Jessica Thomas, a second-year UMKC School of Pharmacy student, braced herself as her classmate, Sheel Patel, gently plunged a syringe into her arm.

“Wow, that didn’t hurt whatsoever,” Thomas exclaimed.

Thomas and Patel are two of the more than 180 first- and second-year students across UMKC’s three pharmacy school campuses in Kansas City, Columbia and Springfield who participated in an all-day training the week before classes started and then two days of immunization injection training during the first week of the school year.

The training has been part of the School of Pharmacy’s curriculum for more than a decade. Until this year, however, it took place as students transitioned from their second to third years of the program, just prior to beginning their second introductory clinical experiences.

Now, all UMKC student pharmacists will get the training at the start of their first year in pharmacy school.

Cameron Lindsey, chair of the school’s Division of Pharmacy Practice and Administration, said the school moved the immunization training to the beginning of the curriculum in order to give students more opportunities to help with public health needs such as administering COVID vaccines as well as other necessary vaccines.

“Now they’ll have that skill before they go out on their first (clinical) experience,” Lindsey said. “We look at this as an opportunity for our students to learn a skill, practice it and be able to help the pharmacists, and actually, the whole health care system.”

Thomas and Patel said they’ll see an immediate benefit. Thomas currently works in the pharmacy at University Health-Truman Medical Center. Patel works at a local Walmart pharmacy. Under the previous schedule, they would have received the immunization training next spring. Now all UMKC pharmacy students will have the training and be certified immunizers as they start pharmacy school.

“I’m really excited,” Thomas said. “Working in retail pharmacy, you can’t have enough people who give immunizations. I’ve been asked several times, ‘Can you do them? We need someone to do them.’ There’s a need out there and I’m glad that we can help meet it. I’m glad we don’t have to wait another year to get the training.”

Patel admitted being a little nervous about sticking a needle in someone’s arm. After the first practice injection, the nerves subsided. Now, he says he’s ready to take on added responsibilities at work.

“When we work in retail (and administer vaccines under pharmacist supervision), it gives the pharmacists more time to do other things than give shots all day long, and that helps them out,” Patel said.

Vaccination training is one of the first patient-care experiences in which many student pharmacists participate. The hope is that by providing that training before they start their first year of pharmacy school, students will feel more engaged with patient care early in their education.

“Those first semesters are very science heavy, and now our students are going to be right in the midst of doing something that’s hands-on, that can be applied to patient care, and they can be more involved with patients early on,” Lindsey said.

First-year student Madison Crawford said she wasn’t expecting to learn immunization skills so quickly when she enrolled in pharmacy school.

“I’m really excited to be able to do it so soon,” she said. “I feel like I’ll be able to get more involved in the community by giving vaccinations early on.”