The happiest place in medicine right now is a basketball arena in New Mexico. Or maybe it’s the parking lot of a baseball stadium in Los Angeles, or a shopping mall in South Dakota. The happiest place in medicine is anywhere there is vaccine, and the happiest people in medicine are the ones plunging it into the arms of strangers.

“It’s a joy to all of us,” says “Nana” Poku, a nurse vaccinating people in Northern Virginia.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience in my career that has felt so promising and so fulfilling,” says Christina O’Connell, at the University of New Mexico.

For health-care workers, the opportunity to administer the vaccine has become its own reward. Giving hope to others has given them hope, too. In some clinics, so many nurses have volunteered for vaccine duty that they can’t accommodate them all.

The arrival of “The Shot” has transformed the grim pop-up clinics of the pandemic into gratitude factories—assembly lines where Americans could begin to put back together their busted psyches. Pharmacy manager Ebram Botros said, “I will never forget the face of the first person I vaccinated. It was an 80-year-old man who said that he hadn’t seen his children or grandchildren since last-March.”

Corie Robinson, a nurse in D.C., was selected to give the ceremonial first vaccinations on camera at a Dec. 17 news conference. The positivity has buoyed her spirits. She said of her patients, “You can see their smiles through their masks.” One elderly man sang while he got his shot. Others request pamphlets about the vaccine because they want to put them in time capsules.

Robinson said, “I say quite often, this is probably the most important thing I’ll ever do in my career. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming because you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m the keeper.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians experience an even greater joy seeing the faces of those who receive Christ as Savior! It is time of rejoicing when someone passes from death to life and can literally be the most important thing you will do in your life.