JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
The Allergy and Immunizations Clinic, along with 43 medical volunteers, came together during the 59th Medical Wing’s annual flu campaign in the atrium of Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland from October to November 2022.
Their teamwork resulted in more than 93% of the wing being vaccinated.
“The very first week we did about 700 to 750 [vaccines] a day,” said Staff Sgt. Lanisa Haynes-Langton, 59th Medical Specialty Squadron Allergy Clinic noncommissioned officer in charge. “Then each week after that it went down by around 100.”
Vaccinating that many service members and beneficiaries was no small feat. It takes a dedicated team of warrior medics working together.
Every year immunization leadership sends out an email requesting and specifying which type of medics can volunteer from other medical units.
“I got an email saying they needed providers and I understood they needed all hands on deck,” said Lt. Col. Justin Bandino, 59th Medical Specialty Squadron, Brooke Army Medical Center Simulation Center research director. “I firmly believe in the effectiveness, safety and importance of vaccines and I was able to carve out time in my schedule to volunteer, it's as simple as duty called.”
Haynes-Langton, along with a few others from Allergy and Immunizations Clinic, provided hands-on training to all the volunteers for each particular job. The training covered the proper methods to vaccinate patients and the whole patient process from the beginning of the flu line to patient checkout.
“It was sort of a natural extension for me,” said Col. David Klingman, 59th Dental Training Squadron staff oral pathologist. “Having started IVs and giving oral injectable chemotherapy agents, as part of our chemotherapy regimens for our patients in my first residency, we would inject into the tumors of the mouth. So I was used to giving injections.”
Medics volunteering time from other clinics allowed operations to continue in the Allergy and Immunizations Clinic since they could still have providers available for appointments while also providing walk-in vaccine services for the flu line.
“Everyone coming together made the flu line a success,” Haynes-Langton said. “The immunizations clinic could not do it alone.”
Medics expressed a sense of service before self to accomplish the mission and be able to help people.
“At the end of the day, we’re all medical and we all have a duty to help patient care, even if it's a little outside of our realm,” Bandino said. “We all pitched in, ‘it’s one team, one fight!”