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Opinion: Getting COVID-19 vaccines to rural Americans is harder than it looks – but there are ways to lift the barriers
Bennett Doughty and Pamela Stewart Fahs
The enormous job of vaccinating the nation is underway, but for rural Americans, getting a COVID-19 vaccine becomes harder the farther they are from urban centers.
The current vaccines’ cold storage requirements and shipping rules mean many rural hospitals can’t serve as vaccination distribution hubs. That can leave rural residents – about 20% of the U.S. population in all – traveling long distances, if they’re able to travel at all.
Bennett Doughty grew up in Winthrop, Maine, and earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy in 2016. Following graduation, Doughty completed two years of residency training at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Conn., specializing in psychiatric pharmacy.
Doughty joined the Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2018 as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. He also serves as a clinical psychiatric pharmacy specialist at the Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa., where he works in crisis, inpatient and ambulatory care settings. Doughty is the program director of the Binghamton University Opioid Overdose Prevention Program (BU OOPP), a state-sponsored program that supports the training and distribution of the opioid overdose reversal agent, Narcan, to the University community. He is actively working with healthcare faculty members across Binghamton