Page 8-The Michigan Daily/New Student Edition - Thursday, September 5, 1991

Health is priority at

by JoDee Brandon
Getting sick while away from
home for the first time can be a hor-
rific experience. Without parents
around to provide loving care, a stu-
dent can be left not knowing where
to turn.
Luckily, University students do
not have to be subject solely to the
care of a sympathetic roommate. A
portion of each student's tuition
goes to a Health Service fee which
bn'ables the University Health Ser-
vice (UHS) to provide many forms
of health care and services free of
charge to registered students.
Beginning this fall, UHS will
collect insurance information from
patients. UHS will then bill a stu-
dent's insurance company for any re-
irnbursable services provided.
Under this new plan, students
Will not have to pay out of their
pocket for services provided under
the Health Service fee which are not
covered by their insurance company.
UHS has four medical clinics in
the building to provide care for
niany general health needs. Students
are seen in these clinics on an urgent
care basis, or can make appointments
for treatment.
A Gynecology Clinic, Allergy
and Immunization Clinic, and Nu-
trition Clinic are also available for
students at no charge, as are x-rays,
lab tests and physical therapy. Eye
exams and psychiatric counseling
are offered at UHS, but students are
charged for these services.
With referrals from a UHS clin-
ician, students also have access to
dermatology, neurology, ear-nose-
throat, ophthalmology, orthopedics
and sports medicine services at no
cost.
Confidential and anonymous
AIDS antibody (H IV) testing is
also available at UHS also, with
pre- and post-test counseling given
by a trained counselor.
- Though UHS does offer walk-in
, gent care, it is not considered an
0 40'ergency room.
"We are considered an out-pa-
tient health care facility," said Janet
"ielasko, director of Health Promo-
t4on and Community Relations at
.; W HS.
Zielasko added that although
'UHS does provide minor urgent care
services, in some instances it would
more appropriate for an
w qdividual to go to an emergency
room. The Nurse Clinic at UHS is
available to advise students over the
phone where they can most
appropriately go for care in a
particular situation.
4
Obviously he
hasn't been to...
. 1
w;.
t
Mon.-Fri. 9a.m. to 8p.m.
Saturday 9a.m. to 5p.m.

'U' medical center offers
student services, advice

The Urgent Care lobby at Health Services is not always crowded, but it
seems that way during the winter cold season.

Because the Health Service fee
does not cover services outside of
UHS, including hospitalization and
emergency room costs, Zielasko rec-
ommends that all students have
some private health insurance in case
outside costs are incurred.
Anyone wanting to receive care
at UHS should set up an appoint-
ment with a clinician of their choice,
if at all possible, to avoid the wait
for urgent care.

lens products, condoms, vitamins,
cold and allergy products and
lotions.
Besides its medical care role at
the University, UHS puts on many
health education programs through-
out the year.
UHS peer education programs
offer information on health con-
cerns such as alcohol and other
drugs, safer sex (AIDS and other
sexually transmitted diseases),

UHS
counseling, an hour-long motiva-
tional group session on how best to
quit, and "Smoke-Free," an inten-
sive program to aid smokers in quit-
ting the habit.
Additional workshops are of-
fered on women's health issues,
"Self Care: Treating Common Ill-
nesses," and time management.
"We are also planning on doing
some actual programming within
the classroom setting this year on
different health issues," Zielasko
said.
More than 70 different health
education brochures are available to
students in the Dept. of Health
Promotion and Community Rela-
tions at UHS, and a health resource
file is available to those desiring
additional information on health-
related issues.
For students with health-related
questions, UHS runs a free Comput-
erized Health Information Program
through the campus network, UM-
net. Because this service does not
require an MTS account, students
can anonymously type in questions.
A health professional at UHS will
respond within 24-48 hours.
Through this service, UHS fields
40-50 questions per month on
average.
UHS:Goodhealth, a computer
conference of commonly asked
health-related questions, is also
available to all students. An MTS
account on UB-MTS is required to
access these questions and answers.
Categories of questions found on
this conference range from caffeine
to skin care, and from autoimmune
diseases to winter health concerns.
New students are first exposed
to UHS at orientation. UHS is one
of the campus services involved in
the "Student Life Experience," a
game activity developed and imple-
mented by the Orientation Office
for the first time last year. While
participating in this program, stu-
dents have to make choices and are
then given the consequences of their
decision and all the resources for
that given situation.
Zielasko called the new program
"a real success." It makes the in-
coming students "realize there are a
lot of decisions other than academic
ones they are going to have to
make," and also shows them that
many resources are available to
them on campus.
A presentation on UHS is given
in the parent orientation program
also, to acquaint parents of new stu-
dents with University health care
services.

Sunrunner drivers Dave Noles and Paula Finnegan celebrate the team's
first-place finish in General Motors' Sun rayce last July.

M'

engineers pilot

'We are planning on doing some actual
programming within the classroom setting
this year on different health issues,
-Janet Zielasko,
director of Health Promotion
and Community Relations at UHS.

The average wait for walk-in care
varies depending on the time of day
and year. The maximum wait is usu-
ally about 90 minutes.
Twenty-two clinicians provide
health care at UHS. Clinicians are
either M.D.'s, nurse practitioners,
registered nurses or physician assis-
tants. Zielasko encourages patients
to choose one clinician from the be-
ginning and to continue seeing that
clinician while using UHS, so better
continuity of care can be provided.
The UHS pharmacy offers both
prescription drugs and non-prescrip-
tion items at a substantially lower
cost than that at most drugstores.
The many over-the-counter items
available include aspirin, contact

stress management and contracep-
tion. These programs are presented
by students with extensive training
to groups of students in the resi-
dence halls, fraternities, and
sororities.
The Contraceptive Peer Educa-
tion Program is a prerequisite for
receiving prescription methods of
birth control from UHS, and pro-
vides up-to-date information on all
available methods of contraception.
This program also includes infor-
mation on how to choose, obtain,
and effectively use one's contracep-
tive method of choice.
UHS also offers smoking cessa-
tion programs, including smoking
"quit kits," individual one-on-one

Sunrun ner
by David Rheingold
Daily Staff Reporter
College of Engineering students
Paula Finnegan and Dave Noles
share an unusual accomplishment: in
seven days they drove nearly 2,000
miles - without stopping at a sin-
gle gas station.
As drivers of Michigan's solar-
powered car, Sunrunner, Finnegan
and Noles alternated shifts piloting
the vehicle across the continent of
Australia en route to a third-place
finish in the World Solar Challenge
1990.
But the drivers did not make rou-
tine decisions such as course and ve-
locity.
Instead, they received instruc-
tions from team strategists within a
"chase" vehicle, which followed
the Sunrunner along the 1,900-mile
Stuart highway.
Using an on-board computer,
these strategists calculated an op-
timum trajectory based on weather
conditions and the Sunrunner's bat-
tery power.
Finnegan and Noles remained in
constant contact with the chase ve-
hicle via radio.
"They know what the weather
conditions are like, they know how
many kilometers we have to go to
the pit stop," Finnegan said. "You
have a feel for it, but you don't
know that as much as they do.
Both agree that operating the
Sunrunner is not like driving any
conventional car. The sleek 520-lb.
vehicle contains a myriad of ad-
vanced features not found in ordi-
nary cars.
The windshield, for instance, is
composed of acrylic Plexiglas
coated with titanium nitrate. This
covering helped filter out the 110
degree heat of the arid Outback.
"It has not gotten hot at all in
this whole race," Finnegan says.
"Aside from maybe the first day, it
gets really cool."
Although the windshield ap-

,1

Sto victory
pears opaque from the outside, both
drivers say it allows a great deal of
vision.
Race regulations, in fact, strictly
required each car to provide clear vi-
sion from every angle, including the
rear. Rather than installing a rear
windshield in the Sunrunner, the.
team equipped it with a miniature
camera that relays an image to the
driver through fiber optic cables.
The driver is then able to se the en-
tire rear field of vision within a
dime-sized scope.
"It's essentially a $7,000
rearview mirror," Noles remarks.
Race regulations also required
that all drivers weigh about 80 kg.,
so each entry would have an equal
sized driver.
Although Noles weighed near
the mark, Finnegan was substan-
tially below and had to carry extra
weights inside the cockpit to com-
pensate for the weight difference.
Finnegan and Noles were origi-
nally selected from a group of 27
people, based on their performance
during a test drive in a Chevrolet
Lumina, for General Motors' Sunt
rayce in July 1990, an 1,800-mile
trek from Florida to Michigan.
GM agreed to send the top three
finishers to Australia for the
World Solar Challenge. After
Michigan's solar car team won the
Sunrayce, it went into overtime in
preparation for the Challenge.
Finnegan says the major differ-
ence between the two races was the
amount of traffic.
"During the last race, it didn't
get boring at all because there was a
lot of stop-and-go traffic, where
you were driving in the U.S.," she
says. "But with this, it's a little bit
different. It gets ... more tiring, in
the sense that it's just tedious, but
never to a point where you'd want
to pull over and stop."
Now that the Sunrunner's day*
of racing are completed, both say
they plan to spend more time with
family and friends.
"This project has just taken a lot
of time and a lot of dedication,"
Noles says. "I can't even remember
the last time we went out to, like,
Rick's, or to something just to have
some fun. We'd work on (the Sun-
runner) Friday night till three in
the morning."
University of Michigan
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