Mental Health Needs Support Watkins Clinic Director Says
Page 3
(The final article in a two part order)
University Daily Kansan
By Charlie Corcoran
Mental health is everybody's business, according to Dr. Sidney O. Schroeder, director of the KU Mental Health Clinic in Watkins Hospital.
"Mental health is part of the general problem of a student's health and welfare. It cannot be handled simply by providing for the counseling and psychiatric needs of certain students who may have specific problems," Dr. Schroeder said. "It consists in developing an atmosphere which allows each student to reach his greatest potential, both academically and as a human being."
"In this area, the aims of educators, counselors, pastors and mental health workers are the same. It is by cooperative effort that these common aims can be most nearly realized," he said.
THE BULK of the cases handled at the clinic, part of the Student Health Service (and thus covered by semester fees), involve students who visit on their own initiative. At times, however, immediate and urgent problems arise. Some individuals develop acute emotional disturbances and become suicidal, combative and physically destructive.
Last year about 30 of the 300 students who received mental aid in the clinic had taken an overdose of some sort of medicine. Sixty-seven students of last year's total were hospitalized for about a week,
Dr. Schroeder said the clinic helps students by "slowing them down and letting them look at things."
DR. SCHROEDER began psychiatric training at the Menninger Foundation in 1960 "after dealing with the emotional problems of my patients as a general practitioner for 13 years." He came to KU in July, 1963.
For 13 years, up to 1980, Dr. Schroeder was in general practice. At that time the 45-year-old physician came to a point where he felt he had to decide if general practice was what he wanted for the rest of his life.
"I didn't have enough time to devote to my family," he said. "I was debating whether or not I should go into psychiatry and was hesitant to tell my wife. When I made the slightest mention of it, she was all for it. She gave me continued support through it all."
"A number of people who are seriously ill psychiatrically will refuse aid or deny their illnesses," he said. "It's the ones that come in on their own that are in a state where we can help them in a short time."
most under their own volition.
"The Mental Health staff offer students psychiatric examination and evaluations (diagnoses), psychological testing as indicated, short term psycho-therapy when staff time is available and supportive treatment of persons with chronic mental illness while they are students," Dr. Schroeder said.
"SHORT TERM hospitalization, prescriptions and management of medication for conditions requiring drug treatment are also offered," the doctor said.
"We do occasional consultative psychiatry examinations at the request of academic and administrative departments of the University, but this is a very small part of our work," he said.
Students who would like consultation in the clinic need not feel any hesitation. Dr. Schroeder said All records and meetings are absolutely confidential.
The clinic's staff is composed of three full-time employees, a psychiatrist and two psychologists. Two senior residents, both physicians, from the Menninger Foundation in Topeka are on the staff on a part-time basis.
THE CLINIC'S director, Dr. Schroeder, was graduated from KU 20 years ago. He received his medical degree from the KU School of
Medicine in Kansas City and served as an intern in Kansas City General Hospital No. 1 before entering the Army. After two years in military neuro-psychiatry, he returned to Kansas City General as a resident
Thursday, Jan. 9, 1964
Candidate Hopeful to Address CYR
A possible candidate for the Kansas gubernatorial nomination will speak to the KU chapter of the Collegiate Young Republicans tonight.
McDill "Huck" Boyd, Republican chairman of the first district, will address the CYR's at their meeting at 7:30 in the Jayhawk Room of the Kansas Union.
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Trip to Russia Will Conclude Summer Study
A Russian language institute will be held for the second summer under the joint co-operation of the University of Colorado and KU in Russian language town in Finland.
The program runs ten weeks, beginning June 1, and is concluded with a two-week trip to the Soviet Union.
Initiated last year under a Carnegie Corporation grant of $67,000 for three summers, the program costs each student $1,150. However, scholarships of up to $850 are available on the basis of financial need.
LAST YEAR, 40 students attended. About one-third were from KU, one-third from CU, and the remaining third from schools around the nation. About the same number is expected again this year.
Conversation is emphasized in the instruction, along with work in grammar and composition. Students with about 10 hours of Russian are urged to attend, according to Sam Anderson, associate professor of Slavic Languages and KU representative to the institute staff.
AN ADDITIONAL TEN hours of college credit is given to student participants in the summer program.
Seal's only complaint was that the villagers were difficult to get acquainted with. There was very little opportunity to use Russian outside the school, Seal said.
The Finnish town in which the institute is held- Jarvenpaa, a village of about 600 population—was populated by Russian refugees who immigrated during the Russian Revolution, Anderson said.
OTHER RUSSIANS settled in Jarvenpaa during the chaotic days when the U.S.S.R. invaded Finland before World War II.
"The town is set in beautiful scenery," Anderson said, "full of pines, jakes, and forests."
DAVID SEAL. Independence, Mo., senior and an institute student last year, said the program put him far ahead of fellow Russian students who had a comparable number of hours but had not attended the institute.
"I couldn't talk at all in Russian before the summer started." Seal said. "Now I can carry on a conversation on most subjects, and I write a girl in Russian who lives in Helsinki."
He added that the Finnish people treat Americans with great courtesy.