Cathy Endo is a family practice physician at the University of Nevada, Reno, Student Health Center. The center offers low-cost medical care to students, including dermatology, psychiatry, sports medicine, women’s health services, X-rays and pharmaceuticals. Students who are enrolled at least half-time pay a mandatory health fee and receive routine doctor visits and some lab work at no additional cost; other services are available at discount rates. Endo, a 1993 graduate of the university’s School of Medicine, was working in a private practice until she came to the center five years ago. Endo says that she loves her job and that college students are a “fun population.” She also enjoys the flexibility of the job, which includes time off in the summer. Endo’s life, however, is hardly filled with blocks of spare time, since she has a husband and three children, and she also works as an emergency room doctor in Yerington on the weekends.
What are common health concerns of a college student?
With this population, sexually transmitted diseases are a big one. We see a lot of family planning, Pap smears, that sort of thing, as far as the female population goes. Also, mental illness, not only [because of] academic stress, but financial stress, too. A lot of time, [the student] is away from home, so it’s kind of a lot for them. We see a lot of orthopedic trauma, fractures. Too many [students] snowboarding! Another thing we do here is some sports medicine. We have a relationship with the athletic department; we cover [UNR] games. A lot of times, at basketball or football games, they want someone there in case [an athlete] gets injured. We do that all on our own time. We don’t get paid.
The lucky thing for us is that the population is pretty healthy. So as far as coming in for routine checkups, it’s not really necessary, except for women and Pap smears and family planning. We really stress that sort of thing. I think our biggest goal here, with this group, is education. It’s a good time to educate [students] about health, especially for women, but also smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, the dangers of date rape and the use of date rape drugs. We see a lot of women, [especially freshman], coming in with those issues.
Do you really? Date rape drugs?
Yeah, well, not a lot, but [with some frequency].
What are your education methods?
We have posters, handouts, pamphlets and one-on-one [conversations]. When we get the chance, we try to talk to them about the dangers of the world. A lot of [the physicians here] have kids, and so we like to take care of these [students], because they’re away from home and they’re naïve. … We try not to lecture, just point out all the bad things they can catch. We get out all the gross pictures. And so many of [the students] have no insurance. They need medicine and can’t pay for it. Luckily, most of them are healthy. But we have found quite a few with cancer, leukemia and so on.