"There aren't real doctors or staff at Student Health."
Our
entire SHS health care team is comprised of fully licensed, certified
and credentialed professionals. On occasion we may have a medical
resident or nurse practitioner student who is completing a clinical
rotation here at SHS, but all of our permanent staff are REAL doctors,
nurses, lab technicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants,
nursing assistants, pharmacists, and radiology technicians.
"You can't ever get an appointment!"
SHS
operates with an Open Access scheduling model, which means the majority
of our appointments are reserved for same day use. This enables us to
see a large number of students the same day they are sick or injured,
instead of having to wait several days to get an appointment. Some
visits, such as Pap smears, physicals, nutrition consults, allergy
injections and immunization visits can be scheduled for future dates,
but any illness or injury visit must be made the same day you desire to
be seen at SHS. To ensure that you will get an appointment at the time
of day that is most convenient for you, we strongly encourage you to
make your appointment as early in the day as possible (online
appointments open up at 5am if you do not want to wait for our office to
open at 8am). Be advised that if you wait until the afternoon to try
to be seen at SHS, there is a possibility our appointments will be
completely booked for that day.
"Every time I go other people in the lobby get called back ahead of me even though I was there first."
Students
are seen at SHS with all different types of appointments and they are
being treated in various locations (clinic, triage care, rapid care,
lab, pharmacy, radiology, etc) in the building but they all share the
same lobby area. Most likely the person called ahead of you is seeing a
different provider or is here for a different type of service. We work
very hard to reduce our wait time while still providing excellent
care. Most patients wait less than 10 minutes before being called by
the nursing staff.
"They always assume students have a sexually transmitted infection or are pregnant."
When
patients, particularly women, present to SHS with symptoms such as
abdominal pain, urinary problems, irregular bleeding, nausea, dizziness,
or missed periods, there are many conditions that may cause those
symptoms. In order to properly diagnose and treat symptoms, it may be
necessary to screen for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and
perform a pregnancy test to rule these conditions out as a potential
cause. A pregnancy located outside the uterus can lead to excessive
bleeding and possibly death if not diagnosed early. Many medications,
even antibiotics or over the counter products, should not be taken
during pregnancy. It is necessary and prudent to find out about the
possibility of an STI or ask about the date of a patient’s last
menstrual period.
When
a health care provider recommends STI screening, asks about the date of
your last menstrual period, or suggests needing a pregnancy test, it is
not because they are judging your behavior; it is to rule out potential
causes for your symptoms, prevent complications, and safely prescribe
necessary treatments.
"I've had
green snot for 2 days! SHS misdiagnosed me and didn't even give me an
antibiotic even though I obviously have an infection."
Ahhh,
the green snot myth…one of the most widely held beliefs! Let us put
that one to rest. Snot can be a wide range of colors from green to
brown to yellow to white to clear to even bloody—you can see any of that
rainbow of colors with colds, flu, sinus infections, allergies,
anything. Have you ever had a doctor walk in, ask you to blow your
nose, look in the tissue and then promptly announce what illness you
have? No…because snot color is not really important.
A COLD is a viral upper respiratory infection that generally goes away on its own in 7-14 days (yes, we said 1-2 WEEKS). Antibiotics should not be given for a cold, since they act against bacteria and not viruses.
A SINUS INFECTION
is a bacterial upper respiratory infection confined primarily to the
sinuses. A bacterial infection generally produces more inflammation
therefore symptoms are more severe. A sinus infection lasts 7 days or
longer. Not all sinus infections require antibiotics.
