Health Services Educates and Helps Keep the Campus Community Healthy
Ensuring Student Health Compliance and Safety Protocols
Health Services at New York Medical College (NYMC) has always had the well-being of the campus at the forefront of their mission. Their exceptional teamwork was acknowledged by Westfair Communications at the 2022 Doctors of Distinction Award Ceremony, honoring their ability to collaborate effectively in resolving challenging and unique medical situations, notably the COVID-19 pandemic. Marisa A. Montecalvo, M.D., director of Health Services and professor of medicine, shares how her team helps keep the campus healthy.
What are the responsibilities of Health Services?
The responsibilities of health services can be described in three categories: first, ensuring students have the resources to meet the health requirements for their professional programs and educating students on prevention and protocol for exposure to infectious agents; secondly, providing an occupational health program for employees, students, visiting scientists, and volunteers who work in our laboratories or in the Department of Comparative Medicine; and third, to provide oversight for any health requirements for the employees of NYMC and Touro College of Dental Medicine.
How would you describe the day-to-day functions of Health Services?
We start the day by reviewing appointments and prioritizing issues that come to us via email. In-person appointments are usually for health clearances, N95 fit tests, tuberculosis screening, and other services needed by the students. We ask that any written communication come to us via our department email, health_services@nymc.edu, as this email is then coordinated directly with the medical record at Health Services. In our workflow, we prioritize people who are sick or potentially infected and need to be furloughed from school or work.
What do you find most interesting or most rewarding about working in Health Services?
Working on ways to ensure the health of the campus community gives each of us at Health Services a sense of accomplishment. We are very fortunate to be able to work directly with students and to work with our scientists through our occupational health program. The general public can be exposed to a fair amount of misinformation regarding vaccinations and immunity. It is very gratifying for us when we have the opportunity to clarify some of that and help people understand options or alternatives. Finally, our team at Health Services really enjoys working with each other.
Is there a fun fact or best kept secret about Health Services?
We have been in the office every day during and since the pandemic and we like that. We also have a vaccine training for the School of Medicine and that’s really fun. We look forward to the opportunities to work directly with students.
What is one useful tip you can give to the campus community about Health Services?
It's important to keep copies of your vaccination records. There's so much waste, and redundant testing or vaccination that goes on because of lack of records. These records will be asked for repeatedly, therefore it’s important to have copies. We can see that the education and the world of health science professionals is a high intensity and high stress world. It is important to find ways to mitigate that stress and to ensure that you take care of yourself.