West Virginia
University’s Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy at
the Health Sciences Center offer a comprehensive range of undergraduate,
graduate, and professional degrees in health care and biosciences. The 29
degree programs offered by the Health Sciences Center provide West
Virginia with a strong group of professionals prepared to meet the varied
health care needs of the state. The more than 10,000 alumni of WVU Health
Sciences Center programs include about one-third of the state’s
practicing physicians, two-thirds of its dentists, three-quarters of its
pharmacists, and hundreds of nurses, medical and dental technologists,
physical therapists, and other health professionals.
A unique combination of state and federal
support, charitable contributions from individuals and foundations, and
investment by private corporations has allowed the Health Sciences Center
to build an unequalled environment for health education. The health
Sciences Center includes three hospitals, a cancer center, and a medical
and dental office building. All were built since 1986 and were designed to
meet the needs of patient care, education, and clinical research. The WVU
Health Sciences Center also includes medical divisions in Charleston and
Wheeling and relationships with hospitals and physicians in rural areas of
the state. These facilities offer students the opportunity to learn their
profession in a setting that realistically reflects the conditions they
will encounter after graduation.
Clinical Education Facilities
The West Virginia University Health Sciences
Center includes a diverse group of health care facilities, providing a
training group for patient care and research for students in the health
professions. West Virginia University Hospitals, the Physician Office
Center, the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, Chestnut Ridge Psychiatric
Hospital, Southview Regional Rehabilitation Hospital, and the National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are modern facilities
that advance medical research and accommodate the demands of contemporary
medical, dental, nursing, and pharmacy care.
WVU Hospitals entered a new era in 1988 with the
opening of a 376-bed tertiary teaching facility-Ruby Memorial, the primary
teaching hospital for the Health Sciences Center. It is equipped and
staffed to provide the most comprehensive and advanced care available in
West Virginia, thus making it a superb clinical education site for
students. Ruby also houses the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center and WVU
Children’s Hospital with their specialized care units.
The Physician Office Center, the Health Sciences Center’s outpatient
facility for education and patient care, accommodates the largest
multi-specialty group practice in West Virginia, with 60 primary and
specialty care areas. Dental facilities, the Eye Center, and the
Outpatient Pharmacy are integral parts of the Physician Office Center.
Chestnut Ridge Hospital is a 70-bed private
psychiatric hospital on the Health Sciences Center campus. It is staffed
clinically by faculty from the School of Medicine and is the focal point
of education in the behavioral and psychiatric sciences.
HealthSouth Mountainview Regional Rehabilitation Hospital provides unique
educational opportunities for students in neurological disease, trauma
rehabilitation, and physical and occupational therapy. Many WVU students
experience part of their clinical training at the Charleston Division of
the Health Sciences Center, which is affiliated with Charleston Area Medical
Center. In addition, WVU students train at off-campus sites where they
learn the demands of rural health care first hand.
The School of Dentistry clinic accepts patients
who have dental problems of teaching value. Faculty members closely
supervise those students assigned to clinical patients. The students get
invaluable experience through work at the clinic, and several thousand
patients receive a much-needed service.
University Health Service
When you enroll at the University, one of the
charges you pay is the health service fee. This fee allows you to use the
primary medical care provided by the University Health Service. The
service, located on the ground floor of Health Sciences South, includes
medical consultant and treatment. To use the service, you must present
your current student ID and pay a co-payment.
If you require more specialized care, the Health
Service may refer you to an outpatient clinic in the Physician Office
Center. In this case, you are responsible for registration fees,
doctor’s fees, x-ray or lab fees, etc. The University Health Service
publishes a brochure that details the services included in the health
service fee and outlines services that are not provided.
The emergency department is available to you when
the University Health Service is closed. However, all costs incurred at
the emergency department are your responsibility. Since most insurance
policies cover emergency department costs only when a true emergency
exists, we advice you to use this service responsibly and maturely. An
insurance plan is available to you to cover inpatient and outpatient
services beyond the primary care covered by the health fee. We urge you to
purchase this similar coverage, as all students of the Health Sciences
Center must have health insurance.
Library
The Health Sciences Library has a collection of
more than 205,000 volumes and extensive holdings of audiovisual materials.
It currently receives more than 2400 journals. The library primarily
serves the School of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, graduate
students in the basic sciences, and the West Virginia University Hospital
System. It also supports the biomedical information needs of the
University and of health professionals across the state. As West
Virginia’s resource library in the National Library of Medicine’s
regional medical library network, the Health Sciences Library operates an
efficient interlibrary loan service for University staff and students and
for West Virginia’s hospitals and clinicians. Other services include
on-line searches of database available through National Library of
Medicine, Bibliographical Retrieval Services, Chemical Abstract Services,
OCLC, and Wilsonline. Also available are computer facilities permitting
students, faculty, and staff to perform their own computer searches. A
computerized West Virginia union list of periodicals is maintained, and
installation of an integrated library system should soon be under way. The
library is open 98 hours a week for most of the year; regular hours and
variations are posted at the entrance.
