A radiologist from Alabama who was one of the first healthcare professionals to receive the COVID-19 vaccine last week described her experience in a December 18 article in the Business Insider.
Dr. Joy Henningsen works as a diagnostic radiologist at Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on December 17 along with other personnel at the facility. The Birmingham VA Medical Center received some of the first shipments of the vaccine in the U.S.
Henningsen decided to share her story in a first-person article she wrote for Business Insider because of her experiences interpreting chest and lung images of patients with COVID-19. She noted that while as a radiologist she's not on the front lines in caring for COVID-19 patients, she sees the damage caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus through their images.
"I am a constant witness to COVID-19's serious effects via the dark tales told by my patients' medical images," she wrote.
Henningsen also noted that she's an "outspoken pro-mask, pro-vaccine healthcare communicator" who felt compelled to tell her story to assuage concerns that some individuals may have about the vaccine's efficacy or its side effects. She even shared her enthusiasm via a post on her Twitter account.
My thoughts on the vaccine 😂 Who’s with me? #MedTwitter pic.twitter.com/Qb9STy3Qlp
— Joy Henningsen, MD 😷🗽 (@JoyHenningsenMD) December 2, 2020
Henningsen said getting the COVID-19 vaccine was "much less painful" than the flu shot she received earlier in the fall, and she's looking forward to receiving the second shot in three weeks.
Despite being vaccinated, she said she does not plan to return to a normal life of traveling and socializing until 75% of the American population is immunized.
![Images show the pectoralis muscles of a healthy male individual who never smoked (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; body mass index [BMI, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 28.4; number of cigarette pack-years, 0; forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], 97.6% predicted; FEV1: forced vital capacity [FVC] ratio, 0.71; pectoralis muscle area [PMA], 59.4 cm2; pectoralis muscle volume [PMV], 764 cm3) and a male individual with a smoking history and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; BMI, 27.5; number of cigarette pack-years, 43.2, FEV1, 48% predicted; FEV1:FVC, 0.56; PMA, 35 cm2; PMV, 480.8 cm3) from the Canadian Cohort Obstructive Lung Disease (i.e., CanCOLD) study. The CT image is shown in the axial plane. The PMV is automatically extracted using the developed deep learning model and overlayed onto the lungs for visual clarity.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/03/genkin.25LqljVF0y.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
