Health care seems to be the hot-button issue du jour, and, if you can get past the dispute over who is killing whose grandmother, you'll see that Duke is involved in the broader debate.
Most notably of late, with the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy, people across the nation are reflecting on the Senator's surgery at Duke University Medical Center. As you may recall, on May 17 of last year, Kennedy was hospitalized after a seizure. The doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital diagnosed him with an inoperable malignant glioma in his brain; in other words, he was shortly to join Leonardo DiCaprio and the ranks of "The Departed" Boston civil servants.
But never leave to Bostonians what can be done by wicked smaht North Carolinians, Kennedy decided, and he hiked over to our little-university-that-could. Thanks to the extremely capable hands and mind of Dr. Allan Friedman, famed Duke neuro-oncologist, Kennedy left the operating table "[feeling] like a million bucks." That we mourn his death as late as now is a testament to the strength of Duke Medicine.
That's just how we roll. Quality health services are to DUMC as quality milkshakes are to Cookout. In addition to outstanding specialties like neuro-oncology and Peanut Butter Fudge (respectively), superiority is simply intrinsic to every part of the institution. Ranked tenth in the U.S. News and World Report "America's Best Hospitals: the 2009-2010 Honor Roll," DUMC ranks among the top 10 hospitals in the nation in cancer, geriatric care, gynecology, heart and heart surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, respiratory disorders and urology.
So, if you have a problem with your heart, eyes, bones, lungs, urinary tract or vagina; or you're old; or you have cancer-any type of cancer-DUMC is a place worth the price of your plane ticket (and then some) to visit.
It gives me pause to know that the quality care of an elite hospital, with doctors exceptional enough to treat American royalty when others say treatment is impossible, does not spill over to its kid sibling, the Duke Student Health Center.
I am not here to knock Student Health. We students can complain all we like, but until we remember that Student Health is a special, full-service clinic devoted exclusively to 6,000 people in a city of more than 200,000, and our alternative is to join the general population in waiting lines at real hospitals and clinics, our complaints are just D-U-M-B. But given that the University has already deemed it beneficial to have Student Health, let's go the distance and provide some after-hours resources.
Granted, I always try my best to fall ill only between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and between 9:00 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on weekends, but sometimes it's just not in the cards. So let's say I do come down with a bad case of the ol' swine flu, or an allergic reaction, or a sprained ankle when Student Health is closed.
I tried to simulate this experience by calling, as is proper, (919) 684-WELL at the outrageous hour of 12:45 p.m. on Saturday. I was greeted with a message informing me that because I had missed the lengthy two hours and 45 minutes Student Health stayed open, I should stay on the line to access "nurse advice and limited urgent care services."
Upon doing so, I was treated to another sampling of the recorded message. And then another. Seeking an alternative, I hit up http://healthydevil.studenStaffairs.duke.edu, which reiterated that I was S.O.L. (the same non-medical diagnosis Mass General gave to Kennedy-UrbanDictionary it if necessary). I tried again yesterday night, this time treated to a new recording that actually referred me to the aforementioned nurse advice hotline, but at times a caller might find herself caught in the Mobius Strip of that unhelpful recorded message and its online doppelganger.
The remaining options include toughing it out, which is highly unpleasant, or moseying on down to the emergency room at the hospital. And if you have a non-life-threatening emergency in the emergency room, may the Lord have mercy on your soul as you wade through the sometimes 12- to 24-hour triage process.
As we wait in paranoid anticipation for H1N1 to take hold, I can only hope that you all do your darndest to not contract the disease after 5 p.m. or 11:45 a.m. on weekends. If you feel unable to do so, shoot an e-mail to Dr. Bill Purdy, executive director of Student Health, and let him know he's doing such a good job that you'd like more of his services.
Charlotte Simmons wants to emphasize her point by reminding you that any diseases contracted on the Shooters d-floor will become readily apparent only after Student Health hours. So care about this.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.