Health Center ranks with nation’s top
By Emily Baker
Staff Reporter

Though many university health centers do not make the grade in quality health care, according to a study done by The Wall Street Journal, TCU’s Health Center is in prime condition, said Marilyn Hallam, assistant to the director of the Health Center.

The main problems for universities pointed out in the study are that health centers have typically not been remodeled or updated in decades, the medical staff are not board certified and hours are not convenient for students. But Hallam said these were never problems at TCU.

“Many of the shortfalls cited in the study aren’t relevant to us,” Hallam said. The problems cited in the study have been taken care of before they became problems, Hallam said.

Hallam said the Health Center was remodeled a year and a half ago. She said all three doctors are board certified, the center’s nurse practitioner is certified in her area of specialty (women’s health) and the physicians’ assistant is also board certified.

Schools with “most impressive” ratings like Harvard University have a practitioner on-site 24 hours a day while a previously high-rated school like the University of California in Berkeley is losing 26 full-time positions in its health center due to budget cuts. Poorly-rated schools like Sarah Lawrence College have no doctors and never more than two nurse practitioners.

The annual operating cost for the Health Center is just less than $600,000, said Provost and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Don Mills.

Hallam said there are no planned staff or budget cuts for the Health Center and that their hours of 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. are sufficient to care for students.

Sophomore political science and broadcast journalism major Blake Williams said he feels hours could be longer to be more accommodating but that it has run smoothly when he has gone.

“People don’t always get sick during working hours,” Williams said. “If they were open a little longer, it would be more accessible to more people.”

Senior interior design major Tracy Null said the Health Center operations are smooth and efficient.

“They seem to get people through pretty quickly,” Null said. “It only gets backed up during flu season and during the afternoon. But if you go in the morning, you’ll be OK.”

Hallam said the average time spent in the waiting room is 20 minutes. With the exception of women’s health appointments, students are seen in the order in which they came to the Health center. The center tried to schedule appointments with students years ago, but that did not work well, Hallam said.

“Students, being students, wouldn’t show up for their appointments,” Hallam said. “They would get busy or forget and not show up.”

The Health Center requires that all students taking nine or more hours have health insurance, Hallam said. That encourages students to see the doctor when they need to because they know the cost will be covered, Hallam said.

The Health Center also has a good relationship with specialists, hospitals and out-patient facilities in the area, Hallam said. That makes getting special appointments or X-rays for students quick and easy, Hallam said.

Null said she once needed an X-ray and that the Health Center set everything up for her at an out-patient facility.

“The Health Center gave me all the information and the location and told me exactly what I needed to do and were very helpful,” Null said.

But senior interior design major Nancy Hogan said she will not return to the center because once she was put on the wrong medication until she got her blood test results.

“They never called me, so my mom called,” Hogan said. “They wouldn’t give the results to her, so I had to go down there for the test results. Then they gave me steroids, which scares me.”

e.k.baker@tcu.edu