaccinations, Fox had a unique opportunity to vaccinate a very important patient -- her mom, Jean Guess.
“At my age, I don’t really think you can take any chances,” Guess said. “Follow the advice of your physicians and your family and do what you need to do to stay healthy.”
As the state of North Carolina opened up COVID-19 vaccinations to Phase 1b, Group 1, members of the community who are over the age of 75 years old, can now sign up to be vaccinated for the disease. Jean knew she didn’t want to wait.
As for her daughter being the one to administer the vaccine? Well, that was an added bonus.
“It was very nice! This is the first opportunity she’s ever had to stick me!”
For Fox, she feels like it’s a unique opportunity to thank her mom for encouraging her to go to nursing school in the first place.
“She thinks it’s paid off,” Fox says.
And she wants to make sure all teammates and members of our community know that you’re in great hands when you come to Atrium Health and that our experts believe that the COVID-19 vaccine is a safe thing to do for our community.
“We’re hopeful that will be an encouragement for everyone to trust in the science, trust in the data, trust in our experts and come out and get the vaccine. Because we know that when we get to herd immunity that’s how we can get back to normal life.”
