Scenic Mountain Medical Center received 300 doses of the Moderna vaccine on Monday, December 21 and began administering the vaccine to healthcare workers on Tuesday. The hospital’s very first vaccine was given to Dr. Joseph Chavez, MD, who works as a physician in SMMC’s Pediatrics Department.

All employee vaccinations were voluntarily received. More than 30 employees are scheduled to receive their vaccination today and several more are registered to receive it in the upcoming days.

“To be able to take this step feels like a piece of what we all need to do to make our world safe again, to get back to the life where we can see each other's faces,” said Rohith Saravanan, M.D., chief medical officer at Scenic Mountain Medical Center.