Healthier relationship would benefit all

Last winter break, an executive manager of a large, highly respected hospital in South Dakota jokingly told me “you are more likely to be killed by misdiagnosis from your family doctor than by your anesthesiologist.”

Aside from the specialists, most of the doctors at the University Park Health Center are in family practice, trained to see patients for a wide range of issues and extend referrals to specialists.

Though it may be a stretch to think all students believe family doctors will kill them, there does appear to be something that makes them shun UPHC visits at all costs. With a health insurance program that requires students to visit the UPHC first for primary care, USC should mend the broken bond between students and university health services to further the reliability of services which many students depend on.

Some students have reported experiencing poor treatment and misdiagnoses at our UPHC.

Alia Alanizi, a sophomore majoring in political science, recalls her experience during the swine flu season: She felt many intense swine flu symptoms and waited at the UPHC for an hour before seeing a physician assistant — not a doctor.

The P.A. did not offer any medicine or diagnosis but said it was not swine flu. She was instructed to go home and come back once she “felt like Jack Nicholson, wearing sunglasses and unable to get out of bed.”

About two years ago, an illness swept through my fraternity house. More than half the people living in the house began vomiting incessantly in a matter of three days. We ruled out food poisoning since we all maintained different diets.

Four students experiencing the same symptoms went to the UPHC together. The medical staff treating each individual were in communication with one another. They were aware of each student’s equivalent illness.

Yet everyone received a different diagnosis: One of the four supposedly had food poisoning; another had a bacterial infection; yet another viral infection.

They all stayed for additional testing. I was the fourth — they told me I was completely healthy and sent me home.

After hearing these stories of poor treatment, I sought an explanation.

To my encouragement, I found that UPHC hires a top-quality medical staff, many coming from respectable institutions such as Columbia, UCLA and USC. The UPHC pays its medical staff a very competitive salary, comparable to other campus health centers and university medical centers like UC Irvine and UCLA.

I also found that our health center does not practice any Kaiser-Permanente HMO referral or lab-testing practices, meaning it does not have any sort of quota system or pay incentive to undertreat patients.

The UPHC has high standards in practices and employment, so there is no systemic issue facing our students.

Maybe there is a real issue with the UPHC — or maybe the problem is a product of groupthink, where one student complains and it becomes trendy. But either way, USC should remedy the ill student-UPHC relationship.

Studies show there is a high negative correlation between grade point average and general primary care illnesses.

If students avoid receiving primary care at UPHC, they can extend the duration of their sickness, which hurts their attendance, learning and performance in class. Also, contagions have greater power to spread with the more number of sick days a student experiences.

According to one source, 70 percent of employers report using a GPA cutoff for recruitment. Beyond the cutoff, there seems to be little effect, but if a student incessantly battles the flu during the college career without pursuing primary treatment, the student might end up with a GPA below competitive job cutoffs.

However, USC can still act to improve the care and relieve students’ concerns. The university should employ some publicly accessible quality assurance program, perhaps along the lines of the Joint Commission’s quality assurance guidelines.

This way, the medical staff would rightfully be accountable for its own actions. Also, students would be able to read testimonies and be assured of the quality of the treatments.

Hopefully, the university will overcome students’ concerns with the UPHC in order to offer its students every opportunity to succeed in their USC career.

Jensen Carlsen is a senior majoring in economics and mathematics.  His column “The Bridge” runs Wednesdays.