AAFP Tips on Getting Shots into Arms this Flu Season with Sterling Ransone, Jr, MD

• "I'm not getting a flu shot - it makes me sick."
• "It's better to just get the flu than take the vaccine."
• "I'm young, I'm healthy, my immune system is strong."
• "If I get a flu shot, I'll be more likely to get COVID-19."

Primary care clinicians have heard all of these reasons from patients about why they won't be getting a flu shot--except maybe the last one. In a conversation wtih Patient Care®, American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Board Chair Sterling Ransone, Jr, MD, said the idea that getting a flu vaccine creates greater susceptibility to COVID-19 was "a new one" to him.

As the 2022-2023 respiratory virus season begins to take shape, Ransone offers an AAFP refresher on the annual push-back from patients that is so familiar to family medicine pracitioners. The educational points to make with patients that Ransone mentions and other tools to help busy practices get shots into arms this year are also available on the AAFP website.

For more conversations with Dr Ransone:

AAFP Board Chair Sterling Ransone, Jr, MD, Has Concerns About Flu Season 2022-2023

Will This be the Year of the Twindemic? AAFP Board Chair Ransone Thinks Out Loud with Patient Care

Sterling Ransone, Jr, MD, is board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a clinical assistant professor of medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. He is the physician practice director at Riverside Fishing Bay Family Practice in Deltaville, VA.