Column:

At-home health care missed in college

By Spencer Engel

Published Dec. 11, 2008

Just thinking of the word "college" conjures many associative words in the minds of high school juniors and seniors chomping at the bit to leave their hometowns and live on their own: independence, freedom, leisure.

Depending on where you're from and how you grew up, the feeling of being on your own in college can range from the two ends of the independence vs. homesickness spectrum: Either you feel like Andy Dufresne escaping from Shawshank Prison or you feel like a 7-year-old who just had to spend a whole week at summer camp four hours away from home. 

In actuality, most students fall somewhere in between the two extremes, but no matter how much you enjoy your independence, you have to admit one thing: It sucks being sick in college.

Getting sick is possibly the worst thing that can happen to a college student. Professors don't usually take kindly to students missing classes and tests. Even if you do bring a doctor's note to your teachers after missing a week, you will still most likely have to make up the work and all of the sudden you're pretty much permanently behind in your classes. Most importantly, unless your mom lives with you in college (weird), nobody is around to check your temperature or bring you hot chicken noodle soup.

Sure, MU has the Student Health Center, which provides healthcare to nearly all enrolled students and, if things get really serious, the Boone Hospital Center is located in the middle of East Campus. However, neither of these two places can offer comfort like a loving mom, dad or grandma. The people who take care of students at the SHC and Boone's Hospital are professional doctors, registered nurses or medical school students.

I'm not saying these people can't be compassionate, but most of these employees and students have likely diagnosed and treated more ailments than Hippocrates himself. Therefore, when you come in with a headache or the flu, they aren't alarmed.

I'm not saying my mom panicked when I was sick as a child, but she definitely bent over backwards to make me feel better. Hospital employees who have probably seen an appendix blow up in front of their eyes simply aren't as quick to accommodate your every wish. I can't blame them; it's like expecting a paraplegic to feel sorry for you when you stub your toe.

However, that doesn't mean I can't yearn for some old-fashioned motherly healthcare. I don't think that will ever change. Hopefully when I'm older, I'll have a wife or child to take care of me when I'm sick, but right now I'm stuck in a void of personal healthcare. When I'm sick, my roommate hesitates to even step in the room. Occasionally, my friends will step in to see how I'm doing, but they never stay for longer than five minutes. Whereas parents are obligated to take care of their kids, friends aren't obligated, nor are they expected, to take care of friends.

I can't complain because I don't want to take care of anyone either; I've got my own things happening. Now that I think about it, I don't know how moms, dads and nurses do it. Being around sick people is like being around anti-BCS college football fans; all they do is complain and gripe about things "not being fair."  I have a mild stomach flu right now and I can barely stand being around myself so I can't imagine how anyone else can. Especially you, mom, but it would be nice if you were here. Can you at least send me some chicken noodle soup?