Ashley Gonzales, a junior, was suffering from an extremely swollen throat her freshman year at Ashland University.

“[It was so swollen] that it was hard to eat,” she said.

“I went to the Health Center and asked to be tested for strep throat (streptococcal pharyngitis). The response I got was ‘there’s no point’ because I didn’t have a fever and there are other symptoms besides a swollen throat. They then told me all I had was a cold and gave me some Advil.”

Frustrated, Gonzales suffered through her pain until she had time to travel home, where she went to her family doctor. There, she found out that she not only had strep throat as she had suspected, but also mononucleosis, or mono.

The Ashland University Student Health Center states on its homepage that it “strives to provide quality health care for all students. Students will be treated with dignity and in a manner that recognizes their basic human rights. Patients will receive: courteous reception and acceptance; expeditious and accurate diagnosis; prompt, effective and humane treatment; and an appropriate explanation of their health problems. The goal of the Student Health Center is to improve students’ level of awareness and knowledge and be a partner in their own health.”

This is most likely a comforting statement to read for any parent sending their student off to a college campus by themselves. However, some students call it the “Death” Center, while others won’t step into its lobby even if they are in severe pain due to poor experiences in the past.

Is the Health Center’s “mission statement” truly being upheld?

“We’re working more towards that goal this year,” said Linda Roeder, director of the Student Health Center and adult nurse practitioner (NP). Roeder said that her goal as a medical doctor and as the new director of the Health Center is to reach out more to students.

 “I felt like it was a waste of time going to the Health Center,” Gonzales said. “And to this day I refuse to go there since it felt like they didn’t even care about helping me get better and didn’t believe that I knew what was going on with my own body.”

More students share their bad experiences

Gonzales is not the only student to have severe medical problems belittled. 

“I had a complete ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tear a little over a year ago that occurred during a football scrimmage,” junior Alex Renner said. “I was hurt during the course of a play.”

When rehabilitation on his knee did not work, Renner was told by his athletic trainer, Jeremy Hancock, that he would have to go to the Health Center so they could refer him to get a magnetic resonance image or MRI to figure out whether his knee had structural damage or not.

“The Health Center got me in the next day thanks to Jeremy,” Renner said.

“I do not know the name of the doctor that assessed my knee that day. I do know that it was not the normal doctor who is in there…The doctor was a substitute. The [substitute] doctor… told me that I had not torn my ACL and that she did not want to refer me to get an MRI if she was not 100 percent sure.”

Renner and his parents were told that, because MRIs can be expensive tests, it wasn’t necessary to get his knee checked since it was unclear whether his ACL was torn or not.

“I was very upset at this point and told her to write [it] because I needed to know what was wrong with the knee,” Renner said.

“She did not actually refer me to the hospital to get the MRI because she did not want her name to be on the order if my knee turned out to not have any structural damage and thus cost the university money for ‘nothing.’”

Renner said he was referred to an extremely knowledgeable specialist who determined that Renner had an ACL tear and needed an MRI. In the end, Renner’s ACL had to be reconstructed with surgery.

“I had to go to the Health Center because had I not, the university would not have helped pay for my surgery,” Renner said.

“I was very upset with the doctor on that day…Perhaps the normal doctor would not have done the same thing, but the replacement doctor, I felt, was both incompetent and extremely unhelpful. The Health Center did not at any point help me get…surgery. The university did, however, pay part of the bill for the surgery and rehab, which I am grateful for.”

Roeder says that what happened in Renner’s case was a one-time thing.

“Over that summer, the full time NP resigned,” Roeder said.

“They scrambled for people. [The doctor Renner had] probably wasn’t specialized in orthopedics and that’s why she didn’t want to sign the referral. Sometimes we need to refer [students] to an orthopedic specialist.

“Amity Arnold is the physician’s assistant (PA) who specializes in sports medicine that we have now [currently on staff].  She is licensed to treat all patients, but her specialty is sports medicine.”

Renner said that he has gone to the Health Center for smaller sicknesses and viruses, has always received good service and has been helped to recovery

Health Center success stories

Just because Gonzales and Renner had bad experiences does not mean that the Health Center fails to help and protect students.

“Last fall, I went to the Health Center because I felt sick and it was during the Swine Flu Epidemic,” sophomore Jennifer Holderman said.

“I walked in one day without an appointment and they got me in within twenty minutes. I was checked out by a nurse and she presented me with several options about what I could do.”

Holderman was impressed when she was given a flu “goody bag” with masks and other supplies to help aid her while she was still on campus until she could leave for the comfort of her own home.

“They were really nice and I would definitely recommend going there for assistance if you feel sick,” Holderman said. “Especially since if it’s a big issue they can refer you to a doctor, and if it’s not they’ll take care of you.”

Marisa Carafelli and Shelby Kessinger, two freshman students, have both been to the Health Center within the first four weeks of the school year due to neck injuries.

“I went to the Health Center about two weeks ago when I woke up and couldn’t move because of a pinched nerve in my neck,” Carafelli said.

“Since it was my first time visiting…they had to start a medical file for me, so I sat there for longer than I would’ve liked. Once I got into the office I was checked over by a nurse and…after her assessments she gave me a couple of different kinds of medicine and instructions for use and for the rest of my day. My…experience was fine.”

“I have been to the Health Center due to a car accident,” Kessinger said. “They checked me out for whiplash. After the examination they gave me some pills. It seemed to help, so I had a pretty good experience there.”

Some patients question their prescription

While neither student divulged the names of the pills they were taking, junior Emily Day said that she sometimes wonders about the medicine being given out.

“They seem to prescribe Keflex (cephalexin) for everything,” Day said.

“My freshman year, I had a reaction to a piercing in my ear. Parts of my head broke out in dots and when I went to the Health Center, they proscribed me Keflex.  I came home to find out that my roommate, who had strep throat, had also been prescribed Keflex. Last year, when I had a mysterious allergic break out on my leg, they prescribed it to me again.”

Some students wonder if a different antibiotic should be prescribed for different types of health problems; However, Keflex is listed on drugs.com, a drug information site, as being able to treat many types of bacteria, including respiratory, ear, skin and urinary tract infections. 

“If you have a bacterial infection, you get the antibacterial you need,” Roeder said. “We have to consider what the student is allergic to and we consult…guides if we aren’t sure. We are continually educating ourselves to stay updated.”

A new antibiotic found in the Health Center this year is Zithromax, which Roeder felt was a needed antibacterial.

“I felt it necessary to update [and carry] Zithromax,” Roeder said. “It’s easier to take and better on the stomach…I made sure it was added…here.”

Junior Chelsea Mayer would have gladly been given Keflex, considering she was allergic to Erythromycin, the antibiotic the Health Center prescribed her.

“I was really sick one day, so I went to the Health Center…It was one of the sicknesses where…I looked like death,” Mayer said. “To start, they told me they were going to lunch and I needed to make an appointment…this began the ‘killing me’ process.”

Mayer made an appointment and went back to the Health Center later that day. By the time she got in, she was running a fever of 104 and was suffering from terrible shakes and bad cold sweats.

“They told me I just had something that was going around campus and that they would give me some meds to take,” Mayer said. “If I didn’t eventually get better [I should] come back. So I went back to my room and by this time [I was] in tears.”

On the way to go fill her prescription, Mayer collapsed between her room and her car. Thankfully, her roommate was with her and called a friend to come pick them up.

“[We] went to the emergency room and by then I had a temperature of 105 and they were running blood tests and x-rays…for this ‘bug’ I [had], according to our wonderful death center,” Mayer said.

“I gave them my prescription slip that I never got to fill and it was for Erythromycin. The one medicine I am allergic to. Not only did the Health Center shrug off what turned out to be strep, bronchitis and a bladder infection all in one, which was basically shutting my body down, but they gave me a prescription for the only medication that I informed them I was not to have.”

Mayer was observed overnight at the hospital and then was sent home for a week of recuperation before returning to classes.

“When I take Erythromycin, I struggle to breathe and go into asthma attack mode – not what I would have needed that day by any means,” was Mayer’s final comment.

Junior Emily Sedlak tells her story with bitterness and anger.

“My freshman year, I had a kidney infection, although I didn’t know it at the time, of course,” Sedlak said. “I was in so much pain and [the Health Center] made me make an appointment and come back the next day. When I got there, the lady didn’t seem to believe me. She asked if I was pregnant.”

During Sedlak’s examination, the nurse “karate chopped” her in the back and she almost burst into tears.  Sedlak said then, and only then, did the nurse conclude that she really had a kidney infection.

“Seriously,” Sedlak said, “I was very upset and I have never gone back.”

“Are you sexually active?”

Several girls have continuously complained about the Health Center’s way of handling pre-examination questions, including questions that involve birth control and sexual activities. 

“I don’t understand why they ask if you are sexually active, before they ask you if you are on birth control,” Day said. “Girls can be on birth control without being sexually active.”

Day said that she knows a lot of girls that feel like they are being judged when they walk into the Health Center.

“I have a friend who was accused of having an STD (sexually transmitted disease), which was impossible,” Day said. “Basically, I wish they wouldn’t assume that the girls they are seeing are sluts.”

Roeder says that often times, especially with students, the questions must be asked even if they don’t like it or feel uncomfortable.

“We have to know, especially if we are prescribing [medicine],” Roeder said.

“Anytime we talk about that area of the body, we have to ask. I hope no one has felt that way about me, but if so, I hope they would tell me. We have a wide range of students…Sometimes we have to ask questions that are uncomfortable, because if we don’t ask, people won’t offer [the information].”

However, girls have said that they are asked about their sexual activity, even when they aren’t being seen for gynecology related reasons.

When a junior, who wishes to remain nameless for “political reasons,” went to the Health Center to be treated for a sore throat and cold, she was asked if she had any STDs. When she answered “no,” she said she was asked if she was “sure about that?”

“I was like ‘yes…, I’m sureit was just like ” so have u been sexually active ime: yes

 in my head,” she said.

Sedlak agreed that it sometimes seems like sex and pregnancy are instantly assumed to be the problem.

“It made me upset that they jumped to that conclusion [of being pregnant] right off the bat, even when I told them what was wrong with me,” Sedlak said.

Jess Winston, a junior, said that she assumed it was all for the greater good.

“Them asking me that doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable because it just seems like something they need to know to help them help me,” Winston said.

While it seems that girls have different outlooks on these questions, boys seem to have the same one.

Evan Frank, a junior football player, has gone to the Health Center for a bacterial infection, severe colds, the flu and a possible broken nose.

“I have never been asked if I am sexually active,” Frank said.  

Clay Salyer, a former AU student who has transferred to another college, went into to the Health Center for a sore throat and severe cold – the exact same thing the anonymous girl went in for.

“I went there [to the Health Center] and they never asked me that [about being sexually active],” Salyer said.

Roeder said that she would not normally ask these questions.

“I don’t think that would happen this year,” Roeder said. “I don’t think Amity [Arnold] or I would routinely ask those questions [to girls or boys] just based on a sore throat.”

The Health Center’s website has been updated and staff photos will be up soon, showing the new faces of the employees. Roeder also wants the website to have self-cure tips incorporated onto the page.

Roeder would like students who are holding grudges to give the Health Center another shot.

“Give it another chance,” Roeder said. “The staff is different now… [If a student has] any specific concerns, my door is open and I’m more than happy to talk with them.”