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Here’s the good news: A new National Foundation for Infectious Diseases survey unveiled at NFID’s annual influenza and pneumococcal news conference reported that more than 90% of physicians will get (or have already gotten) the influenza vaccine this year.
I have a penchant for chiding health care workers about their professional responsibility to get vaccinated annually. Although this finding has restored my faith in my physician colleagues, it brings us to the bad news: Non-physicians must be avoiding the vaccine in droves because vaccination rates from surveys that group physicians together with other health care personnel are usually half what was reported (or even less).
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Some surveys include institutional-based clinical staff, whereas others are more encompassing, including, for instance, firefighters and EMTs. Others go even further, including anyone who self-identifies working in a health care occupation or setting.
I like the last one best because everyone who comes in with patients needs to be vaccinated. I mean everybody. Non-clinical staff (eg, custodians, food service workers, TV sales people) are in and out of patient rooms several times a day — they can get and spread influenza just as I can if they are not immunized.
The NFID’s good news shows that an overwhelming majority of physicians are getting vaccinated and I am extremely proud of my colleagues.
But we physicians also have to be leaders. It is time to get out there and let others know that we take our promise to “first, do no harm” seriously and we expect the professionals around us to do the same.
Make sure that everyone in your office is vaccinated and that the hospitals in which you practice have a vigorous all-inclusive influenza vaccination program.
William Schaffner, MD, is the President of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He is also professor and chairman of the department of preventive medicine and professor of medicine in the department of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. Additionally, he serves as a hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Hospital.