UTRGV offers free immunizations and other health services

Flu season is here but the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley provides services for students to prevent the illness and help maintain good health. 

Services available for students in the UTRGV clinics include general medicine, physical exams, a fully licensed Class D pharmacy, a laboratory, immunization, women’s wellness clinics and other services, according to the Health Services website.

Last year, 11,000 students visited the clinic in Edinburg and 4,000 visited the Brownsville clinic.

“We do pretty much everything that you can get done at your doctor’s office,” said Glenn Gray, director of UTRGV Student Health Services. “We have physicians, we have PA’s, we have nurse practitioners, registered nurses, we do immunizations. … The nurses can sit down and evaluate your immunization card. We have testing for a lot of different things that kids might be interested in.”

Testing for sexually transmitted diseases is done on a regular basis. Cultures cost about $20 and the clinic offers the medicines to treat STDs.

At the moment, free flu shots are available for students on a walk-in basis. The clinic bought 1,500 flu shots and if there is a big demand, Gray said they can get some more. 

Dr. Cristel Escalona, medical director of Student Health and Wellness and assistant clinical professor for the Department of Pediatrics, described how flu symptoms differ from a cold or allergies. 

“The flu is like 8 million times worse than a cold or allergies in the aspect that it gives you body aches and it gives you fevers and it gives you chills,” Escalona said. “It just makes you way more sick. It can also give you vomiting and diarrhea. Usually with colds and allergies, you might have a runny nose, you’ll be sneezing but you won’t, like, overall feel, like, fatigue or with a high fever and the flu usually does those things.”

Escalona encourages everyone to get their flu shot around September or October because every year there are different types of flu.

“Every year scientists have to come up with … like, what strains of the flu are going to be the most predominant for the season, and so it changes every year because there’s different kinds of flu,” she said. “There’s H1N1, there’s H3N2 and so, it changes every year so you have to get your flu shots every single year so as soon as that time of year rolls around, we usually are one of the first clinics to have a flu shot.”

Nursing senior Denisse Arellano has used the health services and said the staff was friendly and did everything on time.

Arellano said the free flu shots are convenient and she needed them for her program. To prevent illnesses, she makes sure to get her shots, exercises and eats healthy. 

 Management sophomore Samantha Rivera has not visited the clinics but believes the free flu shots being offered is good.

“I think that’d be good because I feel like a lot of people aren’t really close to their doctor or, like, some people don’t have insurance to go see a doctor, so I think it’d be good,” Rivera said.

To prevent illness, she washes her hands often and if  people are coughing around campus, she tries not to touch her face.

Students can walk in, call or make an appointment before visiting a clinic, but Gray said it is better to make an appointment.

“We do accept walk-ins, but like I said, the availability to be seen is depending on how busy the clinic is,” he said. “Of course, if you walk in, you know, bleeding on the floor or something like that, we’ll take you in.”

Students can fill out forms online before their appointment. Depending on the type of service they need, the online portal can direct students to the right forms to fill out and submit online. 

“We have a secure messaging service through there if you need copies of immunization records,” Gray said. 

If students are concerned about their health, they can get lab work done. 

“If your lab work is absolutely normal, we will review it and we can send it to you as a secure message through the portal that way you can get it,” he said.

Gray said prices in the clinic pharmacy are usually lower, but if students need to get the medicine cheaper somewhere else, then they will let them know.

“Our job is not to nickel and dime you to death,” he said. “Our job is to help keep you well enough to go to school, OK. If we can help you by getting you to go get a medicine somewhere else that’s cheaper, we’ll do that.”

In observance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the University Recreation Center will host its annual Breast Cancer Awareness Zumbathon and Wellness Expo. The event will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Texas Southmost College Recreation Center in Brownsville and from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the UREC on the Edinburg campus. 

The women’s wellness clinics, which are part of UTRGV Health Services, offer clinical breast exams and instruction on breast self-examination. Services provided in this clinic are by appointment only, according to its website.