:/ I contacted disability services at my university and they won't support me w/o an explicit letter from a psychiatrist explaining my condition, the effects it has on my cognitive abilities, the side effects of the meds, and all this other information. I don't have a psychiatrist yet here, but I am being treated by the university's Counseling and Psychological Services. The disability services rejects even CAPS's documentation of my illness (schizophrenia). What is worse is that my medication has basically stopped working properly, so if I end up hospitalized again, I'm not going to get proper support from the school. I'm angry right now that the school won't accept documentation of my illness from the school. It makes no sense to me at all, especially since the Counseling and Psychological Services is run by a clinical psychologist who has his doctorate.
Chris, Usually, colleges have someone in the role of a student advocate. Sometimes it's the Dean of Students, sometimes there's an assistant to somebody in the president's office, or something like that. The role of this person is to negotiate the bureaucracy of the college and cut through the red tape and solve problems. Since the head of the counseling center is a Ph.D. in psychology, he should be qualified to provide a diagnosis. It sounds like there's some paper pusher at disability services who doesn't understand that a doctoral-level mental health professional is as qualified to make a mental health diagnosis as a psychiatrist is. I'm guessing that if you can find the advocate person, s/he can get through to someone with a brain and get this issue resolved; it seems like a pretty simple issue.
Well I had a mental illness and all I got was a referal from the GP to send to the disablility services at the university and the disablity services accepted it.
Maybe you may want to try getting a letter from your doctor in Massachusetts and have them fax it to your school.
She refused to diagnose me; it was the psychological services at the university who gave me the diagnosis I currently have.
Just occurred to me: I believe you're entitled to a copy of your medical records, and I am near certain that an insurance company will not pay for medical care without a diagnosis. So even if it's not the correct diagnosis (which you can always change later when you get a competent psychiatrist) you'd have something to prove you have a diagnosis. The other thing is... since your dumping your incompetent psychiatrist anyway, and don't have much of anything to lose with her, I'm sure if you called her secretary and said you need a diagnosis letter, and if she doesnt' provide one, you'll write to the insurance company and the medical board... you'll probably get one
Ugg, I had a friend that had problems getting the University to accept their diagnoses of learning disabilities. Good luck.
I have all the medical records in a drawer in my dorm. Her diagnoses were all wrong in the first place (mood disorder with psychotic features, anxiety, OCD) (I have schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, OCD), so I'm not even going to try and get her to provide the diagnosis I'm asking for (and the diagnosis I received from my intake).
