If you do not have health insurance, get hurt on campus or are having trouble with your regular health insurance, San Diego Mesa College has a Student Health Services Center, located in room L-504. If you do not know where that is, it is located near the tennis courts and the gym.

There are three different programs at the Health Services Center. The first program is the full service medical program, which is kind of like going to the doctor, but tailored to meet the students’ needs. Anything you can get a regular doctor’s office, you can get here with this program, from a tuberculosis test to a Pap smear. Dr. Calvin Wong comes to the center once a week but you can only see him by appointment.

The second program is psychological counseling. There are a limited number of spaces for students to the psychologists. It is $10 per session, and you generally go for six to eight 50 minute sessions. You can go in there to talk about an eating disorder you may have, relationship issues, depression, if you are doing poorly in school and are unsure why, for pretty much any psychological reason. There are four counselors, but it fills up fast. Appointments are required.

The third and final program currently available is called Community Health. It is outside the office and on campus instead. There are community nurses available. It involves any issues on campus that would affect students. In the third program, community nurses are outside the cafeteria once or twice a week, handing out condoms and answering any questions you may have.

“It’s all about the campus,” says Health Center Services Director and Registered Nurse Suzanne Khambata. “Our mission is to support the students. We would rather see people in the beginning of their illness then in the middle of it; it’s easier for us to help them.”

One student who wishes to remain anonymous said, “There have been a couple of times when I have gone in there and services have been fast.”

The Health Services Center saw about ten thousand students in the 2006-2007 school year, with 4,568 just going for psychological counseling.

For more information, like hours, what is available to you, or how to contact them, just go to www.sdmesa.edu/health-services/index.cfm or call Suzanne Khambata at (619) 388-2545. Or just go into room L-504 and pick up one of their blue flyers that list the staff and many of their services.