4/7/23
Hi everyone, I hope you are well! In this week’s blog, I am going to talk about mental and physical health, wellness, and my experiences with the Health Center, getting prescriptions, and with going to therapy at Amherst. Please email me at sgoldsmith24@amherst.edu with any questions!
The Health Center
The Health Center at Amherst is right on campus, and students can make appointments online to be seen. They typically only take students by appointment only, but the other day I had terrible allergies and walked in and was able to get some strong allergy medicine quickly without needing an appointment. The Health Center is open from Monday-Friday, but if you need help after hours or on weekends, there is an on-call triage nurse who can assess your condition, help you, or recommend you go to urgent care or a hospital.
With regard to prescriptions, the Health Center will typically call in medicine they prescribe to you to the pharmacy at UMass. There is a courier that picks up these prescriptions five times a day and brings them to the Health Center on Amherst’s campus, making it very convenient for students. Sometimes, if I have a prescription refill for a medication that I brought from home, I just fill it at the CVS that is near Amherst’s campus and walk there to pick it up.
My last note on the Health Center is about patient advocacy. The nurses and doctors at the Health Center will advocate for you if you ever need accommodations or an extension due to a medical event. When I had my horrible allergies earlier this week, the nurse I spoke to make it very clear that I didn’t have to take an exam later that day if I didn’t want to, and all I needed to do was ask her to contact my professor. Details are kept confidential, of course, but the medical professionals at the Health Center are on your side.
The Counseling Center
The Counseling Center at Amherst has several therapists that students can meet with over extended periods of time, and also holds group therapy sessions for people with things in common (for example, marginalized identities or PTSD). I’ve been seeing a therapist at the Counseling Center for a year and a half, and while I really like her, the process of getting a therapist at Amherst is arduous. It is difficult to schedule an intake appointment, and they often must be planned months in advance. Obviously, this isn’t great if you have a semi-urgent problem that you need to talk about. I have friends who go to therapists in town or elsewhere instead of at Amherst, which works well for them. The advantages of therapy on campus is that it is free, and that it is nearby.
Wellness
In addition to the resources at the Health Center and the Counseling Center, several groups and departments at Amherst have wellness initiatives to improve the experiences of students at Amherst. The gym holds exercise classes several times a week, which include barre and introductory weightlifting, and there are also Zumba classes multiple times a week. Other organizations have events including Sleep Week and Sex Week to educate students about healthy practices.
Thank you for reading! Please email me if you have any questions at all.