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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1982)
Battalion/Page September 21,1! Clinics Wa (continued from page 1) — Brief examination for a cold, including laboratory work, can cost as much as $70 in an emergency room. At a conveni ence clinic, the average cost is $25. — Treatment of a burn at an emergency room costs about $52; at a minor emergency cli nic, it averages $30. — Care of a simple broken bone runs about $70 at an emergency room; at an emergency clinic, the cost aver ages about $40. Because emergency clinics are simple facilities, sometimes with trained non-medical per sonnel assisting physicians and nurses instead of more expen sive technicians, and second hand laboratory equipment, costs in these clinics can be kept down, said medical technologist and private consultant Marti Sharman. Emergency rooms also have evolved into more than their in tended purpose, increasing both the price and the demand, Shar man added. “In the hospital, you have a set-up to take care of anything from the most simple to the most elaborate and complicated prob lems, but you are also (indirect ly) paying for that whether you Ik in wit" walk in with a ... heart attack ora simple cut that needs stitches.” Reem agreed: “Emergency rooms have to keep a lot of equipment that emergency minor clinics do not have to. Why should the patient have to pay for that equipment?” The number of employees, or middlemen, needed to coordin ate emergency rooms, doctors’ schedules and handle paper work also is higher than in minor emergency clinics, Shar man said. This cost difference, coupled with a mobile population and the convenience of no appointment medical care, are the reasons rnedical personnel said these medical Handy- Dandys have gained popularity. “A lot of people who work don’t like to have to take time off to have medical problems taken care of,” Sharman said. “(Or) working mothers won’t be aware that their children are sick until they pick them up in the even ing, and they won’t want to wait until the next day.” Reem agreed: “Physicians hours are convenient for the doctors, not the patients.” Kay Barkin, spokesman for the American College of THATS RIGHT'S SEVERAL excellent PRIVERS will receive TROPHIES FOR THEIR PEREORtAhNCE AT OUR FIRST AUTOCROSS^O^L for films, racing results RtyER RUN DETAILS BE AT OUR PlTsToP 7:30 WED N16HT 321 P^VSICS BUILDING Merchants Checks Over KAGC Announces the exciting 1982-83 Merchants Check Gift Certificates program sponsored by 30 area merchants. *400 value for only *19 95 a real Budget-stretcher call 846-5077 Gifts • Restaurant Meals Entertainment • Services You may be called to receive 60 FREE Certificates Emergency Physicians, gave another reason for the trend. “We have a very mobile population that has been unable to establish relations with a fami ly doctor,” she said. It is this aspect of conveni ence medicine — the lack of con tinuous patient/doctor contact — that is drawing fire from the medical community. Although spokesmen for the American Medical Association and the Texas Medical Associa tion said the organizations have not issued an opinion on minor emergency clinics, Jon Horna- day, director of communications for the TMA, said: “You hear discussion about the doctors and the lack of continous patient care. “By tradition, most physi cians feel that patient care is best delivered in a situation where the the patient and doctor ... establish a doctor-patient re lationship.” “But that doesn’t mean good care isn’t being delivered in these centers ... they appear to be meeting a need.” Dr. Phil Davis, a Bryan inter nist, is one doctor who feels that lack of continuous care harms patients at convenience clinics. “The patient who comes in ... with a certain complaint, his emotional status does have something to do with his com plaint,” he said. But for such minor medical care as stitches or treatment of a cold convenience clinics are probably as efficient as private physicians and cheaper, Davis said. But, he argued, recovery and f >llow-up care is when a close patient/doctor relationship be comes important. “For a guy who is run over by a truck, it (the patient’s back ground) doesn’t make any dif ference ... in the immediate stages,” Davis said, “but it does make a difference what his back ground is ... when it comes to convalescence and recovery and rehabilitation.” But personnel representing minor emergency clinics said the time they spend with their pa tients — even if limited — is ade quate. Doris Looby, manager of the AM/PM Clinic agreed: “We don’t seem to have that problem. If there’s anything specific ab out a patient that is abnormal or HE may be interesting to the next doctor, it’s noted on the chart and there will be a mark on that chart so the doctor knows this is a problem patient and he is to read that chart thoroughly be fore he even goes in there. “We would not have a doctor in this clinic that I myself, m, children or anybody else would not feel totally safe with.” Another criticism of minor emergency clinics revolvi around their names. Jack Landry, director of gov, ernment affairs for the Amer ican College of Emergencv Physicians, said: “We have been primarily concerned (whether) ... these organizations which advertise to providf emergency care, are really cap, ^ j able of providing emergencs care.” To combat misconceptions, the ACEP and the Nations! Association of Freestandinj Emergency Centers have estaU 0 S ra ' lished guidelines aimed at edn eating the public, setting mini mum equipment and staff re quirements and directing tients to hospitals equipped b handle life-threatenmg situs tions. Do not confuse our KAGC Merchant Booklets with other programs. No purchases are required when you spend merchant certificats. Stay Close to Your Phone r°«l! r*v««' Math teacher decline could hurt Americans £<n United Press International NEW YORK — Americans are so bad at math that it is “scary” and a threat to the na tion’s economy and defense, the president of the National Coun cil of Teachers of Mathematics said Sunday. enough in math to make calcula tions necessary to aim sophisti cated guns correctly. The health of the economy also is threatened, said Wil loughby, a professor of mathe matics at New York University. nationwide. Only 55 percent of graduates prepared to tead math go into teaching. (con Thes stat tion I n for pn lastaii Such ve foi coni ested nts b broa< imtry Cong nth 3W 1 ns to blicE pate IChasi Dr. Stephen Willoughby said ble DORM STUDENTS Tired of studying over your roommate’s the problem is that math- oriented college graduates are going after better-paying in dustrial jobs rather than teaching and more than half the new math teachers are not qual ified to teach. Germany and Japan, with good supplies of math- competent people on the job and in the education pipeline, could soon outdistance America in this math-dependent age, he said. He said studies have documented the fact that many soldiers are not competent Since 1972 there has been a 77 percent decline in the num ber of secondary-level mathe matics teachers prepared in 600 teacher-training programs Other signs of a worsen®©rleans shortage: Be, W •In Texas, only 20 new ma 1 jour an teachers graduated in 1982.Jc ning ad seven went into teaching, thStituti NCTM fact sheet on the maillnd loa teacher shortage showed. BAdve •The nation’s second mosbrogres populous state, New York, hatte can only 32 college graduates pbjograr ning to teach junior or seniotfccl ad high school mathematics iilched 1982. •43 of 45 states sampled toM of a shortage or critical shortagi of secondary mathematic! teachers in 1981. 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