Advice on how to transfer
I genuinely need some advice because after what I witnessed today, I do not know how I am supposed to feel comfortable continuing at AUA.
I am currently a Med 3 student, and I already had serious concerns about the way the school is run. Policies seem to change constantly, often with little notice, and students are expected to simply adjust. We repeatedly hear about how much “support” is available to us and about the programs and departments that are supposedly in place to help students, but my experience has been very different.
Today, however, went beyond academics or administrative frustration.
I witnessed a student have a seizure on campus, and what scared me almost as much as the medical emergency itself was seeing how unprepared the university appeared to be for it.
There was no clearly posted emergency number that any of us could immediately identify. There were no obvious instructions around the school explaining who to call or what students should do during a medical emergency.
Thankfully, several students nearby knew what they were doing. They stepped in, protected the student, helped stabilize the situation, and started trying to find appropriate assistance. But from what I witnessed, it took more than 20 minutes before meaningful outside help was located.
What happens if the next emergency is cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, a severe asthma attack, hypoglycemia, or another condition where minutes genuinely matter?
What was also disturbing was how long it appeared to take for senior administration to become involved. The dean did not arrive until roughly 40 minutes into the situation. When everything was finally settling down, he ended by saying something along the lines of, “I hope you all learned something today.”
I think we did.
What many students learned today was that we need to know how to protect one another because we cannot assume an effective emergency response system will immediately be there for us.
This is a medical school. If there is anywhere that should have a clearly defined emergency protocol, posted emergency numbers, trained personnel, functioning communication procedures, AED locations, and a rapid response plan, it should be a medical school. It took OVER an hour to get her in an ambulance!
I have only been at AUA for about a year, but I had already heard stories from students about serious incidents that occurred before I arrived, including the death of a student several years ago after being struck by a vehicle. I was not here when that happened, so I cannot personally speak to how the university handled it. But after what I personally witnessed today, those stories are much harder to simply brush aside.
My concern is no longer just whether AUA will support me academically.
I am questioning whether I can trust the institution to protect or appropriately respond to its students during an actual emergency.
I am not writing this to attack individual faculty members or the people who eventually came to help. I am writing it because today exposed what appears to be a serious gap in basic emergency preparedness.
Students should not have to discover during a medical crisis that they do not know who to call.
There should be emergency numbers posted throughout campus. There should be a clear protocol communicated to every student and employee. There should be designated trained responders. Students should know exactly where AEDs, first-aid supplies, and emergency equipment are located. And when an emergency occurs, the response should be immediate and organized.
Today could have ended very differently.
I sincerely hope the university treats this as a warning and fixes these problems before there is an emergency where 10, 20, or 40 minutes makes the difference between someone going home and someone not going home at all.
For anyone who currently attends AUA or has attended in the past: am I overreacting, or have you had similar experiences with safety, emergencies, or student support? At this point, I genuinely do not know what to do. There is zero support here. Pure cash grab.