Health Clinic or Quack Shack?

Throughout college, most students start to figure out the things they took fo­r granted their whole lives. Most commonly, that list includes having someone there to do their laundry or clean up after them, having a parental figure sort out things that go wrong or even worrying about going to the doctor.

To ensure students keep optimal health levels at Stephen F. Austin State University, there is a team of doctors and nurses designated to help ailing students with everything from the flu to testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

“There’s not a lot that we can’t help people with,” Dr. Penny Jeffery, University Health Clinic Director said, “even if we need to help set them up to see a specialist.”

After reviewing the list of services offered at the health clinic, one would think the student body would be shouting positive reviews of the place, especially considering if you are already insured there is no cost to see a physician.

Jeffrey said, “If you don’t have insurance, your service fees cover all of it. If you do have insurance, you gain credit for paying the deductible. So really, it helps you.”

Oddly enough though, many students avoid the health clinic like the plague, pun intended. Most members of the student body call the health clinic “The Quack Shack”; a name given long ago that has managed to stick around.

Students cite long wait times and no resolution for their illnesses as their main sources of frustrations with the health clinic. Another common problem is students feel they are rushed through the office and the staff is not a thorough as it could be.

Cara Supan, an SFA student, had managed to go the health clinic at one of the busiest times of the year: flu season. Flu season is when visits peak so doctors must be quick in order to see as many students as possible. By doing so, however, crucial pieces of information can be missed.

“They didn’t test for strep at all, even though I told them I had symptoms of strep and thought I had either the flu or strep. They told me it came back negative for the flu, they told me it was probably just a viral infection,” Supan said.

Unfortunately, Supan’s visit last semester did not have her expected end result.

“They gave me Aleve…which is not effective in treating symptoms of sickness or when you feel like death. So that was great, and they sent me home. And that was it,” Supan said.

Despite an overwhelming majority of students still calling the health clinic “The Quack Shack”, there have also been quite a few positive experiences.

“I would say that they’re not as thorough since they have so many people to see every day and sometimes they just kind of pawn you off on a prescription, but I’ve always got better after a week of going there,” Brooke McCalip, an SFA student, said.

During McCalip’s visit quality was not sacrificed for quickness however.

“I would say I got really good service and I would rate it about an 8 out of 10,” McCalip said.

The clinic and staff are both small considering the services offered and amount of people that pass through the doors each day. Nursing student Mycah Mullins experienced this first hand when she worked a clinical shift for the health clinic in early February.

“My view has been positively influenced by my clinical experience there, which I was not expecting. I’ve been telling people that people don’t give the Health Clinic enough credit,” Mullins said.

During her experience working she was able to see the breadth of what the clinic offered from the other side.

“I’ve just really been advocating for them because they really do as best as they can with the resources they have, with the staff they have. I mean the day I was there, we saw 86 patients,” Mullins said.

Most patients that we talked to agreed that the clinic was staffed with nice and qualified doctors, but that it would not be their first choice for medical care.

“Everybody was really nice and there and accommodating. But I feel like they could have done something to treat me better, like medicine wise,” Supan said.

However, Dr. Jeffery explained that oftentimes, the core of the complaints about the health clinic come from students who visited the health clinic as soon as their symptoms appeared, which cause test results to be skewed.

“A lot of students come in the very morning they wake up with a sore throat and they may have very minimal symptoms,” Dr. Jeffrey said. The clinic diagnoses the students to the best of their abilities, but like any doctor’s office, they have minimal information. So, the student continues to get worse and then becomes angry at the clinic for misdiagnosing them. “Well, if they’d come back to see us we would have diagnosed that, it was just too early to tell.”

If students were given a complete list of services offered by the health clinic and a map locating the building at freshman orientation a lot of confusion might be eliminated.

Sometimes students think the health clinic is a cure all, and although the services offered are varied, they are not a substitute for a real hospital. The clinic does not offer x-rays or have a trauma center. However, birth control, immunization, preventative care and other things are all given to students free of charge, as student fees and insurance foot the bill.

Oftentimes, a student enters the Health Clinic and it is their first time going to see a doctor alone. The Health Clinic works hard to educate students by teaching them what symptoms to look for in specific illnesses, and what medications are best to treat their symptoms.

The Clinic is located on the Southeast corner of Raguet and East College Street. For more information about the health clinic, visit their online website at http://www.sfasu.edu/healthclinic/ or call their office at 936-468-4008.

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