To Vaccinate Or Not To Vaccinate, That Is The Question

Editorial Team / Admin · Aug 27, 2021

On 10/18/2019 at 3:14 PM, Joe V said:

What fears and/or objections have you, personally, or as Nurses caring for your patients, encountered when it comes to vaccinations?

Comment or share ?

**CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN** · Aug 31, 2021

The thing that makes me insane is that people who believe that vaccines are harmful almost never have real evidence or even a real anecdote to share. I am a big believer in anecdotes and personal experience, also, not just in hard science— but they have to be an actual experience, not something somebody read online or heard about from a neighbor.

My mom (in Alabama) keeps telling me this: “This young lady at church got the Covid vaccine and she almost died.” Me: “That’s awful; what happened to her?” Mom: “She got real skinny. She looked terrible.”

Me: “Was she hospitalized?” Mom: “No.”

Me: “What did the doctors say caused the weight loss?” Mom: “I don’t know. She’s better now.”

Me: “When you say she almost died, do you know any more about it? Like, what did her doctors say was wrong with her, etc?” Mom: “She looked awful!”

I’m sorry, but that is not a valid anecdote that any vaccine did anything to anybody.

2BS Nurse, BSN · Aug 31, 2021

"I know a lot of pediatric practices have a hard and fast rule about not accepting patients who don't vaccinate on schedule, and I can understand their frustration, but in the long run I doubt such a stance is actually helping to increase the rates of vaccination."

I think this has more to do with protecting their unvaccinated newborns as much as possible. When an sick child arrives at the clinic unvaccinated, there is a risk of spreading pertussis, measles, varicella, etc.

Once I arrived at a new job and was shocked to find out there was an antivax MD in the clinic! Apparently, his own kids weren't vaccinated!

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Aug 31, 2021

1 hour ago, 2BS Nurse said:

Once I arrived at a new job and was shocked to find out there was an antivax MD in the clinic! Apparently, his own kids weren't vaccinated!

MDs are not immune (haha! see what I did there) to misinformation, unfortunately. There is one MD in my area who works at a family medicine practice that advertises itself as holistic, and he actively discourages clients from getting vaccinated. It's really sad.