Alexander Health Center revives sexual health care

Doctors Kara Beair Butler and Michael McClendon are reinventing the public face of the Alexander Health Center.
“We want to be a little more open door,” Beair Butler said. “In the past I think people have felt they couldn’t always come here and get what they need right away, and that there needed to be more time to talk about those things.”
Among the updates are expansions to how the clinic can provide for the sexual health of students.
“There is an issue with sexually transmitted infections on campus that we certainly want to combat,” Beair Butler.
In the way of contraception, the health center is expanding to include nexplanon placement in addition to a handful of various birth control pills and depo shots.
“The one thing we don’t place on campus is an IUD, but we have great connections in town to get people where they need to go quickly,” she said.
The center is also making an effort to do what they can for students in transition.
“It’s something we’re really well versed in and willing to approach,” Beair Butler said.
In addition, Beair Butler said, “with the efforts toward prevention of sexual violence on campus, any time someone has an issue like that, and they want to disclose to someone, we are certainly a good, safe place to come and talk about those things.”
“Very surface level care was provided here before. Not bad care but basic issue things,” Beair Butler explained. “We want to be much more comprehensive for students because we recognize that copays are expensive.”
The health clinic is currently working on expanding the size of the staff to allow each doctor to have more time with the student to better understand the student’s needs as well.
McCledon specified that as doctors their goal would be to provide all the information so that students can make their own decisions about their health care instead of having the decisions made for them.
McClendon wanted to make sure the health center’s doctors are not using “anything other than the well being of the patient, medical standards and guidelines and understanding to influence the decisions students are making about the medication they want to take.”