'What if Yale finds out?' Suicidal students are pressured to withdraw from Yale ...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

‘What if Yale finds out?’

Suicidal students are pressured to withdraw from Yale, then have to apply to get back into the university

By William Wan
November 11, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EST

For months, she struggled silently with a sense of worthlessness. She had panic attacks that left her trembling. Nightmares that made her cry. ... She’d told only a handful of friends about the sexual assault she endured while she was home the summer after her freshman year. Now, as she finished her sophomore year at Yale University, the trauma finally became unbearable. ... On a June day after the 2021 spring semester, the 20-year-old college student swallowed a bottle of pills at her off-campus apartment. ... As she slowly woke up at the emergency room in New Haven, Conn., one thought overwhelmed her: “What if Yale finds out?”

She’d heard about other students being forced to leave because of depression and suicidal thoughts, and about the lengthy, nerve-racking reapplication process. It was one reason that the student — whom The Post agreed to identify by her first initial, S., to protect her privacy — told only a few people about her problems.

Three months earlier, a Yale freshman named Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum had killed herself on campus after contemplating the consequences of withdrawing from the school, her family said. Her death had renewed fierce debate about campus mental health, the way Yale treated suicidal students and the university’s reinstatement policies. Similar controversies have engulfed other universities as student mental health problems soar across the country.

Confined to a room at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, S. asked her nurses and doctors with growing fear, “Do you have to tell them?” ... Yes, they replied. Because she was a student, hospital staffers said, they needed to let college officials know, she recalled. They gave her consent papers to sign for the release of her medical information. She remembers how vulnerable she felt in her thin hospital clothes as she signed the release.

{snip}

If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. You can also reach a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Story editing by Lynda Robinson, photo editing by Mark Miller, copy editing by Gilbert Dunkley, design by Marie Alconada Brooks and Dominic Fisher. Alice Crites contributed research to this report.

By William Wan
William Wan is an enterprise reporter focused on narrative and high-impact stories at The Washington Post. He often writes about mental health and people on society's margin. He previously served as a national health reporter during the pandemic, China correspondent, roving U.S. correspondent, national security reporter and religion reporter. Twitter https://twitter.com/thewanreport

[tulipsandroses]

2. Is there something in that state's law that says the school has to be notified?

I’ve worked in mental health for a long time and never notified a school or job about a patient. Their immediate loved ones yes, outside therapist involved in their care, yes.

The fact that she had to consent for release her records, tells me there is no such law. Nothing that would bind them to reporting a patient’s mental health status to the school.

[IbogaProject]

3. Yale Medical Center

So maybe just a Hospital policy, she should have refused to sign the release. And obviously that policy needs reevaluation. I'm sure it was set up to deal with students who go Schizophrenic every year. College years is the most common time and once that develops into psychosis they are often incompatible with student life. I think this policy needs adjustment to better accommodate those with depression and PTSD and even Schizophrenia, sounds like an ADA and HIPPA lawsuit to me.

[tulipsandroses]

5. I learned something new today. I had to do some research because it didn't make sense to me that

the hospital would tell her they had to let the school know. Probably something that parents should be discussing with their kids when they go off to college. HIPAA does not always apply to colleges. Medical records are considered part of student records. FERPA may apply instead of HIPAA. Parents can access student records under FERPA.

Sounds like YALE is manipulating something meant to protect the student, to discriminate against students.

Their rules are outrageous. Apparently they have changed some after outrage about past suicides. One of the rules that got changed was a student having to speak to a panel before returning. That is outrageous. Another rule changed was requiring certain classes to be completed. Why would anyone want to put a student recovering from a mental health crisis through that??

[hunter]

4. I was "asked" to take time off from school twice for mental health reasons.

There was an implied threat of permanent expulsion, but I never felt any doors were being slammed in my face.

Maybe they figured I wouldn't come back, but I persisted.

It took me nine years to graduate.

The Ivy League colleges coddle all sorts of incurious sociopaths who will never make the world a better place, yet they pressure people with mental health problems to withdraw?



This entirely artificial "survival of the fittest" mentality is destroying this nation.

First exhibit: Ron DeSantis

[OldBaldy1701E]

6. Mostly because of our misguided ideas about who the 'fittest' are. (n/t)