For many, an illness during the winter is a common occurrence that takes the form of the cold, strep throat or the flu; however, up until just a few weeks ago, I had not been sick for eight years: no cold or strep, not even a stomach bug. You may wonder how an immune system of such veracity exists; I credit a strict diet of exercise, peanut butter and Flintstone’s Chewables, and a large part of good fortune. With my extended absence from sickness, I met the onslaught of “streptococcal pharyngitis” (Wikipedia and the medical world’s official term) and its agonizing symptoms with the only rational thought possible: “I am dying; this is what death feels like; I don’t have the energy to change the channel; I’m going to pass from this world watching infomercials.”
For those fortunate readers that have never suffered from the living hell that is strep throat, I will attempt to detail the crippling effects of this virus; imagine an Olympian weight-lifter taking a wiffle bat to every square inch of your body, while your entire skin pulses and sweats from a 100+ fever and your throat swells to the size of a Lifesaver as it burns and sizzles each time you attempt to swallow. This, reader, is strep throat, and the culprit that drove me to the Longest Student Health Center after two days of lying on the couch swilling back Tropicana.
For the most part, my experience at the student health center was a positive one; I sat in the waiting room reading old Newsweeks; then, I was called back and weighed and had my temperature taken as the nurse kindly made small talk and assured me I wasn’t likely to croak from strep. Soon, I sat in a room waiting for the nurse practitioner to see me. The NP finally came in with a disposition and attitude I can only describe as especially frigid and distant for someone working in the medical field. She avoided eye-contact with me and snapped at me to list my symptoms – seconds into this listing I was cut off and told to “open and say ‘ah'” as she moved to inspect the canal of fire that was my throat. In the past I had doctors who were taller than myself and so tilted my head back and said “AH.” At this angle, the NP, a solid foot shorter than myself, could not have seen into my throat with a telescope; she narrowed her eyes at me as I apologized and lowered my head towards her.
There was no mercy for this unforgivable insult; the NP proceeded to explain to me in a dry, drawn-out geometrics explanation that her height and my height and the height of the examination table all summed up to something or other and strongly implied that I was ignorant beyond all means for having the slightest thought of tilting my heads backward in her presence — the relationship was downhill from there. She then asked me a series of questions about my nutrition and personal health, which did not bother me so much as the look of disbelief shot at me each time I answered “no” to one of her questions. I answered each question politely and to the best of my knowledge thinking this may be the secret to moving the NP to show some bedside manner — it wasn’t.
At last, the NP hurriedly explained to me the medication she was prescribing. I thought of all the previous times I had strep as child and was given a shot and asked if there was to be one. The hamster on the wheel must have fallen from exhaustive rage in the NP’s mind; she turned to me and said with eyes narrowed and a smile so wide and false it would likely get her top five in a beauty pageant: “You can swallow, can’t you? Well, if you can swallow, you can take a pill.” I paused, thanked her and left the health center with a still sore throat and a bad taste in my mouth from the NP’s indifferent treatment of myself.
Perhaps, she was having a bad morning; perhaps, her children set something on fire before she left for work; whatever the cause, I thought of some excuse for the NP’s disposition — until I spoke with friends who had been treated equally as coldly when seeking medical treatment from the Longest Student Health Center.
While some did note positive treatment when they visited, a majority recounted similar attitudes and comments to the ones I experienced and said that is “what you expect” when visiting the student health center. Although this was my first and only visit and bearing in mind that the Longest Student Health Center provides a vital and appreciated service to the student body, I urge the medical staff at the health center to remember that compassion and empathy are invaluable components to treating illness and soothing the worries of the sick.