<p>I don’t know whether RA’s play any role at all in assisting students who are seriously ill (or in an alternative but common scenario, intoxicated). I would not expect an RA to monitor a student or bring soup. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that an RA might take some action, if needed: for example, to call a health professional if a resident seemed to need medical attention–particularly to help an incoming freshman, who would not necessarily know where to call. Also in this case, the student’s roommate had left the room overnight (and it appeared that the RA knew that). </p>
<p>The RA might not receive an email with a request for help–I have noted above that there is no reason for a parent to expect 24-hour-availability of the RA. </p>
<p>In this case, though, the RA did receive the email request from the OP to either check on the OP’s daughter–or if this was not part of the RA’s job responsibilities, to email or call the OP.</p>
<p>If I were the OP, as this case played out, I would have expected the RA to send back a brief message saying something like: RA’s don’t normally do that. If your daughter needs medical assistance overnight, the university recommends that she or you call/do [whatever it is that the university recommends].</p>
<p>I think it is perfectly reasonable for the OP to expect a response along those lines, as opposed to simply having the message forwarded to someone who will not see it until 9 am.</p>
<p>Maybe the term RA is misleading–at some universities, the RA’s job is not really to assist the residents. The RA assists the housing staff, and happens to reside in the dorm (hence “Resident”). It’s best to know if that’s the situation you are dealing with.</p>
<p>This is an excellent idea for many reasons, but it would be very hard to mimic the typical college situation at home.</p>
<p>Among other things, you would have to deny the sick high school student access to the family kitchen and the family cars, make sure that no one else in the family uses a car to assist the student (by driving him/her to an appointment, picking up a prescription, etc.), and wipe out the student’s memory of where health care facilities (such as urgent care places) exist in the community and how to get there by walking, bus, or taxi. </p>
<p>On the other hand, students do find their own ways to cope. During the H1N1 flu outbreak, I had a daughter living off-campus with two other kids. I asked her if she and her roommates had stocked up on food just in case they all got sick at the same time and couldn’t go out to get food. She said, “Oh, Mom, don’t be ridiculous. There are at least 20 restaurants in this town that deliver. That’s how I get my dinner almost every night.”</p>
<p>OP, she was a recruited D1 athlete? Then what about her teammates and such? Many D1 schools even have their own doctors for their athletes. An RA’s job is not to nurse a student.</p>
<p>I think this thread you started will help with the expectations of other parents whose kids are starting college.</p>
<p>Like most of the others, it would have never occurred to me to contact an RA for a health condition for my kid in the dorm and even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have known their name or contact info. The RAs seem to be there mostly to try to resolve rommate conflict and to some extent to reinforce some rules. They’re not really there for the complete welfare of the students or as a parental substitute. And once they move off-campus into an apartment there’s no RA anymore anyway.</p>
<p>I think given the above, before they head off to college (or anywhere) parents need to have a discussion with their kids about taking care of themselves. I did with mine and pointed out that they’re basically on their own - it’s up to them to know their bodies, determine when they need help an dthe level of help, and to seek it out. This can include contacting the parents and asking what to do, getting themselves to an ER somehow (including with a cab ride if need be, with a friend, roomie, etc.), or getting themselves to a doctor if less of an emergency. They need to know where the ER is, where urgent care is, where medical facilities are, where the campus health center is (and hopefully not fully depend on the campus health center). They need to know there isn’t someone who’s going to be checking on them every few minutes or hours when they’re sick like they’re used to when they lived at home.</p>
<p>It seems that this would be a good topic for colleges to review, including the expectations by parents and students of the RA’s responsibilities. I think some colleges cover at least some of this but I’m sure it varies.</p>
<p>I would not have thought to contact the RA though I certainly would have been concerned enough to check in a couple of times a day if I had a kid at school in bed with strep. I view taking care of one’s self and knowing when to ask for help when ill as part of soon-to-be-an-adult learning curve. That being said, if I had a truly sick kid and didn’t hear from her for the better part of a day I would have tried to get in touch with her somehow and (to what I am sure would have been DD’s embarrassment) contacting an RA could well have been part of the scenario. </p>
<p>I don’t recall Columbia having a bona fide infirmary where a student could stay overnight if they were really sick. If memory serves they had clinics that were open during business hours, numbers to call off-hours and an ambulance service to take you to the local hospital if needed. When the D had her first illnesses at school I remember talking to her about things like not waiting until Friday afternoon to call the doctor with the expectation of being seen that day and that you have to ask your roommate/friends to bring you soup because they can’t read your mind and might not think to do it on their own. (It is amazing what you have to teach an otherwise insightful, intelligent almost-adult.) On the few occasions that she was truly down and out she stayed in touch with someone at the clinic. I remember the clinic calling back to check up on her but I don’t recall an RA ever being part of the mix.</p>
<p>During her college days I WAS a big fan of the Dr. Mom - Skype examination. When an ongoing infection is morphing from basic into something more it shows on my D’s face. I am right more often than not. Dr. Mom was even consulted on a bug when D was working in Africa. </p>
<p>I would have hoped that a non-confrontational email from a parent would have gotten a couple of sentences back from the RA…even if it wasn’t her/his job. In defense of the RA, they could well have been following established protocol by forwarding the email. Perhaps it was the RA’s superior that dropped the ball.</p>
<p>If she is old enough to go away to college, she is certainly old enough to take care of herself when sick with strep throat. Look, as cruel as it sounds, kids that age can call a friend if they need anything. They don’t need mommy to call the college and talk to the RA. I think you’re the one who needs to grow up.</p>
<p>We’re talking about a first-semester freshman. She might not yet have any friends.</p>
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<p>Some are, some aren’t. Personally, I would prefer that those who aren’t call their parents for advice rather than trying to wing it without any guidance or relying on the advice of the other kids in the dorm. Parents have lived through a lot of illnesses – their own and their kids’. We’re actually pretty good sources of medical information.</p>
<p>We’re not infallible, though. I was once e-mailed a photo of a cut by one of my kids, with the question “Does this look infected?” I honestly didn’t know and had to tell the kid to go to the campus health center to have it checked out. I felt stupid.</p>
<p>I don’t know if RAs are told that they should not discuss residents of the dorm with parents/family should they be contacted. Schools are very careful to comply with privacy laws. Perhaps the RA was concerned about breaking privacy rules by sending an email to the parent. I would think that a few parents call RAs with various concerns such as roommate/suitemate issues, drug/alcohol concerns, quiet hours, etc. if their son/daughter is having problems. I would think that RAs are trained not have any discussions with parents/family.</p>
<p>I know that what I quoted above is really not discussing specific information, but the RA might have been told not to have any communication with family that might contact them concerning adult children.</p>
<p>I don’t even remembering HAVING an RA after my freshman year. Freshman year I knew she existed but I don’t recall having any interaction with her. I’m not sure my parents even knew there was such a THING as an RA!</p>
<p>There is strep and there is strep. There are people who become really, really ill when they have a strep throat. A freshman who has a bad bug early on and has not set up their own support system could well need a little help figuring out what to do. The OP may not have followed standard protocol but she did what she thought was best.</p>
<p>We also don’t know the context of the note to the RA. I am NOT suggesting anything about how the OP came across in her opening email, but there is a difference between a lighthearted “would you mind keeping an eye on her? Yeah, I know I’m an overprotective mom!” and a more directed “I expect you to stop by and report back to me how she’s doing, and if that is not your job, you’d better tell me asap.” And of course many shades in between.</p>
<p>Again, not implying anything about the tone of the OP’s note, but I can see an RA reacting differently to one note versus the other.</p>
<p>It is also may simply be that RAs are just told that if family contacts them, they are not discuss residents and that they should forward this information to the “head RA”, or their supervisor. I am sure schools don’t want RAs speaking to parents about their adult children’s lives on campus because I think that there can really be a conflict with privacy laws.</p>
<p>Don’t feel badly about that. After being illegally checked at a lacrosse scrimmage I let my D walk around with a broken wrist for more than a week. She described it as very sore, not fully painful. She also could write with it. I assumed it was a bad bruise. D mentioned it to the school nurse when seeing her about something else and afterward the nurse called me to say that she had seen more than one broken wrist with virtually no swelling. It ended up needing a pin. Now THAT is a reason for a parent to feel stupid. :o</p>
<p>Just checking back in. In the case of my S, it was far more than just a cold that he needed to sleep off. He was so sick with mono that he literally couldn’t lift his head off the pillow, throat so swollen he could barely speak, covered head to toe in a rash (because the student health center gave him antibiotics before finding out he had mono). I had swine flu a couple of years ago but my S was far sicker in this case. His friends are great kids but realistically weren’t going to be able to take care of him. I didn’t think that was the RA’s job either. And I didn’t think hospitalization was the answer - he didn’t need medical care, he just needed basic care. I spent 4 days in the hotel, waking him up every few hours and forcing him to eat soup, a Jamba Juice, take the steroids he was prescribed, etc. It was the kind of care an infirmary would have provided back in my day. Or if he lived locally, he would have gone home for a couple of days. The school in no way viewed this as their responsibility: hospitalization or withdraw him. I love the school he goes to, but this was an eye opener for us. After 4 days he felt well enough to go back to the dorm and drag himself around to classes. I think there can be a gap in coverage for really sick kids who are away at school. Maybe others just go to the hospital and deal with it that way now that there are no longer infirmaries.</p>
<p>Maybe if parents viewed the dorm as simply an expensive, cramped, but location convenient apartment as opposed to an extension to the home or camp for kids the expectation level would be more appropriate - i.e. there s/b no particular expectations other than what you’d expect anywhere else (and I’m including basic safety in that). I think it’s tough for parents who are used to having their kids taken care of all their lives by the parents, the camp personnel, etc. to come to terms with the fact that their kids are on their own in this regard and it’s essentially an adult situation - no different than if the student went and rented an apartment adjacent to campus and no different than the parent already has to do for themselves.</p>
<p>I do understand the privacy concerns, and the limits on information that may be passed along to parents. However, the possible RA response that I suggested (in post #81) doesn’t seem to me to obtrude on anyone’s privacy. If the university is uncomfortable with the word “recommend” for fear of liability, then perhaps the RA could just say, “We don’t normally do that. Here is a link to the university’s health service web site.”</p>
<p>I checked out our health service web site–it is not bad, actually. Aside from indicating that the health service is only open during normal business hours, it gives multiple links and phone numbers for after-hours care.</p>
<p>As another example: When H1N1 was circulating last year, students at some of the private schools could have meals brought to their dorm rooms. I attended a large, public university, where that kind of service was essentially unthinkable. If QMP had needed it, I wouldn’t have thought to suggest that it might be available. An RA might know something like that.</p>
<p>I see no harm in the RA’s providing impersonal information of that type, even if the information is going to the parent, rather than the student. If the school were forbidding the parents to contact the RA at all, why would the RA’s email address be given out?</p>
But for some reason no one ever seems to get sick or hurt during normal business hours. It seems that whenever something happens it’s on a Friday night or weekend. I don’t know if that’s Murphy’s law or someone else’s law.</p>
<p>Oh, goodie, I’m not alone! I’ve been completely grossed out by some of the photos my DS has texted me with the question, “do you think it’s broken?”! I’m waiting for the day when cell phones come equipped with an xray feature ;)</p>