About 10 days ago, I got sick. When I say sick, I mean full body chills, uncontrollable coughing, sleepless nights sick. It came on fast and it hit hard. Three days after it started I dragged myself to University Health Services and got checked out by a doctor.
This was my first time visiting UHS, and I hadn?t heard very good things about it. People plied me with all sorts of horror stories, warning me not to expect too much.
I had heard from other people that their experiences with the staff were unfriendly and generally not helpful. So when I arrived, weak and miserable, I was in for a very pleasant surprise.
The woman who treated me was Dr. Sharon Gleazen, and she did a wonderful job. She told me that all the signs pointed to the flu, although I had gotten a flu shot here on campus.
To make sure she wasn?t missing anything, she told me that she was going to check my breathing to make sure it wasn?t pneumonia. After holding her stethoscope to my back, she told me that she wanted me to listen to my right lung. I put the stethoscope up to my ears, took a deep breath, and didn?t hear a thing. It wasn?t until I listened to my left lung that I realized there wasn?t any air passing through my right lung.
Gleazen told me I probably had a pretty serious case of pneumonia. She managed to diagnose me, get me in the hospital for a chest X-ray and write me a prescription in less than two hours. As I left, she told me she would be on call all night and gave me a number that she said I could call at any time.
I did end up calling her at 2:00 a.m. and she was great about it. She listened to my problems and said she would call in another prescription that I could pick up the next day. She showed no signs of annoyance that I had interrupted her sleep with my problems.
On Gleazen?s advice, I headed home the next day for some rest. I had only been home for a day when she called to make sure I was feeling all right.
It was such a surprise to hear from her and once I hung up, I realized how impressed I was. She was going way beyond the call of duty to call me at home. I felt that she really was concerned about my health.
In that moment, Sharon Gleazen epitomized what all physicians should be, genuinely interested in the welfare of their patients.
Despite the negative things that I had heard about UHS, I was 100 percent satisfied with my visit. It is time to give credit where credit is due. There are a lot of good people at UHS who love their work and take it seriously ? Sharon Gleazen is one of them.
