Memorial Day 2021 Issue

Jutta Braun
at one of
the nursing
labs at
County
College of
Morris.
Kathy Prokop
outside the
vaccination
center at
Rockaway
Townsquare.
Bernadette Schicho in class at
County College of Morris.
CCM Nurses are Hands-on at Area COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics
It’s no secret this pandemic has been a “stepup-to-the-plate,”
“all-in” or any other cliché
you can think of kind of experience. And there
is no exception when it comes to our first line of
defense—healthcare professionals, and specifically,
nurses.
At County College of Morris, the education of
a new generation of nurses has continued as they
train amid a real-life crisis. Students have had a
front-row seat not only in their studies but in the
role that the college has taken in the fight against
COVID-19, according to Kathleen Brunet, CCM’s
director of marketing and public relations.
“When COVID-19 first arrived in New Jersey,
nursing faculty and other CCM professors and
students, staff and alumni provided much-needed
assistance by serving on the front lines, making
masks and face shields and offering other help
where needed,” Brunet said.
But it didn’t stop there. Once a vaccine became
available, four members of CCM’s Department of
Nursing began volunteering at vaccine sites.
Bernadette Schicho, 59, of Blairstown, knew she
had to be part of getting that potentially life-saving
dose into as many arms as possible. When the
opportunity came in mid-January from the Warren
County Medical Reserve Corps, she immediately
responded, “Sign me up.”
Schicho, an assistant professor of nursing, is
currently unaffiliated with a hospital but said she
still feels a strong desire to help others. “I can and
so I should,” she said. She found herself at the
firehouse in Belvidere among volunteers ranging
from nursing students to retired doctors and said
the facility is well run and organized, though
demand has slowed.
As a role model to her students, Schicho said
playing her part in fighting the disease reinforces
the idea that nursing isn’t just about caring for
sick patients. “Volunteering is something to aspire
to when they become nurses,” she said. “It gives
them a sense of responsibility of service to your
18
Story by MELISSA SUMMERS
Photos by KAREN FUCITO
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2021
community.”
Nursing Professor Kathy Prokop, 55, of Florham
Park, read about the need for volunteers and
registered with the Morris County Medical Reserve
Corps. “I believe in the vaccine, and I want to help
get it out there,” she said. In February, she began
working in conjunction with Atlantic Health
System to support the pre- and post-vaccination
screening at the Rockaway Mall Regional
Vaccination Center.
Prokop, who has taught at CCM for 28 years,
said it’s been difficult to adjust to primarily virtual
learning. “I’m with my students in the hospitals
when we do clinicals, but I miss being in the
classroom, I miss having interaction, and this is one
way to have that,” she said. “I’m a healthy person,
and I can go ahead and do my part, as small as it is.
It’s still doing something.”
In the first few months of the pandemic, when
Prokop and her students were not allowed to visit
the hospitals, it was hard for her not to be on
the front lines. “I’ve gone to the same unit at St.
Barnabas with my students for the past 20 years,
and I felt like I couldn’t do my part.” Instead, she
visited weekly, even though she wasn’t allowed in,
leaving snacks and other goodies for the staffers she
had partnered with.
One thing Prokop brings from the vaccine site
back to her students is the chance to experience
the public health side of medicine and even the
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