After a week of missed classes, missed meals and a missed
midterm, Lindsay Mathews left the Arthur Ashe Student Health &
Wellness Center feeling completely hopeless.
She was unsure of what was causing her fever, tooth pain and
other symptoms, as were doctors at the Ashe Center, she
said.Â
Various possible viruses and bacteria were considered and it was
eventually concluded that she had some form of bacterial infection
in her mouth; she later discovered on her own that the problem was
her wisdom teeth were impacted.
By being incorrectly diagnosed, Mathews experienced a problem
happening at health centers worldwide, including the Ashe
Center.
Though she is not the only UCLA student to say she has been
misdiagnosed at the Ashe Center, a recent e-mail survey concluded
93 percent of respondents were satisfied with their Ashe
clinician’s explanation of diagnosis and treatment.
Some amount of misdiagnoses is  inevitable, but students
disagree on whether the issue is a problem at Ashe.
Though very few students said they felt they had been
misdiagnosed, many said they “know someone” who had
experienced that problem.
For the students who feel they have been misdiagnosed, Michelle
Pearson, the Director for Ancillary Services at Ashe Center, notes
there is a difference between misdiagnoses and early diagnoses.
“Misdiagnoses are different from non-detection of early
stages of a disease. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s
wrong, it just means that it was the best they could do with the
information available,” she said.
“Medicine is not an exact science, it’s actually an
art,” she added.
Many different diseases have the same early symptoms, causing
difficulties for any clinician trying to determine exactly which
disease the patient is infected with. This problem affects
clinicians worldwide.
The Ashe Center uses a technique of “differential
diagnoses,” in which patients are informed of various
possibilities of infection and are told to return if the prescribed
treatment is not working, Pearson said.
The Ashe technique seems to agree with most of its patients
““ the same e-mail survey concluded Ashe has a 95 percent rate
of overall satisfaction.
The results indicate most students on campus do not find
misdiagnoses or other difficulties to be prevalent.
Of the other difficulties expressed by students with regard to
the Ashe Center, time is often seen as a problem. Some students
said the Ashe Center appointments are rushed and that they had
experienced long waiting-times.
In the e-mail survey, 10 percent of respondents were
dissatisfied with the amount of time they waited after checking
into Ashe.
Jason Debolt, a fourth-year business/economics student said in
his visit to Ashe he had to wait longer than he would have liked in
order to see a doctor for “two minutes.”
“The doctor did the right thing, but she was in a rush.
She wasn’t someone I would like to hang out with,”
Debolt said.
Debolt said the doctor “did the right thing” because
he experienced relief from his neck pains due to the stretches
prescribed by the doctor.
Al Setton, the deputy assistant vice chancellor, said waiting
times that are longer than ideal are not unique to Ashe.
“It’s not so much a problem of staffing, but a
problem in all of healthcare because you have to help the sickest
person first,” he said.
The goal at Ashe is to have students in and out in an hour,
Setton said. He added that the goal is usually met.
Ashe serves between 400-500 patients daily, and expects each
patient to have a 20-minute appointment.
As short as this may seem, it is long by industry standards of
12 minutes per appointment, Pearson said.
Setton also noted that even if the issue of long waiting-times
was specifically a result of a lack of staff, it would be difficult
to remedy in today’s economic times.
Ashe’s budget was cut by $1,000,000 ““ or 17.5
percent ““ last year.
Setton also noted that patients are inconvenienced because many
students, ““ up to 15 to 20 percent in certain departments
““Â do not show up for their scheduled appointment.
Overall, 60-65 percent of students use Ashe in any given year,
Pearson said.