The Student Health Center will leave its Nebraska Hall location this summer to be closer to main campus. The center plans to move into McCabe Hall May 9, where it will have more space.
Dan Bruey, the health center director, who replaced Bethany Chiaramonte last fall, said proximity to other campus facilities will make the center more convenient.
"The counseling center, the academic support center, disability resources, we'll be so much closer to them," Bruey said. He said that now, the health center is "kind of thought of and viewed by students and staff as this outlier, separate entity."
Coby Glasserow, a College of Arts and Sciences student, said that the health center on campus will be much more convenient.
Rebecca Baer, a School of Communications student, said the move would be a major improvement. "The health center has a lot of things they need to take care of, but [moving on campus] is a good first step," Baer said.
The center will have eight exam rooms, with one room reserved for specialty care, Bruey said. For example, the room could be used for psychiatric services or dermatology. The health center also will have a larger laboratory to provide more on-site test results.
The rooms will be larger than they are now to accommodate better exam equipment. There is not much space in Nebraska Hall, and some rooms are rotating as offices and exam rooms, he said.
Another new feature will be an enlarged waiting area. At the Nebraska facility, students are cramped into two small waiting rooms - one area where students first check in and another for waiting, he said.
"We'll be able to see a lot more patients more efficiently over in the new space," Bruey said.
Instead of sending students to a local pharmacy to fill their prescriptions, a dispensary will be on location at the health center to offer inexpensive drugs.
Furniture in the new facility will be contemporary, and the waiting room will have a full-sized aquarium.
Studies have shown that an aquarium in a doctor's office provides a calming atmosphere, according to Bruey.
The facility will include a new wellness center to focus on educational programs relating to student health issues. It will be connected to the health center but will have its own entrance.
Kathy Haldeman, the education coordinator who heads the wellness department, said the new wellness center will provide resource material such as books, video tapes and brochures for students to conduct research on various health topics.
Haldeman works with The Naked Truth Wellness Advocates, an AU group that will offer also workshops on topics relevant to college students, such as stress management, sexually transmitted disease prevention, contraception, alcohol, sexual assault risk reduction and eating disorders.
Haldeman said she would have enough space to bring in a speaker about once or twice a month. She's also considering adding a massage therapy service.
"We are looking at having a massage therapist come in and do a 15-minute seated massage at a reduced rate for students," Haldeman said.
Prices and hours have not been determined, but Haldeman said students could pay with EagleBuck$.
In addition to Haldeman, Bruey said he plans to hire a second education coordinator who will focus on alcohol and other drug programs.
The health center has been increasing its clinical staff significantly more than in it had in the past, Bruey said. He hopes to settle on permanent, full-time employees in process. The center has gone though various staffing scenarios, but Bruey plans to eventually settle on a full-time medical doctor and part-time MD who will act as a medical director.
There will be four full-time, mid-level health care providers, who might be either a nurse practitioner or physician's assistant.
"I'm starting to hire some providers whose interest is college health and the college-age population," Bruey said.
Bruey said he is not opposed to experimenting with the health center's hours.
"A lot of students talk about Saturday hours," Bruey said. "Would students really wake up at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning and come into the health center? Would that be the best way to do it or will expanding our hours later into the evening be better?"
Laura Reznick, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs would like to see weekend hours at the new health center.
"Right now, its basically, there are no doctors in D.C. that are open past four on Fridays. That would be a huge improvement if the health center opened on weekends, " Reznick said.
The health center's hours will probably stay the same through next year, he said. The hours are currently 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.
Bruey said he is willing to extend hours for one or two nights during finals week to see how many students stop by the center at those times. Then he can determine if there is an adequate volume of students to justify later hours.
Bruey started working as the health center director at the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year. Before starting at AU, he was an administrator in the department of medicine at Temple University's medical school in Philadelphia.
Bruey said he made the switch because D.C. "challenged me, intellectually and socially, and [in] Philadelphia I wasn't getting those challenges."
Bruey can sympathize with on-campus students who have been concerned with the distance to the health center, since during his first two months on the job he lived in Centennial Hall and had a first hand experience with walking everyday to Nebraska Hall.
Haldeman said she's eager to work in the new facility.
"We are looking forward toward a new building, new leadership and increasing the services for students, and providing some good wellness and healthcare services," she said.
