About Us

Joseph B. Trainer
Student Health Service

WHOM WE SERVE
We serve OHSU health sciences students at the Portland campus on Marquam Hill. Specifically, all currently registered students in degree and certificate training programs who are assessed the required health fees in addition to their tuition at OHSU are eligible for health and counseling services at the Student Health Service.   Eligibility for new students begins on the first day that classes start.
In addition to students, we also make available the services of the OHSU Student Health Service to the spouse or registered domestic partner of an eligible student.   Enrollment times and registration rules and affidavitis for domestic partnership apply and these are available upon request at the Student Health Service office.
Health insurance for spouses, registered domestic partners and dependents is also available and eligibility rules and restricted enrollment times are described in the section entitled Health Insurance Info and Waiver Applications.

STAFF
Our staff includes primary care clinical staff (2 primary care physicians and a nurse practitioner), clinical psychologists, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, registered nurses, a certified medical assistant, and 4 administrative support persons who are an integral part of the team as well and are particularly knowledgeable about insurance problems, helping with referrals, securing lab results, etc. Although we have a variety of professional degrees, background and experience, we all work together as a team to serve you during your years of training at OHSU.

Primary care clinical staff:
Deborah Popper, MSN, ANP, WHCNP, a nurse practitioner with national certification in both adult primary care and women’s health care, joined our staff in October, 2005. She came to OHSU from the Student Health Service at Oregon State University in Corvallis. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, she taught English in Japan. She later trained first as a nurse and then nurse practitioner at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She has worked as a staff nurse on adult and pediatric medical-surgical floors at hospitals in the Boston area, and as a camp nurse in Minnesota. She grew up in Honolulu, has traveled extensively, and now is happy to call Portland home.

Amy Gardner, MD, MSPH, is a member of the faculty of the Department of Medicine and board certified in internal medicine.   After majoring in anthropology in college, she began her health science career with a Masters in Public Health and Tropical Medicine from Tulane University and worked as a malaria researcher including a stint at Scripps working on development of a malaria vaccine, and later as a biologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, studying genetic variation of P. falciparum malaria.   She subsequently obtained her MD at UC Davis, and after a year of internal medicine residency at OHSU completed her residency, including one year of Student Health fellowship, at the U. of Virginia, Charlottesville. She has practiced primary care medicine, has been the director of the OHSU Travel Medicine program, and served on the faculty of the Dept. of Medicine at OHSU. She has also practiced in the field of occupational medicine. She has two school-age children, and has been active in school affairs, including a three year stint on the board of the Lake Oswego School District Foundation.

Our director, David Thompson, MD, FACP, is a member of the faculty of the Department of Medicine, and is board certified in both internal medicine and preventive medicine (occupational medicine).   He came to the Student Health Service from private practice at The Portland Clinic and was a member of the medical staff at Providence St. Vincent Hospital where he served actively on the volunteer teaching faculty of the Department of Medicine, enjoying the opportunity to mentor students and residents over a thirty-year period. He enjoys playing folk and jazz on piano and double bass, is a bike commuter, an ageing distance runner, bakes bread, and is married to a child psychologist. They have three grown children but no grandchildren.

Counseling staff:
Jack Crossen, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who earned his Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico in 1985 and completed an internship and residency at OHSU in clinical psychology in 1987. He has served at the Student Health Service since 2002. He is a gourmet cook (prize-winning cheese cake), a retired competitive bicyclist, has grown children and is a new grandfather.

Michelle Kirton, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist who received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Arizona State University in 2000. She also holds a Masters Degree in Counseling from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She began at our Student Health Service in the fall of 2004, and we share her with another local university counseling center. In addition to functioning as a generalist within our setting, Dr. Kirton’s clinical specialties include career and professional development issues, women’s issues, and multiculturalism. As a psychologist, she has a strong professional background in higher education settings and works closely with personnel within OHSU’s Office for Student Access and the Diversity & Multicultural Affairs Office. She is also trained in conducting learning and cognitive evaluations, has created and taught several courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and has much experience with training agenda for psychologists in the state of Oregon.

Vona F. Davis, PMHNP, is our Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and joined our clinical staff in May, 2006. After her nursing training at Linfield College, she worked as a critical care and medical-surgical nurse, including nursing administration.   Then she went on for further training and is a master’s graduate of OHSU School of Nursing and in addition has completed extensive course-work in psychopharmacology through the Neuroscience Education Institute. Her therapy skills, which focus on Dialectic-Behavior Therapy (DBT), are designed to help clients maximize their own, unique potential and thereby “create a life more worth living.”   As a member of the counseling team at the Student Health Service, her primary focus is on medication management, understanding that each patient’s response to psychiatric medication is highly individualized.    Her clinical experience in medication management has included helping patients with complex trauma/PTSD, eating disorders, mood disorders, thought disorders, addictions, obsessive/compulsive disorders, personality disorders, and life transitions. She has worked broadly with older adolescent, adult , and geriatric patients.

Nursing Staff:
Cheryl Brost, RN has been at Student Health since 1996 and is our primary triage nurse and in this capacity she has a special message line for recorded calls from students after hours as well as during clinic hours. She also sees walk-in patients, taking a history and providing advice, from self-management ideas up to immediate or scheduled visits with the physician, nurse practitioner or counselor depending on the clinical circumstances. She also is the primary manager of our laboratory, which although small, requires compliance with laboratory certification standards including daily quality control measures, recording, etc. She also is the primary manager for students who have had accidents involving potential exposure to blood and body fluids, maintains the logbook and sees to it that the appropriate protocols are followed. Cheryl has had extensive hospital and clinic nursing experience prior to her work in Student Health, which has been invaluable to us as we utilize her depth of understanding of complicated issues, both administrative and clinical. She has three grown sons, is a new grandmother, and she and her husband enjoy camping and being outdoors. We all enjoy the great pictures that she shares with the rest of us.

Rita Chee, RN is a name many of you may recognize from her emails re: immunization and TB clearance. She reviews many of your forms, then works to help assure you are current with your school’s requirements which follow the CDC recommendations for health care settings.   She began working in the Student Health Service in 1981, promising to stay at least a year. Fifteen months later she took a leave to have her family, a daughter and a son, both now in college. She kept in touch working as a Health Service resource nurse. Returning to her present position in 1989, she continues to provide expert care to the students. She was one of the first nurses who earned certification in College Health Nursing. She has the responsibility for overseeing inventory and ordering new equipment, as well as the regular duties of a staff nurse. In addition, she is our ‘travel nurse’, advising students re; risk reduction behaviors and techniques, immunizations and medications needed in different countries around the world.

Patricia Melum-Yeager, RN has been with the Student Health Service since 1990 and works one day a week and helps when one of the other nurses is absent.   She graduated from the U of O, School of Nursing in 1972.   In 1973, she worked in Zurich, Switzerland in a German Hospital for a year. In 1977, Patsy went on a Round-The World trip for four months to Europe, Egypt, SE Asia and the Orient. She has worked as a team leader in an Out patient clinic, worked for Kaiser Permanente as a House Nursing Supervisor at Sunnyside Hospital and graduated from the University of Portland in 1986 with a Masters of Science in Nursing.   In addition, Patsy has been a board member of the Oregon Nurses Foundation since 1998, and a member of The Reed College Women’s committee since 2002. Her hobbies include gardening, skiing, reading and traveling (to the beach), as well as visiting her two sons in college.

Support Staff:
Lisa Meech-Barton, Certified Medical Assistant, joined our staff in 2007 and probably has the most varied set of responsibilities. She comes to us with past experience in other OHSU clinics, as well as at Kaiser Permanente, most recently in the OB-Gyn clinics, including assisting with women’s health procedures.    Here at the SHS she assists our physicians and nurse practitioners by greeting and rooming patients, taking vital signs, administering parenteral medications and vaccines, performing phlebotomy and handling laboratory specimens. She performs certain laboratory tests such as rapid streptococcal antigen detection and urinalysis “dipstick” tests, assists with procedures, has already helped to reorganize as well as maintain inventory of supplies and orders and stocks supplies. In addition she has quickly learned to assist with laboratory ordering and has become an extremely valuable member of our team.

Cindy Lawrence, Administrative Coordinator, started working at the Student Health Service in 1989. She provides expertise in the areas of receptionist; phone triage; appointment scheduling; maintaining confidential patient files and our immunization tracking and patient scheduling program (NueMd). She prepares required immunization lists for the appropriate schools; computer order entry for labs and radiology; computer data entry of new enrollees with our insurance company; troubleshoots insurance eligibility problems; and sends confidential medical reports to students. She is a reference point for other staff and patients for complex issues regarding student accounts, insurance issues and other OHSU clinic accounts. She and her husband enjoy traveling to Las Vegas when they can arrange a sitter for their two Yorkshire terriers.

Paula Greenwood, Administrative Assistant, joined our staff in 1994, transferring from OHSU 13A Pediatric ward. Her many areas of expertise include answering phones; scheduling appointments for all staff members and medical appointments for students and their family members; assuring smooth patient flow at a very busy front desk; phone and front desk triage; computer order data entry for labs and radiology; sending confidential medical reports to students; and creation and computer data entry of new enrollee information with the insurance company. She is a reference point for other employees in the area of order entry on the computer, and for other OHSU clinics in regard to Health Service policies, procedures and insurance.   Paula is an outdoorswoman who often walks the 5 miles to and from work, snowshoes, skis, knows where to find huckleberries near Mt. Adams and is a master gardener.   She and her husband who is also an OHSU employee have two grown daughters.

Cheryl Linkem, a long-time member of a different OHSU department has joined our reception staff in early 2007. She has been a fresh and pleasant presence at the front desk, teaming with Cindy and Paula, and has been learning about the insurance and immunization aspects of this clinic.

Gladys Miken, at OHSU for 43 years, was on the staff of the Student Health Service since 1969, and served as Office and Insurance Manager until her retirement in April, 2007. She has agreed to be available as a consultant for insurance matters as needed during our transition to “life without Gladys.”

Our newest team member is Bradley Niles, who began working as our new half-time systems analyst early in 2007 and also took on the role of Office and Insurance Manager (also a half-time position) when that position opened two months later, job-sharing with the Finance and Project Manager (which also includes general office and personnel management, computer operations, document design & maintenance). Brad has an extensive and varied background in other clinics at OHSU, holds a Bachelors of Science in Community Development Health and Information Systems, as well as training and experience in many computer science and information technology applications. He will have primary responsibility for managing the student insurance plans, which includes maintaining and reconciling the enrollment and premium payment process for the insurance company; overseeing the waiver application and review process; assisting with planning for the coming year’s insurance policies. He also oversees the planning and preparation of the Student Health Service Advisory Committee meetings, maintains the primary care call schedule and monitors timekeeping and travel. Finally, he will help reorganize and maintain this website. He is married to another OHSU employee and they have a young son.

Liz Holman is our Finance and Project Manager. She came to the Student Health Service in 1999 after 14 years at OHSU as an accounting manager. In addition to job-sharing with the Office and Insurance Manager, Brad Niles, Liz helps develop and maintain the annual clinic budget; performs financial analysis and reporting; reconciles health insurance premiums; timekeeping; develops policies and procedures; ad hoc reporting; and all manner of other special projects that arise.

Please contact the student health service office (askshs@ohsu.edu) for additions or changes to this page.
This page was last updated December 21, 2007.

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