"The practice has been that a person who was brought to health services for medical care because of the fact that they were drunk will not be sanctioned for drinking," the dean says. "That does not say anything about anybody else who may have given them alcohol and what may have happened along the way."

"We don't sanction students for bringing persons to the hospital," Lewis says. "We sanction students who serve alcohol to underage drinkers."

Lewis adds that there is no written policy or set procedure for dealing with students who have been found to be drinking only after being hospitalized at UHS.

But Matt B. Hillis '96, a co-director of Alcohol and Drug Dialogue (ADD), says the College policy on serving alcohol does not mean students who bring their friends to UHS should be punished.

"We know that disciplinary action will result if you serve an underage drinker, but bringing a student to UHS shouldn't cause that," says Hillis. ADD is a student-run UHS committee that aims to inform students about alcohol-related issues.

Director of UHS David S. Rosenthal '59 says his hospital's policy precludes it from divulging medical information to the College administration.

"We don't relinquish anything to the Ad Board," says Rosenthal. "We are not administrators, we are health care providers...[and] we are not involved with the police, the dean's office or the tutors."

Still, somehow the College seems to know when a student has been to UHS. In some cases proctors are informed by the students themselves, but there also have been circumstances where students say they didn't tell any University officials.

One junior says he brought a drunk friend to UHS and later found out that the Ad Board was considering their case.

"I heard of [the incident] a few days later," the junior says of the female friend he dropped off at UHS. "She told us that...the administration was aware of what happened and was considering disciplinary action, which was a surprise to us because we assumed that when you bring someone to UHS it remains confidential."

Rosenthal says he is concerned some students may be reluctant to bring their dangerously drunk peers to UHS.

"I really fear that...if students don't bring their fellow students in [to UHS] we are going to have real problems on the campus," Rosenthal says.

"Ordinarily taking a student to UHS should not result in disciplinary action," says Hillis. "We recognize the reality of the problem of binge drinking at college and want to help people, not turn them away."

Some students, weary of worrying about administrative action, have begun to take their drunk friends to local hospitals instead of UHS.

But Rosenthal and Hillis say that the Mt. Auburn Hospital and the Cambridge Hospitals do not provide a better alternative.