Christina Dunham, a recent graduate of Felician University’s Nursing program is delivering COVID-19 vaccines to senior citizens and other homebound individuals in Lakewood and Newark through the nursing agency where she works. “I think a lot of them are scared to leave their house and a lot of them physically can’t.”

Nurse Dunham has a police escort when giving the vaccines in Newark. She says she feels differently about going into the inner city after taking part in one of Felician University’s Campus Ministry’s Midnight Runs into Newark to bring supplies to the homeless. “It was a humbling experience to see people that are less fortunate than you.”

Nurse Dunham has accepted an offer to work as an emergency room nurse at Hackensack Meridan JFK University Medical Center in Edison, but plans to continue delivering COVID-19 vaccines to the homebound. She says she loves being a nurse, is a little nervous, but mostly excited to start her new emergency room job. It’s a place where she will probably feel right at home having worked as an emergency medical technician with the Lincroft First Aid Squad where she played a role in helping to save a man’s life by giving him CPR after he suffered a heart attack in the parking lot of a McDonald’s in Middletown.

Christina says her professors at Felician University helped prepare her for nursing by giving her a good grounding in how to treat patients with compassion, something that can’t always be front and center in an emergency situation. She says Felician University taught her more than just how to be a nurse, “they taught me how to give back.”