Vitamins, please? Student health center needs a boost
Abbey Dean
Issue date: 11/21/09 Section: Forum
Seasons come, and seasons go: flu season, cold season, and even final exam season. All of these are times where students fall ill more quickly and stay sick longer. Stress levels rise and immune systems fail. To thwart the inevitable, student health centers must be a top priority.
College campuses are ideal breeding grounds for disease. Students are all cramped into tight quarters, forced to share bathrooms, and are in constant contact with one another.
When the swine flu frenzy began, news channels aired footage of college campuses across the country. Because of our living conditions, college students were ranked in the same threat level group as babies and as the elderly. This wasn't just a coincidence.
Because of these realities, student health centers on college campuses must be a top priority. Expectations should be exceeded and this basic service should be implemented to the best of every college's means.
At Guilford, more should be done to revamp the student health center. Here are the facts.
Our student health center is open from 9-4, Monday through Friday. If a student seeks medical attention outside of these designated times, then they have to go to an urgent care center or one of the surrounding hospitals.
The director of student health, Helen Rice, is the only full-time member of the student health center, which consults, evaluates, diagnoses, and treats students. The only additional aid comes from a physician's assistant who comes to campus nine hours each week.
Essentially, this means that for the 1,475 traditional students on campus, there is only one steady employee to address health concerns. Even with the physician's assistant, there are only two individuals responsible for diagnosing and treating almost 1,500 people.
This kind of discrepancy is unacceptable. The ratio of health service provided to students is both absurd and unfair to the student health center and Guilford students. Because there are such limited resources, mistakes and misdiagnoses are much more likely to slip through the cracks.
College campuses are ideal breeding grounds for disease. Students are all cramped into tight quarters, forced to share bathrooms, and are in constant contact with one another.
When the swine flu frenzy began, news channels aired footage of college campuses across the country. Because of our living conditions, college students were ranked in the same threat level group as babies and as the elderly. This wasn't just a coincidence.
Because of these realities, student health centers on college campuses must be a top priority. Expectations should be exceeded and this basic service should be implemented to the best of every college's means.
At Guilford, more should be done to revamp the student health center. Here are the facts.
Our student health center is open from 9-4, Monday through Friday. If a student seeks medical attention outside of these designated times, then they have to go to an urgent care center or one of the surrounding hospitals.
The director of student health, Helen Rice, is the only full-time member of the student health center, which consults, evaluates, diagnoses, and treats students. The only additional aid comes from a physician's assistant who comes to campus nine hours each week.
Essentially, this means that for the 1,475 traditional students on campus, there is only one steady employee to address health concerns. Even with the physician's assistant, there are only two individuals responsible for diagnosing and treating almost 1,500 people.
This kind of discrepancy is unacceptable. The ratio of health service provided to students is both absurd and unfair to the student health center and Guilford students. Because there are such limited resources, mistakes and misdiagnoses are much more likely to slip through the cracks.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
book report writing
posted 11/24/09 @ 2:57 AM EST
Student health centers on college campuses must be a top priority. But are they?
maggie
posted 11/25/09 @ 6:37 AM EST
It has been my experience each and every time I have visited the health center, that they are inefficient, unhelpful, and unkind. Of the handful of times I have come in, they simply spend less than five minutes asking me questions, and then write me a note saying that I need to seek off-campus treatment at urgent care for something they have yet to diagnose. (Continued…)
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