Hepatitis B vaccine

(edited 7 years ago)

I have been told by my medical school that I will need to be vaccinated against Hep B. Should this not be paid for by the medical school as I thought that for occupational health that the employer (the school in this case) was responsible for providing this. Also, there is a rapid immunisation schedule available which takes 1 month rather than 6, has anyone had this done and would it be good enough for med schools or do they only accept the 6 month schedule?

You should get it done by OH when you start. You shouldn't be paying for it. There isn't a mad rush for it, as you won't be doing anything very clinical for at least a year (even as a grad).

Reply 2

ForestCat

Original post by Grad201X

Oh right. They said that people who haven't had it done will have to follow am exposure prone procedure free curriculum. Is this really something I won't do in the first 6 months as I'd rather not have to miss out on anything?

I suppose it depends on your med school but I can't imagine you'd be doing much early on. Unless they teach you venepuncture very early. But you really won't be missing out because you won't get the opportunity to practice it until you get to clinical phase. Its not worth paying for IMO (they're not cheap).

Reply 3

ebai

Original post by Grad201X

As mentioned above most people will get the course of Hep B vaccines done, for free, through occupational health when they start medical school. I would recommend waiting & getting your vaccinations done this way, as it won't result in you missing out on anything, it will save you money & will make your life a lot easier in the future should you need paperwork documenting your Hep B vaccination status. Even if you have been previously vaccinated you will still need to wait until OH have checked your Hep B titres anyway.
Exposure prone procedures are things involving sharps or having any part of your gloved hands inside patients essentially. So taking bloods, cannulating, suturing, surgery, rectal exams, vaginal exams etc. Clinical exposure in your first semester of medical school depends on which university you are at, but even on an course where you have clinical exposure from day one, it shouldn't involve exposure prone procedures. For a first year clinical exposure involves things like learning to take a history, doing basic examinations, measuring BP etc. I'm sure there will be someone who jumps in & claims they were doing exposure prone procedures as a brand new medical student, but it is an extremly unlikely scenario. I'd be pretty concerned if I was on the ward & saw a 1st year doing any of these procedures, unless they'd had a previous career which qualified them to do so, in which case they'd already be vaccinated.
I'm a final year student & due to a paperwork error involving my Hep B vacination history, I was not allowed to do any exposure prone procedures for the first week of my elective in A&E. Even as a final year student this was at most a nuisance. I was still able to do about 95% of what was expected of me. And the things I wasn't allowed to do are things that no first year would be expected to do.

Hepatitis B vaccine

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