“Sykes will help you communicate absences and such with your teachers, so you can prioritize your health and wellness,” reads a poster stationed in the women’s restroom of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL). One of many, posters such as these advertise the Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center’s (Sykes) capacity to excuse students who are feeling unwell from their regular classes. Despite the prevalence of such flyers across various campus buildings, the Sykes policy for absences and general care has remained ambiguous, and is not enumerated in The Blue Book.
In an email to The Phillipian, Amy Patel, Dean of Health and Wellness and Chief Medical Officer, explained that Sykes’ medical decision-making requires caregivers to analyze various symptoms, and make an individualized decision based on the student. Patel elaborated on how Sykes would respond to serious medical issues with prominent symptoms and immediate side effects.
“Certain medical conditions, such as fevers, ongoing vomiting and diarrhea, and new head injuries (to name just a few examples) require closer monitoring and care for a period of time. Students with those conditions will either go home or stay in Sykes until they are meeting at least minimum thresholds for feeling better. There are general guidelines (based on clinical assessment) but not strict criteria for when a student might stay longer when they are not feeling well. Each student is assessed as an individual, with their specific health history and symptoms in mind, and an individualized care plan is developed. When a student is sick with an infectious illness, they need to prioritize the basics like sleep and good nutrition, and keep stress levels low to promote recovery,” wrote Patel.
For milder concerns, Patel described a process of continual evaluation. Students will often first be permitted to rest for a shorter amount of time. Then, their condition is reevaluated at the end of that period to determine how to proceed.
Patel continued, “Students might need to rest for a period of time with any number of symptoms, including menstrual pain. This is often a discussion between the student and the medical clinician, and a plan is developed that might need to be shifted based on the response to treatment. For example, the plan might be to hydrate, take a medication to relieve symptoms, and rest for one class period. But if that ends up being too little time and symptoms persist, the plan will be updated based on the response to the treatment.”
However, some students reported feeling as if Sykes’ care has fallen short. Madelyn Esposito ’27 has heard about how students with menstrual pain have felt as if the care was not sufficient, despite posters around campus promising adequate care.
“I haven’t had experience with it myself, but I’ve heard that other people, if they’re having really bad cramps or headaches or something like that, and they’d like to be excused from a class or from their sport, Sykes has told them no. They’ve given them an Advil and told them to go along with your day. It doesn’t feel necessarily hypocritical, but it’s in all the girls bathrooms [on campus]. There’s posters about how if you need help managing period symptoms, you can go to Sykes, and Sykes will be there to support you. So for students that are seeking help in managing their period symptoms, in terms of maybe getting an excuse from a sport at the very least, and then they’re told no, it feels like that support isn’t there,” said Esposito.
For many students, deciding whether or not to go to Sykes becomes a question of choosing between their different commitments. Colin Lee ’28 described a moment when a friend of his believed Sykes would not be able to get him an extension on a project, and instead opted to not go.
“I think there are times when people don’t want to go to Sykes, because going to Sykes can take away your agency in ways. For example, I had a friend who was feeling pretty sick, and he didn’t want to go to Sykes because he had work due. He didn’t have medication, because you can’t have medication in the dorm. He was feeling sick at night while he’s trying to finish a project, and he knew he’s not sick enough for Sykes to give him the day off or an extension on the project. So he just sat in his room in pain for around an hour until he could finish the project. That’s pretty terrible, that [he didn’t] have the option to go to Sykes, because he didn’t believe that Sykes would let him go back to the dorm if he went. Being scared of asking for help is never a place you want the students to be in,” said Lee.
Lee noted that increasing Sykes’ authority so they can give excuses from academics and assignments may alleviate the balancing act that Sykes often carries out in order to support students.
“If [Sykes was] able to be more flexible and had more flexible authority, they could give situational help. For example, my friend who was sick in the middle of night, maybe they could have given him the meds and let him go, or in some way had the authority to give him more time. Something like that, where they have the power to give him the help he needs both medically and in terms of his academics, or how his health would impact his academics,” said Lee.
Matthew Truong ’27 highlighted the differences between the boarding and day sickness excuse policies. As a day student himself, Truong mentioned the role of both household and school judgements in deciding whether or not to approve absences.
“If you’re a day student, you just call in and describe why, what are your symptoms, why you’re not going to school, and they always ask for your parents’ confirmation. Every household is different, so some students go to school even when they’re mildly sick, and some students take a day off. [When I was sick], I called in, I said that I was feeling a little tired. [Sykes] asked for my symptoms, so I just told them I was feeling a bit of fatigue, and not going to school. They always try to get you to go to school if you’re not feeling too bad because skipping school at Andover is kind of tough, but you receive an excuse for absences,” said Truong.
Esposito expressed her desire for clearer communication between Sykes and the student body surrounding medical decision-making. Esposito noted that clinical diagnoses and treatment plans are hard to standardize, though emphasized that regardless, the effort to do is important in increasing students’ comfort and security on campus.
“One thing that Andover does struggle with is consistency in their standards and making those standards or changes clear. When it comes to Sykes and promoting wellness, making it clear what would constitute an excuse, versus ‘just take some Advil or some ibuprofen and go but suck it up,’ would be helpful, especially in terms of periods,” said Esposito. “It’s always going to be difficult to make it clear what constitutes an excuse and what doesn’t, because there’s a lot of subjectivity to it. I’m no doctor, but I understand where the difficulty comes from. But it can make it a bit hard for students to feel like they can prioritize their well-being.”
