Inside the medical leave decision
Eight students share their experiences with mental health and the administration
This story accompanies an Orient feature. To read the full story click here.
Photo by: Victoria Pavlatos
After sustaining a concussion during a volleyball game, Austin Goldsmith ’18 met with her dean who strongly advised Goldsmith to take a voluntary medical leave, a suggestion which Goldsmith resisted and finally decided against. That spring, Goldsmith sustained another concussion, and this time conceded to Lohmann’s recommendation that she return home.
“When the decision was floating around first semester I felt very helpless. As much as the handbook gives you information, it’s so unclear and it’s so vague. It was just so murky in terms of is this my decision, is this [my dean’s] decision, what power or autonomy do I have, do I have any [power] at all to say no? Am I out of place here to be saying, ‘no I don’t want to go home?’ ... Or am I sticking up for myself? ... I don’t know if that’s a problem with Bowdoin or a problem with me being afraid to stand up to [my dean]. Probably both ... I think the biggest thing felt like a lot of times the decision wasn’t mine. That my opinion mattered but it wasn’t my decision.” 
Photo by: Victoria Yu
Still suffering from the effects of a prior concussion, Jacqueline Colao ’17 left Bowdoin after a day and a half into her orientation trip and decided to take a gap year, as suggested by her dean. Colao re-matriculated the following fall, yet struggled again with her concussion her sophomore fall. While Colao successfully petitioned the Recording Committee to take two classes that semester, she did not want to go through the process of appealing again and so she decided to take three classes her sophomore spring and junior year.
“The thing about concussions is that you don't know how long they're going to last ... If I knew that taking a semester off would really help me heal, I would have done it. But I didn't know if that would have even helped, and so then I would just be pushing my graduation date back further for no reason. The summer after my sophomore year I found these doctors [who are] the only people who have made any progress with my [concussion]. If I hadn’t gone to those doctors I really believe I wouldn’t have gotten any better ... Taking time off wouldn’t have helped at all ... I think it was definitely the right decision to stay.” 
Photo by: Hy Khong
Struggling with the lasting effects of a concussion sustained at the end of her sophomore year, Juliet Eyraud ’16 elected to take three courses that did not require her to look at screens in the fall of her junior year. Later that semester, she faced course selection for the spring, she realized her symptoms persisted. After consulting with a concussion specialist, she decided to take the spring off rather than endure another semester of avoiding screens.
“I was talking to my advisor about how because of my inability to look at screens, I wasn’t really getting the most out of my time at Bowdoin. For the cost that Bowdoin is, [you should] make sure you’re making the most out of it. I was really resistant to the idea of graduating later than my friends at first, and so after that conversation I was pretty upset and didn’t know if I wanted to do it and once I realized that it was an option and that taking the semester off would be really helpful to my healing, then I said, OK, it’s fine.” 
Photo by: Hy Khong
After hospitalization for mental health issues last spring, Megan Retana ’19 packed up her things and went home, per the strong recommendation of Counseling and her dean. Over the summer, her dean informed Retana’s mother that Counseling and the dean’s office believed Retana should take a voluntary medical leave that fall semester as well.
“[The deans and Counseling] knew I wanted to stay at Bowdoin and my mom had been advocating for me to go back in the Fall cause we both thought I could do it and then them saying no—I think part of it has to do with how fragile the situation was. Like there were liability issues, Counseling was concerned about my well being while I had a different opinion on what that was or what would help me. But now, since the semester is halfway through, there aren’t any other things to clear up. Most things have been hashed out.” 
Photo by: Victoria Yu
KeVonté Anderson ’15 returned to campus his junior spring from a semester abroad in Ghana and felt Bowdoin was not the right place for him at that time. He and Counseling Services decided that taking a medical leave would be the best option for him, so he received approval from his dean to take a medical leave.
“At that point I had reached out to all of my teachers and my family and was like, this is the best decision for me. Then the day I was going to leave, I get word from my Dean saying, we changed our mind we don’t think that this is a good idea for you to go, you should just stick it out. At that point I had already bought my ticket, pulled myself from my classes—so effectively I had just dropped out of school because I wasn’t going back on what I had already done.”
“I get a call from my dean. This is six, seven, eight months after I had dropped out, and they were like, ‘is there any way you’re considering returning to Bowdoin, we know that you had made a decision to leave and never come back.’ So then, long story short, I ended up coming back to Bowdoin a year and a half later.” 
Photo by: Darius Riley
Anna Reyes ’15 took a voluntary medical leave six weeks into her first spring semester at Bowdoin. She was dealing with mental health issues and was having trouble acclimating to the Bowdoin social scene and fell into unhealthy substance patterns. Reyes returned the next spring and felt as if her time off helped her find her place at Bowdoin.
“I realized I wasn’t in a place to stay with school [my first spring at Bowdoin]. I had a lot of underlying depression and trauma that I wasn’t really processing because I was so caught up with school and trying to stay afloat and feeling like I’d already fallen behind... Also, I was getting really suicidal. It got to the point where I decided ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”
“I think Bowdoin is fragmented in so many different areas in general that I think the deans’ point of view on health is very different from counseling’s point of view on health and students’ view of health.”
“For me at least, taking that time off was super helpful. It really set the tone to… remind myself that my own mental health and my mental well-being is the most important thing about this time.” 
Photo by: Ashley Koatz
The summer before her junior year at Bowdoin Uma Blanchard sustained her third concussion. After having difficulty with her schoolwork upon returning to school, Blanchard petitioned the Recording Committee to take two classes. The Recording Committee denied her petition, and she decided to remain at school while taking three courses.
“[My concussion] was really affecting my academic work, and there was kind of a back and forth between my deans and my parents about whether to take time off… I felt safer seeing someone who wasn’t connected to the dean’s office and wasn’t feeding me the Bowdoin line, which I feel is pretty much always ‘you should go home.’”
“[My dean’s] line was basically that if you can’t take three classes, you shouldn’t be here—a Bowdoin student should be able to take three classes. The Recording Committee denied my request with no explanation—they deny your request and that’s all you get.” 
Photo by: Kayli Weiss
After sustaining her fourth concussion during volleyball practice, Sarah Trenton ’18 went to see team physician Dr. Michael Pleacher, who works off-campus. He suggested that she take a medical leave; she was able to go home for Thanksgiving without going on official leave and finish her classes from home while also recovering. She returned to campus the next semester.
“When I went home for Thanksgiving I saw a neurologist, and I was just an emotional wreck, because concussions affect your neurological emotions more than anything, and I would say that I was pretty depressed as well. So when I was talking to my neurologist, he said ‘do you want to go back?’ I said ‘no, I know myself and I’m not myself and I need to see out the next month from home.’”
“Given what Bowdoin means to me and given how small it is I couldn’t imagine taking a semester off, coming back my junior year, and then having to stay an extra semester after my senior year.”
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