Plagued by problems, McCosh struggles to meet student needs

When David Stainback '01 awoke, his mouth was parched, but there was nothing to drink beside him. Stainback had been admitted to a busy McCosh health center inpatient clinic earlier in the morning with flu-like symptoms and a 102-degree fever.

In the early afternoon, Stainback received a phone call from a friend, only to pass out from dehydration sitting in the health center's hallway phone booth. Upon awakening and stumbling back to his room, the then-freshman fell to the floor and broke his nose in front of the nurses' station.

What began as a simple sickness quickly turned into a much more serious scenario, leading to surgery and further medical complications.

Similar tales invariably lead both McCosh officials and students to arrive at one diagnosis: Resources at the health center are both limited and misallocated.

And with a 500-student increase looming on the horizon, the health center faces an uphill battle to secure additional University funding and improve its negative image on campus.

According to members of the Student Health Advisory Board, student feedback consistently calls for longer clinic hours and more staff. "A lot of these concerns, I think, underlie a greater problem in the lack of resources," SHAB co-president Seenu Susarla '01 said.

Many administrators and students say they agree that the trustees' recent decision to increase the size of the student body will only exacerbate McCosh's current problems.

"If you are going to increase the student body size, there has to be a proposed increase in funding, otherwise the quality of care will go down," Susarla noted.

Though providing services for 500 additional students will likely put pressure on all aspects of health services, the pinch will be most apparent in those areas that are already feeling a strain on their resources, according to Director of Health Services Dr. Pamela Bowen.

McCosh's director of administrative services Elizabeth Langan expressed concern that the University may fall short of meeting the health center's growing needs.

Because many of the most popular services in McCosh — such as gynecological examinations and meetings with trainers — often involve hour-long appointments, the burden of 500 additional students will have a "big effect," she explained.

"I feel like we have some catching up to do, in terms of how to best work with our resources," Langan said, noting that students visit the health center an average of 2.5 times each per year.

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Despite this perceived urgency, receiving increased funding will not necessarily be easy or guaranteed.

The Priorities Committee, which allocates the University's financial resources, hears competing requests for funds from all sides of the campus each year. And as part of a campus-wide administrative review, McCosh is currently under the University microscope.

"Questions of resources are definitely on the table," Vice President for Finance and Administration Richard Spies GS '72 said. "But it is too early to say where that is going to come out."

Even increased funding, however, may not solve all of McCosh's problems. Specifically, the stigma attached to the health center among undergraduates may prove difficult to erase.

According to the most recent SHAB evaluation, 93 percent of students are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with care they have received in McCosh. And when students are asked to give their impression of campus health services, McCosh generally scores an eight out of 10, according to former SHAB president Karen Joynt '00. But when students are asked to evaluate what they perceive as the campus' level of satisfaction with McCosh, the average rating is six.

"I think the negative perception of McCosh is by word of mouth and mythology," said SHAB co-president Jonathan Wong '02.