Accommodations for mental illness

[hedgehogcatcher]

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[LetItSnow]

My question is, do any of you know what kind of accommodations vet schools provide for disabilities/mental illness? Specifically, if I need to miss classes or take a medical leave, would they be willing to provide support and resources for that? Do they have a good student health center with reasonable costs? How's the stigma?

I'm applying to UCDavis, Virginia-Maryland, Colorado State, Oregon State, and University of Calgary (since that's where I'm from) for starters.

In general, their approach here is that they will do whatever is needed to "level the playing field." What sort of accommodations they make are dependent on what the student needs to accomplish that goal. If you have really severe test anxiety, they'll do something like let you take it in a room by yourself (well, with a proctor). The key is that it has to be well-documented by a medical professional.

So I guess the question you need to ask is: What could they do to help me manage my illness?

As far as stigma ... I don't have any documented disabilities ('dumb' doesn't count, apparently), but my perception is there isn't a stigma. I know several people here with accommodations, and nobody thinks twice about it.

 

[bunnity]

I think the best thing you can do is be proactive and get yourself registered with the school's disability center up front... I think it's a lot easier to take care of those things ahead of time compared to if you are already having a hard time.

My GF has bipolar II and my big advice from watching her experience is to not change your meds around during the semester if at all possible. As I am sure you know the med changes can be brutal and disrupt your life a lot. I think it will also help if you are really strict with yourself about sleep schedule and making sure you take care of yourself. And make sure you have a good support system including a good psychiatrist (there are definitely some better than others).

Feel free to ask me more stuff... if there's anything I can help with as the partner of someone with bipolar I will be happy to.

Sorry, I guess I didn't really answer your question. I had zero issues getting a leave of absence for mental health-ish issues (first year really didn't agree with me!)... the only thing is I had to take a full year off, because the classes move so fast and have to go in order. I also know of people at my school that have test taking accomodations and even an instance of a special schedule that broke up the hardest year (second year) into two years. So I would say my school (Penn) has been very accomodating from what I've seen... I'm guessing others would be similar.

 

[psilovethomas]

I was diagnosed with mental health illnesses a year before vet school, and was also put on medication. I had these problems for most of my adolescent and adult life, but finally came to terms with it. I, too, was worried about how I would cope in vet school, since most of it was triggered by stress. The school psychiatrist told me I could get a disability "passport" that allows special testing accommodations. She never mentioned that it would excuse any absences, though. I don't want to go into much detail in this thread, so PM me if you want more info.

I would just like to say that a mental illness is a disease. If you need time between now and vet school to figure out how to make things work and figure out how you need to function while dealing with it, please take the time off. I wish I would have! If you have a lapse and need [extended] time off, you will most likely be recycled to the next class. Best of luck..

 

[LetItSnow]

The school psychiatrist told me I could get a disability "passport" that allows special testing accommodations. She never mentioned that it would excuse any absences, though

I think that (at least here at UMN) there is no one-size-fits-all solution. If the disability you bring to the table calls for taking the tests separate from the rest of class - great. If it's severe migraines, you might need to be able to leave on short notice. If it's a hearing problem, they'll need to find some way to make sure you can receive the lecture material (people to type it, lecture capture, movie-theater-style earphones, whatever).

I've been pretty impressed with our school. I imagine other schools are similarly flexible with legitimate disabilities. If anything, I think they err too much on the side of bending over backwards - which is the right side to err on, IMO.

 

[psilovethomas]

If anything, I think they err too much on the side of bending over backwards - which is the right side to err on, IMO.

MSU recognizes many disabilities and is very accommodating- at least that's how it was in UG, so I'm sure it is the same way in vet school. We are one of the most handicap friendly schools in the country. Our crosswalks talk.

 

[hedgehogcatcher]

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[Minnerbelle]

Other than that, having a lot of consistency and predictability in and out of class would be super helpful. I know I have questions about how good profs are about posting due dates/exam dates way ahead of time (pop quizzes would kind of suck stress-wise), and having very clear and consistent expectations and grading rubrics, for one. I can manage regardless, but it's stressful to be even a little bit unsure about what I need to do.

I would work on this part now before going to vet school. You need to be okay with totally unpredictable and sometimes what appears to be unfair grading. The more you stress about this kind of stuff in vet school (and can happen pretty often considering how many clinicians can teach one class, and many are not great teachers), the less you have to be productive. And efficiency is key, when it comes to making it unscathed through vet school!

 

[LetItSnow]

I can manage regardless, but it's stressful to be even a little bit unsure about what I need to do.

There's not much a school can do about that. And it's going to be a fact of life in the workforce, too.

Dunno about other schools, but our test schedules are almost entirely set at the beginning of semester. They can move around a tiny bit (we'll occasionally move an exam date to make a week more tolerable), but generally they don't.

I've yet to have a 'pop quiz' in vet school in classes, but pretty much any time I spend with a clinician it's essentially one ongoing pop quiz. 😛

Yer gonna have to be able to manage those kinds of things, no doubt about it.

 

[485501]

I'm not in vet school yet, but I can offer some advice about getting accomodations in general: Have very good, up-to-date documentation, and have someone with an MD who you can call if the Disabilities Services people get snippy at you. In high school and college there were times when DS tried to take away my accomodations "because I was doing well in my classes." I even had one person say "Why don't you just try a semester without accomodations and if you do badly, you can have them back the next semester."

So I had my doctor call and explain to them that she was my doctor, not them, and I should keep my accomodations, because they were necessary for my well-being, and the DS people stopped being snippy. It didn't seem to matter what I said, but if someone with an MD said it, they listened.

That may be different in vet school, and it may be different for a mental illness (mine is a brain injury), but if I were you, I'd make absolutely sure there was someone with an MD who could advocate for me if necessary.