Backstory
What started as a routine transfer to a new psychiatrist at Georgia Southern University ultimately led to campus police involvement, a student conduct case, years of complaints to outside agencies, and completely changed the way I view university mental health care.
When I first became a patient at Georgia Southern Health Services in Fall 2022, I actually had a positive experience. As a sophomore, I relied on the clinic to manage my ADHD, treatment resistant depression, and autism. At the time, the university did not have a psychiatrist on staff, so one of the primary care physicians handled my psychiatric medications. That arrangement worked well, and I never imagined it would eventually become one of the worst experiences I have ever had with the healthcare system.
Everything changed in early 2023 when Health Services hired its first psychiatrist, Dr. Julie Gauss. If anything, I was excited. I thought finally working with an actual psychiatric specialist would mean more personalized, evidence based care and someone who understood complicated cases like mine.
Instead, my very first appointment raised concerns that, looking back, foreshadowed everything that followed.
Dr. Gauss told me she had “some reservations” about the antidepressant that had finally helped my treatment resistant depression after I had already failed multiple first and second line medications, including SSRIs and bupropion. At the time, I did not think much of it. I assumed we simply had different treatment philosophies and that we would be able to work together.
Unfortunately, that never happened.
Over the next several months, I felt like every discussion revolved around what Dr. Gauss was not comfortable prescribing instead of what would actually help me function. Before she would even consider prescribing ADHD medication, she required a urine drug screen despite me having no history of substance misuse. I agreed because I wanted to cooperate and establish trust. The test came back without anything concerning, yet I was still started on a dose that I had already explained was unlikely to work based on my previous treatment history. When it predictably was not enough, I had to push just to get the dose increased. At one point she even suggested splitting an extended release capsule before realizing that was not even possible. Later, when I explained that the medication was not lasting long enough and asked about trying an immediate release regimen instead, she immediately shut the idea down because she was not comfortable with it. She also refused to prescribe a 90 day supply even though the previous physician at the exact same clinic had done exactly that.
Looking back now, I think the biggest problem was not any single prescribing decision. It was Dr. Gauss’s overall philosophy toward psychiatric care. Everything seemed to revolve around avoiding perceived risks instead of working collaboratively with me to find solutions. She was also so anti cannabis that Georgia’s medical cannabis program was never even discussed as a possible option, despite my history of treatment resistant depression and multiple failed antidepressants. Years later, after transferring my care elsewhere, my current psychiatrist looked over my history and told me I was a “perfect candidate” for Georgia’s medical cannabis program. Hearing that honestly made me angry. I understand psychiatrists can disagree about cannabis, but I wish my care had focused more on harm reduction and individualized treatment instead of immediately dismissing an option that another psychiatrist later believed fit my case extremely well.
Even with all of those disagreements, I was still trying to make the relationship work. What finally pushed everything over the edge was not a disagreement about medication. It was a refill.
Before leaving Statesboro for a summer software engineering job, I explained that my medication was delivered by mail, that it typically took about six days to arrive, and that I would be living away from home for work. I believed we had planned around that. Instead, I discovered that my refill had effectively been delayed until the day I would run out, making it impossible for my medication to reach me before my supply was gone. Through no fault of my own, I was suddenly facing several days without the medication I relied on to do my job.
I immediately reached out through the patient portal trying to get the situation fixed before I ran out. My messages went unanswered. Then, by accident, I was copied on an internal email where Dr. Gauss told the medical director that she was intentionally not responding because my messages contained what she described as “inflammatory comments regarding my patient care.” That was the moment I realized nobody was actually trying to solve the problem anymore.
So on June 29, 2023, I did exactly what patients are supposed to do. I used the official complaint process.
I contacted Kim Packer, the Quality Compliance Officer at Georgia Southern Health Services, because I wanted someone outside my treatment team to objectively review what had happened before I ran out of medication. At first, the conversation actually gave me hope. She offered to arrange a meeting between me, Dr. Gauss, and the medical director, and I immediately agreed because that was exactly what I had been asking for.
Then the conversation completely changed.
Before anyone had investigated my concerns, she told me she expected “nothing will change.” That completely defeated the purpose of the complaint process. I had not even been given a chance to explain everything before the person responsible for quality assurance had apparently already decided my concerns were not worth taking seriously. When I explained that I was about to run out of my ADHD medication because of the refill issue, she accused me of abusing it. When I asked for the medical director to review my care instead, she interrupted me and asked why I even continued seeing Dr. Gauss. I reminded her that I paid the mandatory student health fee specifically so I could receive psychiatric care through the university. Her response was to tell me that I needed to “watch my behavior” or they could terminate me as a patient.
That was the moment I completely lost my temper.
I have never denied that. I said things that were vulgar, disrespectful, and completely inappropriate. I regret saying them, and I have taken responsibility for them ever since.
What I have never accepted is how the university responded.
At the time this phone call happened, I was not even in Statesboro. I was living out of town because I was working my summer software engineering job. Instead of recognizing that an autistic patient had become emotionally overwhelmed while desperately trying to prevent a lapse in psychiatric treatment, Health Services escalated the situation into a campus police matter. That is still one of the hardest parts for me to understand. I was not outside the clinic. I was not driving to campus. I was not anywhere near Health Services. I was hours away trying to resolve a dispute about my psychiatric care through the exact complaint process the university instructed patients to use.
From my perspective, the response completely missed the point. Rather than asking why one of their psychiatric patients had become so distressed that he reached this point, the focus immediately shifted toward protecting the institution and its newest psychiatrist. Campus police became involved, I was removed from psychiatric care, and I eventually found myself going through the student conduct process because I tried to challenge the quality of the care I received.
That experience permanently changed the way I view Georgia Southern Health Services.
Before all of this, I genuinely believed that if a patient raised serious concerns through the proper channels, someone independent would objectively evaluate what happened and either explain why the care was appropriate or work to improve it. Instead, I walked away believing the complaint process existed primarily to protect the institution from criticism. I felt like the moment I challenged the quality of my care, I stopped being viewed as a patient who needed help and started being viewed as a problem that needed to be managed.
That is why I am telling this story today. This has never been about trying to excuse the way I reacted on that phone call. It has always been about asking why a complaint process that should have de-escalated an autistic patient in crisis instead escalated into police involvement, termination from psychiatric care, and years of fighting simply to have my concerns taken seriously. I believe students deserve better than that, and I hope my experience helps ensure that no one else has to go through what I did.