I remember about a year or two ago there was a big stink about a series of "Sleazy the Wonder Squirrel" cartoons in which Sleazy and company criticized Dick's House. What an uproar there was. Dr. Jack Turco wrote letters to the editor. I think deans were involved. It was a big mess. I remember thinking, "God help Chris Miller if he ever gets sick." But it's recently dawned on me that it is up to God to help any of us who rely on Dick's House to diagnose and treat our illnesses.
I went to Dick's House on December 9th suffering from a very sore throat, fever, weakness, muscle aches and a headache. I was given a throat culture and offered a bed, but that was the extent of the treatment I received. When I called for the results of my throat culture, I was told that I did not have strep, and would be fine in about a week.
A few weeks later, having arrived back to campus feeling a little better but not much, I decided to get checked out again. And rather than go to Dick's House, I decided to go to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center emergency room. The doctor heard the same list of symptoms as did the Dick's House physician, but instead of simply taking my temperature and checking my ears, nose and throat before arriving at the diagnosis, this doctor took my pulse and blood pressure when I was lying down, sitting and standing up, checked my lymph nodes and felt my stomach. When she was done, she told me that she was pretty sure that it was mono and sent me for a blood test. It came back positive. Sophomore year my late-onset asthma had been diagnosed as bronchitis and I was treated with three rounds of antibiotics and Robitussin. This was the final straw.
There is a saying sometimes used in the medical field that if you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras. In my experience, the people at Dick's House take this one step further. They look for horses, and if there are no horses to be found, they tell you it was nothing ... all the while you're being run over by a stampede of zebras.
My own is not the only such experience. Two years ago, my friend Katie LaForgia '97(who told me I could use her name in this article) went to Dick's House twice for a severe sore throat; I remember her being in incredible pain. She was told (twice) that she had a type of strep that was not treatable with antibiotics and sent home empty-handed. However, when she went home for break, her doctor there told her she had advanced tonsilitis, so far gone that penicillan was not strong enough to kill it. The next term she got a recurrence of the same symptoms, and told the people at Dick's House that she already knew it was not strep, but tonsilitis. She was ignored, tested for strep again, and finally had to go to DHMC to receive the proper medication for the tonsilitis.
I've heard many such stories about Dick's House over the years, as well as some stories from those students lucky enough to receive the proper treatment. For the most part, these were students who did have the flu or strep. But the horror stories are far too frequent. Too often I hear about people who had to go to DHMC for treatment, or who had to make more than two visits to Dick's House for the same set of symptoms. Sometimes I hear of people who have given up on Dick's House entirely and go straight to the hospital. That's what I will do now.
How shameful is this? Our parents, or whoever pays our bills, fork over roughly one thousand dollars per year for medical insurance. For that amount of money, we should receive stellar medical care. Instead, we need to go to the hospital emergency room or to our doctors at home to get the proper treatment.
The people at Dick's House have been unfailingly nice to me whenever I've gone there. I remember having to be admitted because of a stomach flu my freshman winter. The nurses there treated me as kindly as my own mother does, and I appreciate that. I've also heard good things about the Women's Health Center; many women I know speak very highly of their services. But there is no reason that something as simple as mono or tonsilitis should not be diagnosed correctly the first time at Dick's House. We deserve better care than that.
