Students volunteer for flu shot clinic at Walgreens

When the Walgreens chain cast the net for volunteers to help with this year’s Flu Shot Clinic, twenty SJVC Fresno Pharmacy Technology (PT) program students were quick to get into line. The clinic, held on Sun., Nov. 11^th at the drugstore’s downtown Fresno location, expected well over a thousand people to take advantage of their annual flu immunization provision.

The student volunteers were assigned to the registration area to provide patient intake, patient health history, drug information disclosure forms, patient rights notices, as well as create and distribute Walgreens gift bags and provide translation services. It was important that these steps be conducted promptly and accurately at the point of entry, for the entire process of immunization to run smoothly.

“It was a very busy day,” says Suzi Cantrell, Career Services Advisor for the Fresno campus. “We had an assembly line going where we assisted Walgreens staff with all of the preliminary patient instruction and paperwork needs before we sent patients to the shot line, taking place at three tables,” says Cantrell.

PT students worked in 4-hour shifts from 10:00 am-2:00 pm and 2:00 pm-6:00 pm. “Lazano Figuero, the manager of five Walgreens locations, told me that our students were doing such a good job that they should each make sure to give him a resume for future program extern or employment opportunities,” says Cantrell. Volunteerism is an important part of any student’s career training and education program at SJVC, and it is not unusual for those businesses and agencies enjoying volunteer student services to invite them to apply for a position once they graduate.

In Mr. Figuero’s ‘thank you’ message to the Pharmacy Technology class he says, “SJVC was represented well…we would not have been able to achieve our goal of 100 flu shots per hour without your help. Please thank your students for a job well done.”

The Walgreens Flu Shot Clinic served over 1200 patients during this event.