Student Health Services is preparing for the incoming wave of new students this fall semester, many of whom are unaware of the comprehensive medical facility tucked away on the second floor of Building 39A. 

Staffed by licensed physicians and Mayo Clinic internal medicine residents and equipped with an X-ray unit, students have access to all of this and more with a mandatory health fee built into their tuition. 

What services does the UNF Student Health Center offer?

Many students’ first reaction upon seeing the clinic is “shock,” said  Valerie Morrison, senior director of Student Health Services.

“We love that reaction,” Morrison said with a knowing smile. “We get that reaction from faculty and parents. Everyone is always surprised, but we are a fully functioning ambulatory clinic.”

The Student Health Clinic spans the entire floor of the building.  

“We have eight exam rooms, a nurses’ procedure room, a lab, and an X-ray suite,” Morrison said.

The facility is a full-scale operation, its wide, linoleum-floored halls bustling with the nursing, residential, and medical staff who keep the clinic running.

“We can glue things, sew things, drain things,” said Vanessa Riegert-Johnson, chief medical officer and medical director. “Take things out, put things back in.”

Student Health Services is broken into three areas, according to the UNF Student Health Services Website:

Student Health Clinic: Provides acute care, preventative services, and routine medical visits for enrolled students.
Medical Compliance Office: Oversees student immunization records, health history requirements, and student health insurance programs.
Outreach and Education Programs: Offers health promotion, wellness campaigns, and educational resources for the campus community.

The clinic can treat respiratory illnesses, sore throats, colds, and flu, and perform minor procedures such as stitches and drainage, Riegert-Johnson said.

The clinic also specializes in nebulizer treatments, electrocardiograms, “and features a specialty clinic, gynecology, who can do pap smears,” Morrison said.

Students dealing with a headache, minor pain, allergies, or small cuts can also request free supplies directly from the clinic, including bandages, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and antihistamines, Morrison said.

Every student who pays the university’s mandatory fee can visit the clinic for free, although tests, labs, and certain procedures may incur additional costs, according to the UNF Student Health Services website. 

Navigating referrals and insurance at the Student Health Center

Student Health Services is paid for by every UNF student as part of their tuition, in the form of a mandatory health fee of about nine dollars per credit hour per semester, Morrison said.

“That’s about $38 per semester if you’re taking full-time classes, which covers unlimited visits to the clinic,” Morrison said.

Because of this charge, the clinic does not accept health insurance directly, which Riegert-Johnson says changes the usual process of getting referrals to outside physicians.

“We don’t have an automated system to send to specialists, because usually students who have health insurance prefer to use a specialist within their network,” Riegert-Johnson said.

Instead, when a provider determines that a student needs to see a specialist, the clinic completes an official referral form and pairs it with a list of several local specialists in that field, Riegert-Johnson said.

Those names come from providers the clinic has worked with directly, and that students have given good feedback on, she said, rather than from a formal partnership.

“We list out past specialists in town that we’ve worked with that our students have given us good feedback about,” Riegert-Johnson said. 

“It is kind of overwhelming to go on there and be like, here’s 40 GI doctors. You don’t know where to start,” said Riegert-Johnson. “Which one lines up to who was suggested by Student Health Services? That can at least be a good starting point.”

With the supplied list of physicians, students can match it against their insurance to find an in-network provider, Riegert-Johnson said.

Inside the clinic’s partnership with Mayo Clinic

While the clinic is funded by student tuition fees, it also has a longstanding partnership with Mayo Clinic, which staffs internal medicine residents, Morrison said. These residents work at the clinic during their specialty medical school rotations, according to Morrison. 

The clinic’s residency program allows residents to work with college-aged populations and also helps UNF students by offsetting costs that would otherwise increase if they were seen by a provider, Morrison said.

The residents are always accompanied by a board-certified physician who oversees the team of internal medicine doctors, Riegert-Johnson said.

The Mayo Clinic has continued to partner with the university, becoming the official health provider of UNF Athletics on May 11, 2026.

While the clinic is closed to volunteers, Morrison does accept students through structured academic preceptorships and internships. 

The clinic offers clinical preceptorships and internship opportunities for UNF students in public health, health administration, kinesiology, health sciences, and, most recently, environmental sciences, Morrison said.

The clinic often allows for interns to partake in exploratory learning. The interns often double as peer educators to other students, both in the clinical setting and when tabling on campus for the clinic, Morrison said.

“What I found is students listen to other students,” Morrison said.

Care after hours

Access to the clinic does not stop when it closes for the day, as it offers a 24/7 nurse advice line, Morrison said.

“Students can call the main clinic number and select option one, where a nurse is available for questions,” Morrison said.

There’s no wrong time to walk through the door, even just to ask a question at the front desk, Morrison said.

One of the largest things that Morrison and Riegert-Johnson hope students take away is the ability to advocate for themselves in a doctor’s office, a skill they said carries well beyond graduation.

When it comes to advocating for one’s health, “be pleasantly persistent,” Riegert-Johnson said.

“No one needs to be rude, but you need to make sure that your concern is being heard and addressed,” Riegert-Johnson said.

Students can find more information on the Student Health Center webpage, or via their Instagram and Facebook.

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