Bulimia in med school

[Guest MDintraining]

Anyone know what I should do if I am pretty sure that a med school classmate has bulimia. I want to do something but I also don't want to intrude on her privacy since we are classmates... also if I do something, it might mean she needs to take time off for treatment... has anyone ever dealt with a similar situation??? Is it possible to get treatment/help without taking time off? That would mean a lot fewer people would need to know. I am really worried about this so if anyone can offer advice on how to deal with this best, please write back.

 

MDinTraining

[Guest Steve MD09]

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1-800-851-6606

[Guest 24medgirl]

What school are you attending? There might be an outpatient ED clinic in the area you can contact for guidance.

[Guest satsumargirl]

Hi There,

 

I had an old roomate in undergrad with bulemia. I figured it out because my room happened to be accross from the bathroom and so I could hear her throwing up ...and the thing that raised the red light was that everytime she did, she would have the bath water running.

 

Being worried about her I did confront her on the matter. I just pointed out that I noticed she was often sick and was concerned that she wasn`t well. (ie. I didn`t just say...hey, are you bulemic?). After a bit of talking she admitted she had bulemia. And she was absolutely positively shocked that I had found out since she had had it since high school and had managed to hide it from everyone in her family and all her friends. It was good to talk to her because I found out she had actually been in professional therapy for 3 years..so that was relief for me that she was at least being followed by a doctor and psychologist.

 

This group was run throught he university...so check with your school's health services to see if they have such programs and that way if your classmate is open to the idea, you can at least direct her toward professional help. Also check to see if your faculty has a specific counselling type program for medical students in particular. Here at Ottawa they mentionned this service at the beginning of the year, but I dont`remember the specifics. But perhaps your faculty has a similar set-up.

 

Of course, once she opened up, it just came pouring out. So if you do confront your classmate be prepared for that! And in my case, I was the only person outside her therapy group that she told, and this resulted in a bit more burden that I was barganing for at the time (but there were things beyond the bulemia in the mix of problems I discovered)

 

That was my experience. So...how you approach it depends on your relationship, your comfort level etc. Perhaps you can access the above mentionned services at your school and ask them for advice on how to best approach this student.

 

Hope that helps and good luck.

Sats

[Guest leviathan]

It's shocking how much you end up finding out about someone when you are their roommate. Unfortunately the success rate for bulimia isn't high (I think it is even lower than anorexia), but I would try to raise the issue in a non-confronting way, depending on how close you are to the person. Why do you suspect they are bulimic? Perhaps you can raise the issue with her through an open-ended question.