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Interim Vice President for Health Sciences 

Fred R. Butcher, Ph.D

Administration

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.


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