As its long-time director prepares to leave at the end of June, Duke Student Health is reorganizing its departmental structure in an effort officials claim will enable them to serve the needs of the University's students more effectively.
Student Affairs will now oversee Student Health, a move administrators hope will increase students' awareness of its health promotion and health education programs in addition to its clinical services.
Plans show that outgoing Director Dr. Bill Christmas' current responsibilities will be split into two separate positions: executive director and medical director.
The executive director will shift his focus to the vision and coordination of Student Health, moving away from the day-to-day clinical issues with which Christmas now deals.
"I think what [Vice President for Student Affairs Larry] Moneta is hoping for with the executive director is that the new person will have more time to be out on campus, expanding the program, while someone else will be the medical director," said Jean Hanson, assistant administrative director for Student Health.
The executive director will report directly to Moneta, although the search for that position will not begin until the end of the month.
The medical director, in contrast, will assume the daily responsibility for physicians and provision of care in the clinic. More in line with Christmas' current responsibilities, the new post will be directly under Dr. Lloyd Michener, chair of community and family medicine at Duke University Medical Center.
While the search is on for executive director, Student Health will have three interim directors. Dr. Bill Purdy, assistant clinical professor of student health, will serve as interim medical director; Hanson will be the acting administrative director; and Franca Alphin, currently assistant director of health promotion, will be the interim director of health promotions. The latter two positions have been elevated to director status from the assistant director level.
"The title changes will allow [the University] to recruit even more skilled people for those roles," Moneta said.
When the executive director arrives, he will be charged to fill the aforementioned positions permanently.
"The major goal here is to get Student Health as a whole to be a more integral part of University life," Hanson said. "We are hoping to work more closely with residential life, Greek life and eventually with even the academic component."
But the changes, while well-received overall, will likely create some initial confusion. Christmas said there would be a "shake down period" that would last a few years, until the new organization was firmly entrenched.
"It's confusing for us," said Andrea McMillon, a health education specialist at Student Health. "This change will be a good thing and maybe that will help students feel better [about] our purpose."
The newly refined mission of Student Health will move forward from Christmas' accomplishments, which include improving health care for students and relocating the clinic to a more accessible venue.
"Our clinical practice is terrific, but this is really about how to connect students to health and to get them to think about health before they have needs for clinical services," Moneta said.
Purdy agreed, noting that actions students take might have ramifications on their health in 20 to 30 years.
"By and large, the Duke student population is not that sick. We are trying to get students to think about their health before they are sick," he said. "We are going to be doing a lot more preventive medicine."
Student Health also hopes to increase awareness of its educational programs. Citing new methods of promotions and theme weeks, Alphin noted that in the future, Student Health will be more prominent.
"I think everybody agrees that we need coordination of the offices. Currently, departments duplicate services and times of events conflict. We are looking for someone to give us the oversight the campus needs," Alphin said. "We want to put 150 percent on three events instead of three percent on 150 events."
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