Utah’s Governor Asked for My Help, and I am Glad to Give It

In his weekly COVID-19 press briefing on Thursday, Governor Spencer Cox called on medical professionals to volunteer to assist with Utah’s ongoing vaccination effort. As of Friday, 489,716 doses had been administered, which leaves hundreds of thousands of doses left to administer over the next several months. If the state receives the amount of vaccinations it hopes to in the coming months, they need a willing and able workforce to help get those vaccinations in arms – the arms of our patients, our family, and our friends.

While doctors grapple with some level of uncertainty all the time, COVID-19 gave “uncertainty” a whole new meaning for me and my fellow physicians. Patients, family, and friends began contracting COVID and with every diagnosis we wondered how each individual we cared for so deeply would fare. Sometimes they would have mild symptoms that cleared up quickly and sometimes no symptoms at all. But some struggled for weeks in the hospital. Some never came home. Some have yet to regain their strength and energy and face an unknown future of lingering symptoms. There are many times during this pandemic where I felt helpless to fight this virus as a physician. But this is not one of those times. We now have a powerful weapon to fight this virus that has taken so much, and I am proud to volunteer my time as a family medicine physician to help in the vaccination efforts.

I hope to see many of my healthcare professional colleagues heed the governor’s call for volunteers and sign up to help get our state vaccinated as quickly and as safely as possible. You can do this by signing up at www.utahresponds.org. I look forward to taking proactive steps to help prevent this unpredictable and unrelenting virus from taking the health or life of anyone else I care about. Will you join me?

Sarah Scott, M.D.