The University of Hawaii has opened its first multipurpose research and patient care clinic on a UH campus at the medical school in Kakaako.

The UH Clinics at Kakaako on the campus of the John A. Burns School of Medicine and UH Cancer Center is the new home of the school’s HIV medical and clinical research centers known as the Clint Spencer Clinic, which provides primary care for the state’s HIV-infected population.

“The most important goal of our health research is to fight the diseases which strike our citizens disproportionately, shortening their lives,” said the medical school’s dean, Dr. Jerris Hedges. “The new clinic has unique features to help in those studies of illnesses including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and age-related impairment.”

The facility, measuring about 3,550 square feet, includes eight exam rooms and two procedure rooms. UH officials envision other researchers using the space as well, including Cancer Center investigators monitoring patients in clinical trials, and faculty in the schools of nursing, pharmacy and social work collaborating on health research with JABSOM and the Cancer Center.

”We envision a lot of different clinics coming in here to work, both medical care as well as clinical research,” said Dr. Cecilia Shikuma, director of the Hawaii Center for AIDS, who oversees the facility.

The center includes an isolation room with its own entrance for doctors who see patients with infectious diseases, a room for neuropsychological testing, and a windowless room for pelvic exams. One room has a machine that measures bone density to diagnose conditions such as osteoporosis, as well as the amounts of fat and muscle to study metabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The machine will be used in studies of frailty in seniors and bone density changes related to HIV and various therapies.

“They’re much closer to everything going on … so the idea of a cure (for HIV/AIDS) is actually much more visible,” said patient Paul Kaleolani Smith, 51, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2001 and has been treated at the Hawaii Center for AIDS since 2002. “Studies are being conducted here, and they have access to the rest of the medical school if there are any questions that come up. It does give me new hope.”

The UH Clinics at Kakaako is operated by JABSOM and the JABSOM faculty practice plan, University Health Partners of Hawaii. The medical school spent $1.8 million to redevelop office space into the Clinics at Kakaako.

For more information, call the Hawaii Center for AIDS at 692-1310.