Wellness Center Physician's Assistant: Examining or Exploring

Isabella Chandler

In the fall semester of 2017, Madison Lyda went to Cameron University’s Wellness Center for a regular medical examination, but didn’t expect to feel violated and uncomfortable by the time she left. She first experienced problems with the front desk staff misplacing the paperwork she had filled out the day before. The secretary had her fill out new and then realized that she had given Lyda the wrong paperwork and gave her the correct paperwork to fill out. Lyda waited over 20 minutes before the physician’s assistant saw her after spending the better part of an hour filling out the paperwork.
During this visit Lyda recalls that Thomas Mills, PA-C, first surprised her with the things he said. She had used the restroom connected to the examination room right before Mills arrived. Mills greeted her by asking her if she was she was taking free condoms from the room. Lyda responded by informing Mills that she had no need for them considering that she’s in a relationship with another woman.

Thomas Mills, PA-C

He proceeded to make more jokes about Lyda having a boyfriend throughout the question process, insulting her. She asked him to stop making comments and asking questions that were not relevant to her vist and continue the examination. When checking her heartbeat with a stethoscope Mills pushed his hand up Lyda’s shirt.

“I was extremely uncomfortable with the fact that he didn’t ask me first and just took it upon himself to have control over me,” Lyda said.

Mills then pushed on her chest, so she was laying on the examination table and pushed her shirt up towards her bra. She pulled her shirt back down.

She recalled being alarmed by his actions and comments, “I was beginning to get very unsettled and feel sick. He made remarks about my skin being ‘soft but flawed’.”

After the examination Lyda was instructed to pick up her completed paperwork the next afternoon. When she arrived the next day the office once had once again misplaced Lyda’s paperwork.

After the secretary argued with her about how Lyda could get her paperwork, she told the secretary that she wanted to report the doctor and the office and asked how she could do that.

“She started laughing in my face and said, ‘You want to report me because I don’t have your paperwork?’ I leaned over the desk and said, “No I want to report your perverted doctor now who do I speak to?’”

The secretary left and brought back another woman who told Lyda that everything that she wanted to say could be said to them at that moment. Lyda then requested that they give her the contact information for someone outside of the office that she could speak with.

“She pretended to not know what I was talking about and acted like she couldn’t find out who that would be,” Lyda eventually left the office.

Lyda didn’t report the incident because she was not given the information that she asked for and other times she had tried to report other incidents and did not hear back from anyone about the investigations.

Not the Only One

Lyda is not the only student that has experienced this type of behavior from Mills. Five female students all say that their interactions with Mills made them feel “uncomfortable”.

In the previous year Raven Youngblood had gone into the Wellness Center for a checkup because it was hard for her to breathe and she wasn’t feeling well. Mills went to listen to her heartbeat and had put his hand and the stethoscope up Youngblood’s shirt. She later talked about the incident with her father and told him that she was uncomfortable with Mills doing that. Her father advised her to talk to someone on university staff about it. That was when Youngblood found that a fellow student, Catrina Gallegos, had experienced a similar thing with Mills.

“He reached under my shirt to check my heartbeat and I felt very uncomfortable, because he didn’t ask first! Then he did the same in the front, still not asking,” Gallegos said.

Together Gallegos and Youngblood talked to Katie Hubbard, Cameron University's Director of Housing, who is connected with overseeing Title IX cases.
Gallegos said that she went back to the Wellness Center later in the semester and Mills did not exhibit the same behavior.
Hubbard declined to comment stating that she cannot speak about Title IX cases.

Another student, Devyn Crosley went into the Wellness Center in the fall semester of 2016.

She said that Mills “reached up the front side of my shirt without telling me he was going to do this and listened to my heartbeat. This made me uncomfortable.”

She remembers thinking that this was just a one-time incident.

Later that same semester Crosley accompanied another student to a checkup. The other student had been feeling faint and had been getting on bruises on her body. Mills asked to see some of the bruises and the student mentioned that many of them were on her legs.

“He made me take my pants off and didn’t, like, cover me with anything.”

She said that later in the visit she had mentioned that she had a cyst on her kidney and he told her that was not possible. Then they “started arguing about it, so it was a bit unprofessional.” Crosley said that she did not issue a formal complaint about the PA.

Not All Students

Robert Champ said that he and his wife had been in the Wellness Center multiple times and all of their visits had gone well. Champ had even accompanied his wife into the examination room.

Student Zoie Timothy said that she goes to the Wellness Center every three months to get the depo shot and Mills administers the shot. Timothy described Mills as being “a little cranky. Kinda gruff,” but said that despite the odd bedside manner the visits had always gone well.
Not the End
Jill Melrose, Director of the Student Wellness Center, said that she believed the reason students were uncomfortable is that they had never been to a doctor besides their childhood pediatrician.
“With my doctor I have to take my shirt off for them to [check my heartbeat],” Melrose said.
She wants to talk with students about what to expect when going to a doctor and have students understand that this is completely normal behavior. She also said that students can ask if they want someone to go into the examination room with them.
“Does he have the best bedside manner? No,” Melrose said about Thomas Mills.
Thomas Mills, PA-C did not make a comment.
Tom Russell who is the Equal Opportunity Officer and Title IX Coordinator for Cameron University said that students may be unfamiliar with how physical examinations are performed and it might be a generational disconnect. Russell said that there were incidents last year which were discussed and solutions were presented. Now, seeing that there was a similar incident after the initial investigation Russell said another investigation would be conducted. In the summer semester of 2018 Zeak Naifeh, the Dean of Students, sent a mass email informing all Cameron University students that the Student Wellness Center will be changing medical providers.