In light of mental health awareness month on campus, this is the second
op-ed in a series on mental health resources at Harvard.

When people find out I’m a sex counselor, they’ve usually got a lot of questions. How can I go on birth control without my parents knowing? Am I still a virgin if I wear tampons? And my favorite: Can latex gloves double as latex condoms, like, if I use one of the finger holes? No! (Though it might be a funny way to wave at someone.)

But most frequently it’s—Why are the doctors at UHS so awful?—followed by a horror story or two about how they had a sex-related concern, went into University Health Services (UHS), and came out swearing off doctors forever.

Generally these tales of unprofessional treatment are prefaced with affectionate disclaimers—My new doctor’s great, or, I’m sure they’re not all bad. Nevertheless, UHS medical staff has become famous to many for approaching sexually active college students with moralistic verse and an intensely ugly bedside manner.

The following accounts are from Harvard students who have agreed to anonymously recall some of their experience with sexual health at UHS. Each student has carefully chosen his or her own pseudonym.

Last fall, Open Face ’09, was preemptively diagnosed with genital herpes because it hurt when she peed. Pain during urination is a general symptom for seven types of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s), but when Face went in for a second opinion, the new nurse said to wait a week for the test results, and asked how well Face even knew “this boy.”

Face’s pain turned out to be caused by vaginal tearing—caused, in turn, by a good bout of spirited premarital sex.

It seems obvious to check for surface tears before you whip out diagnoses for incurable illnesses, but instead UHS dragged Open Face through a week of “What if?” and even told her to get in touch with all of her past sexual partners, since she could have given it to any of them.

“It was just so unnecessarily long and drawn out,” Face said, “I was worried the whole time.”

It’s no fun to be held accountable for what’s ailing you. But worse than stiff and judgmental reprimands are those times that nurses and doctors try to aggressively demonstrate their open-mindedness by incorporating mothering into their medicine.

After diagnosing Grandma Opal ’09—who, unlike Open Face, actually did have herpes—the nurse, “Mrs. Buttsavitch,” took it upon herself to dole out the much-needed consolation.

“A lot of guys are going to be turned off by this,” Buttsavitch began. “But you don’t want the ones who would reject you for having herpes! Really, it’s a good thing—a screening device. You know, a way to weed out potential suitors.”

“I just sort of smiled at her,” Opal recalled, “and thought, ‘Please go, please go, please go.’ I thought I was going to cry. I wanted her to grab me a pamphlet or something and leave.”

UHS Director Dr. David Rosenthal was surprised to hear about Opal and Face, but said, “Any complaint is a significant complaint,” and told me to call the patient advocate. He then gently lectured me on the silliness of voicing such complaints in an article.

“People here don’t read The Crimson,” he explained. “You should make a formal complaint.”

But I’ve done that—many times, actually—and like Opal and Face, my own experiences with UHS have continued to be moments from a Kids in the Hall “Bad Doctor” skit. My freshman year I woke up with a big enough tummy-ache to warrant my first visit to UHS. The nurse on duty was a Danny DeVito look-a-like, whose gruff voice and flip-pad made him look more like a cop than a caregiver. He grunted and cleared his throat to speak. I waited for my Miranda Rights.

“You bleedin’ anywhere?” he asked. I nodded, explaining that I had my period. He told me I’d probably had a miscarriage.

Eventually, my butt said a few words on my behalf, and the miscarriage was re-diagnosed as a bad case of the farts.

Now, all doctors have specialties, but it shouldn’t take the trained professionalism of a psychologist to treat patients with respect. Sure there are mental health services right upstairs, but is it too much to ask for something in between the gruff cop and the Buttsavitch? Something that is not quite the whispering receptionist for the psychiatrists on the fourth floor, and not quite the callous Urgent Care RN?

I don’t imagine that expecting mothers are so ill-treated. Let’s say some overly-cautious, very nervous, pregnant lady comes into the doctor wondering and terrified at being able to see her babies elbow pass across the inside of her stomach. But that does not mean it’s a good idea to announce, “It could be swollen glands, and that points to herpes, so, expect a stillbirth.”

So, instead of being impatient and rude, why can’t Harvard health providers handle sexually active college kids as professionally and carefully as they might treat the saintly first-time mom? She too is responsible for her pain and discomfort, but she isn’t blamed for it. She, like the college kid, is probably bewildered and terrified.

Why is her trepidation less vile or more worthy of gentleness?


Kathleen E. Hale is an English and American literature and language concentrator in Winthrop House. She is a sex counselor.