Hamre has a rumor to dispel: yes, you will be able to make an appointment.
Macalester’s Laurie Hamre Center for Health and Wellness operates mainly as a primary care clinic, not as urgent care or a school nurse’s office, which can surprise some incoming students. The Hamre Center won’t see you immediately and isn’t going to wrap your arm in a cast. According to Medical Director Steph Walters, this isn’t their system failing or being overwhelmed; it’s a conscious and purposeful prioritization that the Hamre Center makes.
“I’m okay with people having to go off campus for urgent care and illness,” Walters said. “That’s what those places are staffed and budgeted to do: to sit there and sort of serve people on a first come, first serve basis. And [urgent care is] not there to do long term mental health management, or prescribe hormones or have a long and gentle conversation with somebody about STIs.”
Those latter three services — mental health counseling, gender-affirming care and sexual health — are the Hamre Center’s primary areas of focus. Over half of all Hamre Center appointments concern mental health. These priorities are backed up by the results of the recent National College Health Assessment (NCHA) survey indicating that these are the services Macalester students need.
And they’re proud of these services.
While Director of Counseling Hanin Harb is well aware of the Hamre Center’s reputation for never having appointment availability, she emphasized that the longest that the Hamre Center has been booked out for counseling is three weeks, compared to the average six week wait time from other local providers. Students with more search criteria, such as a specific time or provider, often face a longer wait than those with more flexibility. But there hasn’t been a waitlist for counseling since 2020.
The Hamre Center also reserves counseling appointments from 2-4 p.m. each afternoon for same day appointments. Some days, these slots fill up quickly and some days they don’t at all, but a student in crisis can nearly always get an appointment within two days.
Gender-affirming care has been offered at the Hamre Center for over a decade. Though Mac doesn’t yet have a fully staffed on-campus operating room for surgery, they do offer referrals, along with initiating and maintaining prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
The Hamre Center is also dedicating resources to their Health Promotions Assistant (HPA) team, with upcoming events around consent, safer sex, mental health and substance use. In addition to the annual Consent@ Mac event on Oct. 8-9, featuring the classic teal shirts, students can pet therapy dogs at the ‘Howl You Doing?’ event on Oct. 15.
On Oct. 24, the Hamre Center will also host a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in partnership with CVS, where students on all insurance plans can share their insurance cards and get vaccinated.
Health Promotion’s newest addition to campus is the harm reduction cabinet in the library, stocked with fentanyl testing strips, naloxone and menstrual cups. The program has been going well, although Director of Health Promotion and Sexual Respect Tiger Simpson implored students to stop donating supplies of their own, as the cabinet is restocked weekly.
“I did not anticipate that the main issue would be that our students are too generous,” Executive Director Jen Jacobsen said.
As Walters shared, it’s hard to judge the Hamre Center’s services without context to similar providers, but Walters maintains that the team is robust.
“I think if you compared us to a lot of schools and colleges our size, we’re pretty well staffed,” Walters said. “Now, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck if you are feeling sick and call and can’t get an appointment but I would say in the range of all colleges our size, … we are more staff than the average.”
This year, their staff has grown even more, welcoming two new medical providers Baylee Zittlow and Kevin Cuo. Additionally, counselor Theo Wang is now full time and offers counseling appointments in Mandarin. Hannah Bech has also joined the team as a patient access coordinator, and interviews for another are coming soon.
Students who do need off-campus support can reach out to Insurance Specialist Nicola Michael-Tsai, who offers advice to students on and off Macalester’s insurance. Navigating on and off campus services is an “adulting bit that we all have to learn eventually,” Walters said, emphasizing that the Hamre Center intends to support students as they develop those skills.
Most on-campus Hamre Center appointments are free, a fact Walters describes as “astonishing.”
