Grad School- Stint as Student Death (oops! I mean Health) Representative

When I arrived at grad school, our health plan was beyond bizarre. For example- our health insurance would pay for a mole to be removed IF it was cancerous and ONLY if it was cancerous. So that left us in the state of hoping to have cancer so that we wouldn’t have to pay $600 ($800 if they gave you a pain killer first!) for a mole to be removed. In what sort of sick world do people HOPE to have cancer?

So after spending 2 years trying to navigate the system, I volunteered to be the grad student rep to the student health board. The student health board consisted of the dean (who never attended a single meeting), a rep from the insurance company, the head of student health, the secretary for student health, a rep from the bursar’s office, a med student, a nursing student and a grad student. Our job was supposed to address the concerns of the students as presented by the student reps. The grad rep who preceded me nicely provided me with all of her notes. This was extremely useful when I’d bring up an issue and the head of student health would claim, “We’ve never had that complaint before.” I could then turn to my predecessor’s notes and give the head the exact date when she HAD in fact heard the complaint before. I was also a pain in the ass in that I was really good with paper trails. If a student brought an insurance complaint to me, I would request the bill in question as well as the insurance company’s response. I would then photocopy it, remove the students identifying info, and then make sufficient copies for the board. With concrete evidence in front of them, grad student concerns started to be addressed. The med student rep and the nursing student rep immediately started following my example. By the time I had completed my term as the grad student rep, the head of student health was openly hostile to me. I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall when my replacement showed up not only with my notes and my predecessor’s notes, but with detailed instructions for how to lay a paper trail.

The most controversial issue we dealt with on the student health board was the actions of one of the student health doctors. Said doctor refused to prescribe birth control because she considered it akin to abortion. The head of student health adamantly stated that this doctor had the right to choose which treatments she would administer. Normally I would agree, however, she worked for STUDENT HEALTH- I would say that 90% of the female students visit student health for birth control once a year. To make matters worse, said doctor was also assigned the task of negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies for discount birth control. Can we say conflict of interest? Luckily the med student rep and I quickly convinced the insurance rep that he should support the students on this issue. Basically, all we had to do was point out that a single pregnancy cost the insurance company at least 10x what a year’s supply of birth control does. Next thing we knew, the insurance company rep offered to take over sourcing discount birth control- and surprise- we got the best deal we’d had ever! However, nothing was ever done about the doctor. The best the student reps could do was make sure that we informed the rest of the students of said doctor’s stance on birth control. Word of mouth isn’t always the greatest, so we still fielded a lot of complaints. As far as I know, this doctor is STILL working at student health…