Eastern Kentucky Psychology

"Certainly, things have changed in the past 15 years. I've had a few sessions here and had nothing but good experiences, even finally being diagnosed after years of suffering. I love my student psychiatrist, and I would tell anyone that previously read the past review to not take it as pure fact for the rest of eternity. I've had great experiences, and I'm sure it's because EKU has strengthened their curriculum and made sure things like that wouldn't happen again."

"Whatever you do, don't take any sessions at the psychiatry clinic here. Back in 2004, I had the worst experience of my life because of this clinic. I was having sessions with a student psychiatrist who was very unskilled and inexperienced. While I was talking I was discussing the topic of suicide and she misinterpreted something I said (I said I sometimes had suicidal thoughts or fantasies), and then she consulted with her supervisors and they evidently decided it would be a good idea to send me to a psychiatric hospital. (I never actually said I was going to commit suicide; the student just misheard and overreacted to something I said.) I told them I didn't want to do it, but they told me I didn't have a choice. The student psychiatrist told me that I was merely going there to talk to someone, giving me the impression that I would get to go back home immediately after. However, after the police came and brought me to the hospital, I had a rude awakening. The hospital they sent me to was called "The Ridge" in Lexington, KY. The employee I talked to there was a conniving, deceitful person. Even though I was expecting to go back home the same day, she pressured me into staying the night, and eventually lied to me and said I could just stay the night and then go home the next morning. Since the EKU clinic had never prepared me for this experience, I didn't know what to believe, so I just complied. The next day, I discovered that everything the employee said was a lie, and that I was the hospital's prisoner and would have to stay there for the next FIVE DAYS! It was simply the darkest, saddest, and hardest experience of my life. I spent the next five days being a prisoner in a strange place where I didn't belong, surrounded by strangers. It was truly awful. The staff was unbelievably rude, the psychiatrists there were worthless, and my roommate was an alcoholic with a liver problem and thus snored loudly all night, causing me to get only about four hours of sleep each night. I was forced to take doses of the antidepressant Paxil, even though I didn't personally believe in taking antidepressant drugs. (I actually only pretended to take the pills while the nurse was looking, and then I spat them out and flushed them down the toilet later.) The whole experience was pointless and just wrong. Some time after I was discharged, I had a talk with the student psychiatrist and her three supervisors. They were clearly incompetent and dishonest. They realized that they had screwed up, sending me to this corrupt place for no good reason, so they keep feeding me lies and lame excuses and B.S. to cover their butts. They clearly had no sense of responsibility, morality, or professional integrity. I asked them if they had done any research about "The Ridge" before they sent me there, and they said no. They knew nothing about the hospital, it's staff, it's doctors, it's quality, or reputation. They simply picked a random hospital and sent me there. Incredibly irresponsible. I asked them why they didn't do more research about the hospital before sending me there, and they told me that they are not required by law to do that. Apparently, these psychiatrists don't actually CARE about their patients, they only want to do the bare minimum as required by law. They sent me to that hospital without any preparation at all, and as a result I was vulnerable to being taken advantage of by the hospital staff, who exploited my ignorance. The supervisors actually told me that the police officers who brought me to the hospital were supposed to have prepped me, which I am almost certain is a boldfaced lie. I truly feel that the supervisors at the EKU clinic should have been legally prosecuted for what they did to me. If a real medical doctor had screwed up this bad and had shown such incompetence and unprofessional-ness, they would be banned from practicing medicine. This experience I had with the EKU psychiatry clinic happened over 11 years ago, yet it still haunts me. DO NOT BECOME A PATIENT HERE!!"