Photo By Chief Petty Officer Charles Hayes | WASHINGTON (Dec. 15, 2020) Denise Boehm, Associate Director, Patient Care Services and...... read more read more
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WASHINGTON– Millions of doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, snugly packed in little square trays and chilled with a frigid heap of frozen carbon dioxide, began to flow Dec. 12 from manufacturing facilities to distribution points across the country. The Americans most at risk from the disease – frontline health care workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities – are starting to receive their first shot in the two-dose course of treatment, heralding what Army Gen. Gus Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, called “the beginning of the end” of the pandemic.
For most members of Operation Warp Speed, however, the vaccine itself is a surprisingly distant commodity. The operation led the United States’ effort to develop, manufacture and distribute a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine – but most members of the task force are planners or experts in logistics, information technology, or any of a dozen other specialized fields. Even the medical personnel assigned to Operation Warp Speed are focused more on ‘the big picture’ of overseeing the distribution of the vaccine, rather than interacting with patients themselves. The result is something of a paradox: many of the people most closely involved in the enormous effort to rapidly field the vaccine aren’t anywhere near the front of the line to receive it themselves. Most won’t even see a vial of the precious substance for months.
But there are exceptions. On Dec. 17, Denise Boehm, a Department of Veterans Affairs nurse assigned as a liaison to Operation Warp Speed and who continues to interact with patients every day, became the first member of the team to get the shot herself.
“I’m feeling more hopeful than ever,” said Denise Boehm, a nurse at the Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center (WDCVAMC), where she serves as the associate director of Patient Care Services and the chief nurse executive. “And I’m also seeing hope in the faces of health care providers who, just last week, looked tired.”
The arrival of the vaccine capped an exhausting year for many health care workers, who saw their lives and practices turned upside-down by the immense scale of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Both my work and personal lives have been significantly impacted by the COVID 19 Pandemic,” she said. “I’ve personally experienced the isolation that every American has faced during this time.”
The shot that went into Boehm’s arm last Thursday came out of a vial that started its journey a few days earlier, when the Food and Drug Administration issued Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer vaccine. Pfizer employees at the company’s plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, packed the vial, along with 194 others, onto a tray in a specially designed cold-storage box. Along with the vials went insulation, a GPS sensor, temperature monitors, radio transceivers and enough dry ice to maintain the -80 Celsius temperature needed to keep the delicate mRNA compound stable for its trip across the country.
When the box arrived at the WDCVAMC, the vial was thawed, mixed with a saline compound known as a diluent and loaded into a syringe. The protection it offered couldn’t come soon enough for the waiting staff.
“As a health care professional, we are committed to taking care of those who need us,” Boehm said. “As such, we fear that we may, by virtue of our roles in health care, become exposed to COVID-19. So, we isolate ourselves from those we care about.”
“Everything changed in the blink of an eye.”
The pandemic changed things for all Americans. But for health care professionals, the disease upended almost every aspect of their personal and professional lives.
As the chief nurse executive at a VA hospital, Boehm was on the front lines of the response.
“Everything changed in the blink of an eye. How we provided care to our patients, how we cared for our families and how we cared for each other,” she said. “Hospital and essential employees became our new heroes who worked tirelessly and selflessly to ensure every Veteran who came to our facility received the best care possible.”
Taking care of veterans in the midst of a pandemic meant endlessly donning layers of Personal Protective Equipment – masks, gloves, face shields, gowns and more – in an effort to keep the virus away. When that wasn’t enough, they had to rely on their inner strength to keep going on.
“We faced the fear of the unknown, fear regarding our own safety and health and the fear of the impending isolation of a world in quarantine,” said Boehm. “We saw how very strong each and every essential worker is who weathered this storm to provide care and services to others. We gained a deeper appreciation for the little things in life that we may have taken for granted before faced with a global pandemic.”
As the VA’s liaison at Operation Warp Speed, Boehm helps synchronize planning efforts between the organizations. The Department of Veterans Affairs is one of five federal entities that receives its own allocation of the vaccines, and for most of 2020 they have planned how to administer them to at-risk veterans as quickly and safely as possible.
The arrival of the vaccines, and receiving one for herself, was something of a breakthrough for her.
“It has been an extremely emotional first week of vaccine administration. When my facility had its kickoff for vaccination I was overcome with emotion. There were tears of joy, sighs of relief and hope on everyone’s faces. The positive feelings of solidarity by the health care team was palpable in the room. To be a part of this all is simply amazing.”
Story by Air Force Lt. Col. John Severns, Operation Warp Speed Public Affairs
| Date Taken: | 12.20.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 12.23.2020 14:16 |
| Story ID: | 385735 |
| Location: | DC, US |
| Web Views: | 431 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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