Vaccination Record

One page that travels

Vaccination history is usually spread across a clinic system, a childhood booklet and somebody memory. One sheet you can photograph and carry is worth more than all three at the moment you are asked.

Batch numbers

The batch or lot column is the one people leave out and the one that matters if a batch is ever queried. It is on the box at the time and effectively unrecoverable afterwards.

Pets too

The columns suit an animal's record as readily as a person's — a boarding kennel or a groomer will ask for exactly these five things.

What goes in each column

• Vaccine — the product name where you have it, not just the disease.
• Date given — the single most asked-for field.
• Batch / lot — copy it off the box at the time; it is unrecoverable later.
• Given by — clinic, pharmacy or practice, so the record can be traced back.
• Next due — filling this in is what turns a history into a reminder.

Printing it

Choose A4 or US Letter before you download and the table is laid out to fit that sheet — column widths are shares of the page, not fixed millimetres, so nothing is cut off at the right-hand edge. Alternate row shading can be turned off if you are photocopying in black and white, where a pale tint sometimes reproduces as a muddy grey. If you need more than one page, set the page count before downloading rather than printing the same PDF twice; the pages are then numbered, which matters the moment two of them get separated.