Students experience health care problems

By: Michelle Anstett
Editor-in-chief

 This article, the first in a proposed series of three, aims to open a dialogue between the students of Monmouth College and the people at the Community Medical Center in hopes of finding a way to make things better for both parties. This week’s installment explores the complaints of two students. The next installment of this series will explore the problems from the view of CMC. Finally, the third piece will look at ways in which both sides can make the operation of CMC and, in turn, the services students receive, better for all involved.

When Monmouth College students become sick and have no way of getting home to medical treatment by their own doctors, they visit the Community Medical Center (CMC) in Monmouth.

The CMC offers both an on-campus clinic, located next to the Trotter Fitness Complex in the Huff Center, and a clinic in town. The campus service operates Mondays and Thursdays from 1-3 p.m. The Monmouth clinic, located at 1000 West Harlem Avenue, is operational 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Monmouth College students tend to use the on-campus clinic more frequently for matters of convenience, but they are also referred to the actual in-town clinic on a regular basis.

One student, sophomore Jacob Stott, had a lengthy battle as a result when he visited CMC. Stott became sick last fall, and his illness worsened to the point where he made a visit to CMC. At first, Stott was pleased with his experience at CMC, as the nurses in the clinic were nice to him. After he filled out all the forms required of CMC, including the provision of insurance information, Stott was seen by a doctor in what he felt was a prompt manner.

However, it was once the doctor saw him that Stott’s dissatisfaction began. “He thought I might have had one thing,” Stott said, but there was no definitive diagnosis given. The doctor gave him a prescription for some medicine and sent him on his way.

The diagnosis given and medicine prescribed, however, was not correct. A short time later, Stott returned to CMC to be seen again. Even though he had been to the clinic a minimal time before, Stott was surprised to be asked fill out the insurance information a second time. “I know I gave it to them the first time,” he said, “because I had to call my mom at work.”

When Stott was seen by the doctor, a different doctor from the one he had the first time he visited the clinic, the diagnosis was changed from mononucleosis to strep throat. This diagnosis was not correct either, and Stott saw a third doctor at CMC, who finally gave him the diagnosis of a form of tonsillitis.

A couple of months later, Stott received a notice from a collections agency, saying he owed CMC the full bill for his first visit. CMC had, it turned out, “lost all my information the first time,” which is why he had to fill out all the information again when he visited the clinic the second time. In addition, the report for the first visit was never filed with Stott’s insurance company as a result of the lost information, and was instead sent to the collections agency.

Stott had to file the bill for the first visit with his insurance company, but did not receive closure for several months. “I went into the clinic the first time in October, and it wasn’t resolved until, I think, February,” he said.

Another student who had complaints about the misdiagnosis she received at CMC is junior Jenny Babos. She visited the on-campus clinic with a severe sunburn she received at a track meet. Along with the sunburn, Babos was experiencing blistering, dizziness, vomiting and headaches severe enough that she could not attend her classes.

When she went to CMC, Babos waited for 20 minutes to be seen by the doctor “for about two minutes.” The doctor’s diagnosis was that Babos “might have sun poisoning,” but he was not going to give her a definite answer. The doctor prescribed her a lotion for her sunburn and told her to take over-the-counter medications for the side effects, even though those were the most severe part of Babos’ condition. He then told her to wait awhile and see someone at the clinic in town if her illness persisted.

Babos’ condition did not improve, and she was able to see her doctor at home a couple of weeks later. It was at this point that she was definitively diagnosed with sun poisoning, and her doctor prescribed medication to alleviate the side effects she was experiencing.

In looking at their unsatisfactory experiences, both Stott and Babos have advice for other students.

Stott believes the loss of his insurance information to be “a fluke,” but he recommends that students should make sure, to the best of their abilities, to “get the same doctor every time” they visit. Babos, on the other hand, thinks people would be best “just to go to the hospital in Galesburg.”

These two students may have had bad experiences with CMC and may see some problems which need to be fixed. However, the students on this campus may be, in their naivety, the cause of some of the things about which they complain.