Laws Limit Options When a Student Is Mentally Ill, colleges can't tell parents child is mentally ill

[Herman Munster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/us/19protocol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Federal privacy and antidiscrimination laws restrict how universities can deal with students who have mental health problems.

For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children’s problems without the student’s consent. They cannot release any information in a student’s medical record without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental illness.

Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, and what action to take, always so clear.

“They can’t really kick someone out because they’re writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem withdrawn and hostile,” said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University. “Most state laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.”

[BlooInBloo]

1. You mean medical confidentiality is enforced for adults? SHOCKING!

[MonkeyFunk]

2. and that's as it should be

college students are - almost always - legal adults. Their medical information is private.

[AdHocSolver]

3. The guy's profile matched that of other shooters like the Columbine students.

Cho Seung-Hui was over twenty one so he was beyond his parent's legal control anyway. If the remarks by teachers and other students is at all accurate, his words and actions were of a troubled young man who could explode at any time. When this country is quick to label a possible terrorist anybody who "looks" Middle Eastern, or has a name like Hussein, or is of the Muslim faith, surely someone who has a history like this young man, which appears to mimic that of other shooters, should have raised an alarm for further investigation.

If this country had comprehensive affordable medical care, including mental health care, this guy might have been persuaded to voluntarily get help, and the shootings might have been prevented. At the very least, this young man would have been on a "watch" list and the authorities would have looked for him after the first shootings, so that the later shootings might have been prevented.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Welcome aboard AdHocSolver!

Absolutely spot on. We've been shorting our domestic social infrastructure for years to pay for Bush's illegal war. Republicans hate to spend money on the stuff we need to make us a better society...their budget priorities prove it. Sadly, I expect to see more stories of people like Cho who fell through the cracks or couldn't get the medical help/counseling he needed. More guns and concealed weapons aren't the answer...more investment in the health and welfare of the American people is what we have to learn from this tragedy.

[ends_dont_justify]

5. Well said!

People decry the actions it would take to give people like cho needed medical help (or at the very least alert people to possible tendancies, if he didn't want to get better); but people are very fast to judge people based on personal prejaduice alone. The dark half in many people likes breaking rules, why not implement new rules that benefit the whole of society based on good conscience?

[WinkyDink]

6. Most college students are 18+. If they were NOT college students, they'd be otherwise considered

adults by EVERYBODY.

Parents of college students have to understand that the law recognizes AGE as the defining factor, not parental support or curiosity.

[Irreverend IX]

7. Notify parents?

I don't see why colleges shouldn't simply expel students who are violently mentally ill. Refund their tuition if you want, but the fact of the matter is that people with severe, unresolved emotional problems have no business being in post-secondary education. We're not talking about a guy who wears a lot of black and writes poetry about death here. The guy's classmates were afraid of sitting in the same room with him.

[fasttense]

8. No they can't kick someone out because they're writing papers about weird topics.

But after they kill two people in their dorm they should put out an APB and hunt the violent criminal down. But instead the police declared it a domestic and hoped for the best. How many times have domestic murders or attempted murders turned into more violent attacks?