To get the flu shot, or not to get the flu shot...

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I am a fourth semester registered nursing student in Idaho. Throughout my nursing education, I have never received a flu shot of any kind. The reason is because I feel that I am a healthy 22 year old, and that there are other people who need it more than I do. How do other people view this issue? Is it something that I should consider once I graduate and become a full-time working RN?

Specializes in ER, Trauma.

Should you get the flu, you're contagious for about 2 weeks before you become symptomatic. You'll be working with patients who are already compromised, and coworkers who don't care to share your germs. As health care providers we owe our patients the protection. If you don't get the shot for you, you really must get it for them.

BTW, I always get the flu shot, and enjoy seeing coworkers who refuse. Inevitably they are half carried into the ER by their family. You can always tell a good case of the flu by the right hand! Listing the symptoms would make it sound like a bad cold, but if the patient looks grey, and a family member is patting the right hand telling him/her "now now, I know you think you're gonna die and just want to get it over with, but you will be OK." A couple of liters of IV fluids, anti-emetics, maybe some Tami-flu, and 7 to 10 days riding it out, and they're fine. They never refuse the flu shot again!

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

No one can make the choice for you, it's still up to you. Read the information sheet printed by the CDC that by law should be given to everyone who gets the flu shot. Read the package insert it contains, should you desire. Talk to your MD/NP about it. In the end it's still your call. Employers can't force you to take the shot but some places are less than understanding about missing work due to the flu if you didn't get it. I don't agree with it, but it's reality.

I got mine a couple weeks ago, 1) because I wanted to be out of my first trimester of pregnancy by a few weeks when I got it. Personal thing about not wanting to take much of anything in the first trimester; and 2) flu season generally gets cranked up in my state in February.

Current recommendations are for everyone who wants one to get it, but after you have all the info you want, it's up to you to decide.

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.

We had a 28 yo staff RN die as a result of flu-related complications.

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I am a fourth semester registered nursing student in Idaho. Throughout my nursing education, I have never received a flu shot of any kind. The reason is because I feel that I am a healthy 22 year old, and that there are other people who need it more than I do. How do other people view this issue? Is it something that I should consider once I graduate and become a full-time working RN?

Most infectious diseases strike especially hard among the very young and the very old, but many of last year's H1N1 flu fatalities were previously healthy young people in their teens, twenties and thirties. Strong, active people who would have bounced back from other diseases developed pneumonia or other complications and died or remained ill on vents for a long time.

There is no shortage of vaccine this year. The seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines have been combined into one injection.

Employers can require you to get the flu shot if you work with a vulnerable population. This is in part for your well being, but it's more for the protection of the people you take care of. You can spread the disease to them even if you don't show any sign of having it yourself.

For those who dislike the thought of getting a shot, it's two seconds of a pinch in the arm versus days of feeling horrible and perhaps infecting others. It was an easy decision for me.

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

Inoculations are proven to prevent disease. As a nurse you are an advocate for health and medicine. Doing all you can to prevent being a carrier of disease is just socially and professionally responsible.

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Specializes in LPN.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't get the flu shot every year. Some work places require it, but I've met a number of nurses along the way who do not get an annual flu shot.

I believe whether to get vaccines is a personal decision. Unless your school or workplace requires it, you choose what you put into your body. There are other methods of preventing the flu, such as diligent hand washing and using gloves, and wearing a mask if necessary.

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Specializes in ICU, ER, EP,.

Last year we lost three patients under 40 who died with H1N1... oscillator, Heliox the whole bit. Personally it frightened me as I'm naive enough to think couldn't happen to me... just the young and the old.

So it's not my place to even suggest what is right for you, just a few words as to why I've personally changed my stance on it.

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Specializes in Telemetry, Case Management.

I am a healthy 50 year old with diabetes and asthma and I have never gotten a flu shot, nor do I intend to. And I have not been carried into the ER with flu. I did get a pneumonia shot - although even then I got pneumonia over the 4th of July this past summer anyway, months and months after the pneumonia shot.

I do not have any faith in the flu shot, and I do not care how much you rebut my thinking, I have seen more people die from the flu shot than I have the flu. That is my personal experience, maybe I just have had a strange and different experience from the majority of you, but that's how I've seen it.

I did not let my 85 year old grandmother with COPD ever get it either. And no, she did not die of the flu.

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I don't get the flu shot either, ever. I've had the flu once, several years ago. I work in the ED and personally have not seen even one case of the flu in my ED this season.

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I've seen 5 pos flus where I work in the last 1-2 weeks....it's coming.

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I've seen 5 pos flus where I work in the last 1-2 weeks....it's coming.

Since I don't work 24/7, I'm sure that there have been some cases, just not many. I also work PRN at another hospital and have only seen one pt with the flu come through that one so far. But even if there were many more, I still wouldn't get the shot.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.
Inoculations are proven to prevent disease. As a nurse you are an advocate for health and medicine. Doing all you can to prevent being a carrier of disease is just socially and professionally responsible.

Had a visitor in ICU yesterday in a wheelchair. After speaking with her for a while, I found out she had polio as an 8 month old. Just a little reminder about how far we have come with immunizations.

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