Local Nurse Educates on COVID Vaccines With New Program

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Registered Nurse Boaz Hepner, who works at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, took to the Jewish Journal blogs to write about best practices for staying healthy. He also discussed the vaccines with over 80 doctors and epidemiologists, and every single one of them said they had been vaccinated.

Armed with this information, Boaz talked to his patients and their family members about getting vaccinated. He would ask patients and their family members if they’d had the shot, and when they said no, he’d initiate an open dialogue about it. 

“My next move was not to talk down to them or yell at them but say, ‘Well, I happen to be extremely well-versed in this. Would you like to ask me any questions about it?’” Hepner, who lives in Pico-Robertson, told the Journal.

Hepner answered questions about the shot and dispelled misinformation, like that it could affect a woman’s fertility or that the side effects from the shot were worse than the side effects from COVID. Out of the 20 people who had not been vaccinated, Hepner convinced 17 of them to get the shot. He said he believes that people trust the media over doctors, and if they just had the chance to have a personal conversation with a healthcare provider, they’d get the vaccine.

“What I hope to see is a world that returns to trusting science more and stops relying on their social media feed or some random video of a random doctor.”
— Boaz Hepner

“What I hope to see is a world that returns to trusting science more and stops relying on their social media feed or some random video of a random doctor somewhere and instead trusts the actual scientific community. I’m not talking about trusting government. I’m asking people to trust scientific communities, which are all on the same page with this.”

Along with speaking one-on-one with patients and families, Hepner ran a 12-hour program for 40 of his colleagues in his unit at the hospital that informed them about the vaccine. His workplace had been giving the vaccines to patients, but he and his colleagues hadn’t received formal training regarding talking to patients about it.

“I told [my colleagues] these are the most common questions you’ll get and the reasons why people are not getting the vaccine,” Hepner said. “Out of the nine people who took my seminar who were not vaccinated, eight people got it afterwards. This was before California put a mandate on all healthcare workers to get it anyway.”

One of Hepner’s colleagues who was hesitant to get the vaccine is Hana Yemaneberhan, because she knew people who had COVID symptoms from the shot. But after seeing Hepner’s statistics that showed that getting infected with COVID was far worse than the vaccine side effects, she ended up getting vaccinated. 

“I had body aches and I was tired for a couple of days, but I survived,” she said. “I’m glad I got it. If the vaccine protects us, that’s the main thing.”

While Hepner would like to continue doing his program, so far, he’s faced some red tape. “This was an extremely successful pilot program tested on our unit,” he said. “What’s frustrating me is because this is a big hospital it’s so far not gone beyond that. I have people approaching me every day, including doctors, saying, ‘When are you going to get to the rest of the hospital?’ I’m waiting for them to tell me when I can do it.”

In the meantime, Hepner is continuing to educate himself about COVID and the vaccines. He’s also open to doing the program at other places. “I would absolutely love to have Cedars-Sinai and other hospitals reach out to me to do this.” 

He said that his goal to get as many people vaccinated as he can because, “I know that the vaccines work. I know that the more people who get it, the better, whether we need boosters or not. That’s OK with me if it gets the job done.”