Cornell Cuts Suicide Rate in Half

The following is about university students and not combat veterans. I thought it was very useful when addressing what can be done when people care enough to get involved.

At one point in my marriage, I went to a crisis center. I was working for a group of psychiatrists at the time as a receptionist. My husband seemed suicidal, about at the worst I had ever seen him. The woman at the center chastised me telling me that I was violating his privacy by trying to save his life. Imagine that kind of attitude! I went to her to find out what I could do to save his life. She told me I was trying to play God. Needless to say, she wasn't aware I worked for the group. I turned to the head of the group who was on vacation at the time. I got my husband into the hospital. As for the woman who worked in the crisis center, she didn't work there anymore after that.

If you think we cannot make a difference in someone else's life, then we won't act. But if we are aware at the difference we can make, we are motivated.



Cornell Cuts Suicide Rate in Half
by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
January 1, 2008

Cornell University has made the controversial decision that a human life is worth more than strict privacy rules. As a result, it has cut its suicide rate amongst students in half in the past 6 years (as compared to the previous 6 years when this policy wasn’t in place).

At the same time while undergraduate enrollment at Cornell has declined during most of the 2000’s, visits to the school’s counseling center have nearly doubled, from just over 11,000 in 2000 to nearly 20,000 in 2007. This may also help account for the reduction in the suicide rate.

After years in which many colleges have said privacy rules prevent them from interceding with troubled students, Cornell is taking the opposite tack.

Its “alert team” of administrators, campus police and counselors meets weekly to compare notes on signs of student emotional problems. People across campus, from librarians to handymen, are trained to recognize potentially dangerous behavior. And starting this year, Cornell is taking advantage of a rarely used legal exception to student-privacy rights: It is assuming students are dependents of their parents, allowing the school to inform parents of concerns without students’ permission.

Cornell made changes in how they take care of their students, willing to play an active role. There has to be a line drawn on privacy but simply reaching out to someone hurting and needing help is not stepping on privacy. It's not like they are broadcasting someone is in mental duress over the PA system.

When people are hurting mentally, they are usually the last ones to acknowledge they need help. Most figure they will just "get over it" and tomorrow will be a better day. We all get depressed and feel like today was the day we shouldn't have gotten out of bed. There is a big difference between having a case of the "blues" and being ill. Only experts know which is which. If it's suspected that someone is in need of help, we should be able to try to do something about it. I hope more institutions decide that caring about someone's life is not the same as violating their privacy. I really hope the military community follows the same procedures as what worked for Cornell.

As for privacy, I don't use my married name so that I can protect my husband's privacy as well as my family's. This isn't something that I have to do for our sake. He's in treatment and has the help he needs. I could have become part of the "I got mine screw you club" but what good would that do to other people? I don't want to see another veteran commit suicide like my husband's nephew did and a lot of his friends did. I don't want to see another family struggling through all of this feeling alone like I did. Believe me, most of what I write, as when I wrote my book, is the hardest thing to do. There is nothing for me to gain from any of this except for the knowledge today I may have made a difference in the life of someone else, the way I wish someone did for us when we were suffering the most.

It was great when I got my husband to finally go to a Veteran's center. It was the first time he even got close to the government. Veteran's centers are vital in all of this because they are not the image of the government. They're usually combat veterans running it and most of the time they are warm, friendly and treat the veterans like part of the "brotherhood" they came from. There are a few centers, very few, where the veterans are treated like crap by people who are not there to help veterans. I thank God that I haven't heard of many like that. We need to gear up the centers around the country and where they are lacking, build them. There are plenty of empty businesses across the country that would fill the need until they can build real centers. Getting involved will make this happen. Wishing things will change won't do any good at all. kc