But later that night, with his leg and hip "killing" him, he hobbled into UHS. Although Smith says he told the attending doctor he had been hit by a car, he says she looked at his leg for "30 seconds" and declined to take an X-ray.

"She said, `Okay, you're going to be fine, just go home,'" Smith says.

The next day, in more pain, Smith returned to UHS after struggling through a chemistry final.

A second doctor took another X-ray and diagnosed a broken tibia.

Smith says a doctor he consulted at home told him the mistake could have had grave consequences.

"I was really lucky that I didn't need surgery," he says. "I could have compressed [the bone] into some weird position."

Rosenthal, who says he was not previously aware of Smith's case, says the difficulties may have resulted from an initial mistake by emergency personnel on the scene. Someone who has been struck by a car should always be taken to an emergency room, he says.

But Magnuson, who injured herself falling down the stairs of her dorm last spring, also made two trips to UHS before she was properly diagnosed.

After an initial X-ray, Magnuson says the attending doctor told her the foot "wasmildly bruised, but he couldn't see any damage onthe bone."

She says he advised her that she could play inan upcoming water polo tournament if the painsubsided.

But over the next week, Magnuson says her footwas painful and swollen. Her parents, who werevisiting, took her back to UHS and requested anorthopedist.

"I had severely fractured [the foot] in threeplaces," Magnuson says.

Magnuson wore a cast for three and a halfweeks.

She says she could have played an additionaltwo weeks of the water polo season if her foot hadbeen cast immediately after the accident.

Overlooked?

Lauren F. Klein '00 and Willougby Anderson '00say UHS failed to identify their illnesses.