Perhaps a new medical student has performed poorly on her first exam.
Perhaps the pressure of preparing a dissertation defense has a Ph.D. candidate feeling stressed.
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If you are interested in learning more about the Counseling and Student Development Center, click here.
The UNMC Counseling and Student Development Center is available to help.
The counseling center, headed by David Carver, Ph.D., was established in the mid-1980s at the request of the Student Senate.
It’s been serving students ever since.
Today, the office has three mental health professionals — licensed psychologists Dr. Carver and Elisabeth Sundermeier, Ph.D., and licensed mental health practitioner Kelly Swoboda.
The office provides professional counseling for academic performance, relationship problems or psychological issues such as depression. The services are free and confidential, with no electronic medical or academic records access to counseling files.
Recently, the office has boosted its stress management arsenal with a biofeedback program that can measure the effectiveness of particular relaxation techniques.
As awareness of the stress and burnout faced by health care professionals and students increases on campus, Dr. Carver said his office is collaborating with campus colleagues involved in wellness planning.
“There are a lot of different places people may contact when they’re looking for help,” he said. “So it’s important for those sources to know what our counseling center offers to students and residents.”
The office is located on the sixth floor of Bennett Hall — a comfortable distance, Dr. Carver points out, from most academic program and faculty offices, but still easily accessible.
Students who come to the center start with an intake process where a psychologist or counselor helps them to prioritize the issues they wish to address.
“Then we work with students to develop an action plan to help them feel better and deal with the problems they are experiencing,” Dr. Carver said. “There’s always a dialogue about that, because it’s crucial in counseling for students to buy into the plan.”
Offering free counseling to students is “a tradition for many university counseling services across the country,” he said. “At UNMC we have great support for our office from the chancellor, academic administrators, faculty, and student leaders.”
Familiar with all UNMC programs, the office is prepared to address stresses that may be particular to each discipline. “A graduate Ph.D. student, for instance, has different challenges academically than a medical student,” Dr. Carver said. “They’re both high level, demanding programs, but quite different in some respects — for example, the timing of when things get especially stressful.”
Dr. Carver is a highly skilled professional, and a good person that cares about students. I am concerned however that the cause of the high rates of stress and burnout problems experienced by students at UNMC goes well beyond the normal stresses that all students face during classes, research, and qualifying exams. Many of the problems can only be resolved at the level of ethics. As an actively contributing member of the UNMC values team, it is my hope that the new values will be properly enforced to protect students’ wellbeing and fully realize the mission statement.