Crimson and Gold Connection; Rita Girth

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection. I am Dustin Traiver. Today's guest is Rita Guth. She is the Director of Operations at PSU's Brian Student Health Center. Welcome today. Thank you Dustin. I'm glad to be invited. And we have you in today for a couple of recognitions. One you've been here for 27 years. That's correct. That's a huge recognition. And also you've received the Central College Health Association or CCHA Ruth Sarnas Spirit of College Health Awards. Congratulations for that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very humbled to have received that award recently. First, to start off, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your time here at Pittsburgh State University and what brought about this award. Oh, okay. I came to Pittsburgh State back in 1990. My nursing career started in a hospital setting. I worked at Mt. Carmel via Christie. Started about 10 years prior to coming to PSU in 1990. And my background was essentially critical care nursing. And it was a huge decision of mine to make to leave the hospital environment to come to the university wondering if I could still fulfill that excitement in nursing

that I felt in critical care in a campus environment that I've learned to love the campus environment. So back in 1990, I came under the direction of Dr. Gary Grimaldi was the director of that time. And I was promoted to assistant director in 2002. And then I became the operations director hired as operations director in 2006 and been here ever since. Wow. So what's a good decision to come there? It was a great decision to come here. Again, you know, it was a huge concern and a big decision to make, but I've never looked back and I really, really enjoy the energy that the campus brings, the excitement that the students bring to the medical field that we offer and how that services has changed over the last 27 years is just a passion of mine to continue to provide good service and quality medical profession to our students here at Pittsburgh State. Before we go back and more about what goes on at the health center, let's talk about the award

and what brought that about. I'm not really sure where the nomination came from. Central College Health Association is the regional affiliate to our national organization, American College Health Association. Central College Health Association consists region-wise of Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. So three states of their college universities and their health centers. So I am uncertain as to who made the nomination at our business meeting. We have an annual conference every year. This year it was held in Kansas City and at the business meeting. I was honored to receive the only award that they give out every year at their conference for the Ruth Sornah Spirit Award. I know Ruth Sornah, so is especially exciting for me that she was personally there to honor me with that award. Ruth herself is a very passionate person, dynamic person known both regionally and nationally for what she's done in college health and what she brings to campuses. Going to this conference was

this complete surprise that you had won the award. I had no idea. It was great. It was great. Yeah. What a wonderful surprise. It was perfect. Going back to the Bryant Student Health Center, tell me about all the services that in all the things that you see there and do there at the health center and maybe some of the things that have changed over the 27 years that you've been there. A lot of change in the last 27 years. When I came initially there was we had a staff of four. We had a full-time physician. Two nurses myself and K-Quick back at that time who's now a PA that works here in town locally. She and I were the two full-time nurses and then we had one full-time admin staff and two part-time students that worked in the reception area and that was it and now our staff is four admin staff. Myself is Operations Director, a full-time physician, three medical providers and nurse practitioners, three nurses and a radiology tech on the medical

side plus. We're integrated now with the counseling services so they have a staff of a full-time director, a psychologist and one full-time counselor and two part-time counselors and four interns. So tremendous change in the staffing and in the amount of people that we see. We see an average of about 14,000 visits every annually every year. That averages out to see in about 65 students a day through the Bryan Student Health Center. Service-wise how we change is tremendous too. When I came we barely had a pharmacy. Now we have a pharmacy, our laboratory services have expanded tremendously. We can offer any blood tests that the hospital offers. We work with Regional Medical Lab. We get stat labs. I used to work critical care. I can get stat labs back as quickly as I did when I worked at the ER because the Regional Medical Lab is only a mile away from us and we call them. They come and pick up our blood and faxes results very quickly,

which really benefits the students. Outside of that we also have specialty clinics which is unique for a student health center that we provide our students with ears and nose and throat specialists, Dr. Baker's office. We have physical therapy contract with Bryan Pinomani where we can send students over there for physical therapy services at a discounted price. We also offer specialty clinics in orthopedics, dermatology, cardiology, dietician, and gynecology. No other university in the region's institution and I'm talking KU or K state offers those type of services. We also offer cardiopulmonary screening so stress treadmills. Nobody else does that in the KU or K state. Halter monitors if somebody, if a student has a funky little something going on that they're concerned about, we can hook them up to 24-hour cardiac halter monitor and do cardiac readings on them and Dr. Sanders. We're blessed to have Dr. Sanders because she's really expanded our services on that way because of her internal medicine background and she also

is able to admit students directly. We can see a student who's maybe being seen and has been sick and needs to be admitted to the hospital. She can directly admit them, make rounds on the student at the hospital and then see them back at the clinic for follow-up. So we're unique nationally on that because there is probably less than a handful of health centers that provide that type of comprehensive health to their students. We're very proud of that. We're very passionate of taking care of our students and making student care first in our delivery of health care. And very quickly before we end, anything you would like the students to know about the center, that maybe they do not know about the center itself. The main message I'd like to get across the students is your pain for your service at the Student Health Center in a tuition health fee. So use us. We're very, we provide quality service. We're very convenient and affordable and accessible and we try and and remain that way for your convenience. So please use us even if you have a provider in town, we're going to be cheaper and quicker care for you and as good or better.

Read a Earth Director of Operations at PSU's Bryant Student Health Center. Thank you so much for coming in speaking with us on Crimson and Gold Connection. Thank you for having me.