Who Knew?

What is the Blue Bus Clinic, and how did it get its name?
The concept and counterintuitive name of the clinic dates back to 1970, when a group of socially conscious medical students had the idea to start a sexual health referral and information service.

The concept? Borrow a blue-painted bus from a UW migrant health outreach project, park it in a student neighborhood and staff it.

Even though volunteers once drove the mobile clinic to a music festival to provide first-aid and, let’s say “psychedelic rescue,” the students needed more space. In less than a year, when demand for the service (and for some heat) became greater, the operation moved into larger quarters in a waterbed store’s basement.

The clinic, incorporated into University Health Services in 1982, is still around. Now on the first floor of the UHS building on University Avenue, the Blue Bus provides comprehensive screening, diagnosis and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes and HIV for the campus and local community.

Blue Bus was one of the first to provide hepatitis screening more than 20 years ago. And it submitted the first genital specimen in Wisconsin to the State laboratory of Hygiene in 1978. (It tested positive for chlamydia.) Today, the Blue Bus is the only full-time, dedicated STD clinic in south-central Wisconsin.

Services for students are free, paid for by segregated fees. Others seeking testing and treatment must pay $60 for a standard visit, $30 for follow-up visits, and prescription costs. The clinic works with health departments to offset costs for those who cannot afford them.

To set up an appointment, call 262-7330. The clinic is open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., weekdays except Wednesday, when it opens at 9 a.m.

How did the Badgers get their nickname?
People assume it’s because there once were a lot of badgers in the state, but the nickname was appropriated from the lead miners who “lived like badgers” in southwestern Wisconsin in the 1820s, says Cindy Van Matre, trademark licensing director.

Send your questions and ideas
Wisconsin Week publishes answers to questions of campus interest posed by faculty and staff. This column is intended to inform, and even entertain, faculty and staff about miscellany of interest to the university community. Josh Orton, of University Communications, will take questions and seek out answers.

E-mail questions to: wisweek@news.wisc.edu, or send queries to Wisconsin Week, Who Knew?, 19 Bascom Hall.