Medical Biology student internships support local mass-vaccination efforts

A group of students in the University of New England’s undergraduate Medical Biology program are gaining invaluable, nonclinical experience at mass-vaccination sites across southern Maine — and receiving course credit for doing so.

The six students are partaking in a new, nontraditional academic internship program developed between the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the Center for Excellence in Public Health (CEPH).

In partnership with MaineHealth, Northern Light Mercy Hospital, and the York County Emergency Management Agency, the program allows students to perform volunteer work at several vaccination clinics, including reception and wayfinding, patient registration, and patient health screening.

The program was born as a result of both the need from the state’s health systems for volunteers and the college's desire to create academic internship opportunities for those who could participate.

“In early December, when vaccines began undergoing approvals, health systems across the state were trying to figure out how to get vaccines into people’s arms in partnership with various clinical programs at UNE,” said Elizabeth Mann, RN, M.S.N., PHNA, clinical educator for Interprofessional Practice within the CEPH. “But it became increasingly clear that there was going to be a lot of demand for nonclinical roles, as well.”

Forty-five students reached out to P.J. Lassek, the internship coordinator in the CAS Internship Office, for the six first-come, first-serve slots. Lassek said the credit-bearing experience will be vitally important for those who want to go on to complete medical school.

“Because of legal constraints, it is often hard to find substantial, hands-on internships for students studying medical biology, so for these students to be working right in the heart of the pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them in a nonclinical sense,” Lassek said. “Having this experience on these students’ transcripts reflects a very intentional move on their part to complete an academic internship as an elective course.”

The experience is welcome for Mohammad Atif-Sheikh ’23, who said he is contemplating attending medical school after he graduates from UNE. He said the nonclinical aspects of his internship have helped him build interprofessional skills he will carry on when working with future patients.

“It’s one thing to write down an extracurricular or an internship on a resume, but you actually have to take something from it,” said the Waterville, Maine, native. “I’ve been trying to connect my internship to a hospital setting whenever I’m there, and I’ve learned a lot about how important it is to keep a smile on my face and stay positive; I’ve really tried to capitalize on that.”

Massachusetts native Julie Delphos ’21, said that, as someone who wants to work before entering graduate school, the nonclinical internship has helped guide her next steps in the public health sector.

“I’ve been contemplating for the past year just what aspect of public health I want to go into,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking with different public health experts, epidemiologists, nurses, and health communicators during my internship, and it has been incredibly beneficial.”

But the interns’ work does not stop at their vaccination sites. Under the direction of Jennifer Gunderman, M.P.H., director of the Maine Area Health Education Center housed at UNE, Delphos and Atif-Sheik will work with their peers this semester to develop an educational campaign about the COVID-19 vaccines, targeted to the UNE community.

“The point of the campaign is to address vaccine hesitancy and give our community the most accurate, science-based information about the vaccines so that they decide to get the vaccine when it becomes available to them,” Delphos said. “It also serves as another learning aspect in that we’re learning about public health communication.”

The interns have taken an online social marketing course, Mann said, that will help inform their framework for the educational campaign. She remarked that the campaign is important to dissuade disinformation around COVID-19 and the vaccines, in particular — and it is important for the students to learn how to do the same.

“We’ve taken into consideration all of the disinformation about COVID-19 and the science around it. We felt it was a great and important opportunity for the students to work together in a group to make sure the accurate information about the virus and its vaccines is being shared,” she said. “The ultimate goal is to maximize vaccine uptake within the UNE community.”