Rachel Mak, Staff Photographer

xfYale openly prides itself on equal treatment of all of its students. There are no varsity athlete-only dormitories or dining halls. No athletic scholarships. 

Yet, when Ikenna Ugbaja ’25 walked off of Yale’s varsity football team his sophomore year, he surprisingly lost a world of privileges beyond sporting a varsity athlete backpack around campus and trips to the Yale Bowl for practice. 

Unbeknownst to many outside of 12 percent of the students who are athletes, student-athlete privileges include preferential treatment at Yale’s Student Health Center. Varsity athletes are siloed into a different office on Yale Health’s second floor, separate from the Student Health Center, which serves the rest of the student body and is infamous for long wait times and lack of transparency, according to ten non-athlete students interviewed for this story. 

At the Yale Student Health Center, each varsity athlete is assigned their own Athletic Medicine doctor. Athletes have faster access to appointments and a lower patient-to-doctor ratio. They are offered services unavailable or provided at a higher price to the rest of the student population, including full-body imaging, mental health and nutrition counseling, athletic cardiology and on-site physical therapy. 

When asked if he thought being an athlete had helped him previously navigate Yale Health, Ubgaja said, “Yes. I do think it’s easier as an athlete to get medical care at Yale Health. It’s two different worlds.”

“It was so, so easy to make an appointment [at Yale Health]. I had zero wait times,” Eleanor Lockhart ’26, a former coxswain for the varsity heavyweight crew team and former sports reporter for the News, said of her time as a Yale athlete. 

Tim Brown, the director of Yale Health Communications, explained to the News that “as distinct departments, [Student Health and Athletic Medicine operate] independently to address the specific needs of its respective patient groups,” as required by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.  

Brown confirmed that all eligible students are assigned a primary care provider after enrolling. He added that for varsity athletes specifically, these providers are primary care physicians who are trained in sports medicine. According to Brown, this ensures that doctors “are equipped to handle the specialized care needs of varsity student-athletes,” in addition to treating orthopedic needs and routine primary care issues. 

Behind closed doors on the second floor 

Upon enrollment at Yale, each varsity athlete is assigned a doctor within the Athletic Medicine office to act as their general physician, according to Lockhart. Within their first few weeks on campus, student-athletes have an introductory check-up with their doctor to ensure that they are healthy and ready to compete. 

The News asked ten non-varsity-athlete undergraduates across different grades — all enrolled on the Yale specialty healthcare plan — if they knew their primary care provider at Yale Health, telling them that Yale Health’s Tim Brown asserted that all students, regardless of varsity athletic status, are assigned one. None of these students knew they even had such a provider, much less who the provider was. 

After these initial checkups, the appointment request process for varsity athletes runs “smoothly” over the phone or through the Yale MyChart website, Lockhart added. 

MyChart portal allows anyone admitted to Yale Health to manage their healthcare interactions digitally and is used by student-athletes and non-athletes alike. Varsity athletes, however, can also directly correspond with their assigned Athletic Medicine doctor.

“Inherently, knowing that you can see the same doctor and ask follow-up questions is really important and very beneficial,” said Charlie Williams ’26, who walked onto the varsity Track & Field team in the fall of her first year. 

In contrast, non-athlete students send general “talk to a doctor” messages on their MyChart portal. 

Four non-athlete students reported that if they receive a follow-up, it typically comes from an internal medicine nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant rather than a certified medical doctor, given that only five are on staff for all of Yale Student Health. Student-athletes noted that the face-to-face contact they received at Athletic Medicine was typically with an MD.

A 2023 News article reported approximately 770 Yale College students are on varsity athletic teams. According to the Yale Athletic Medicine website, the medical team comprises 22 healthcare specialists: the 16 trainers assigned to specific sports, two primary care head physicians, two surgeons, one doctor of osteopathic medicine and one nurse coordinator. In all, there is one healthcare provider for every 35 varsity athletes. 

Conversely, the general Student Health team consists of 20 people, only five of whom are doctors, for the approximate 5,980 remaining students. In other words, the Student Health program allocates one healthcare provider to serve every 300 students, not including graduate students or other Yale affiliates who receive healthcare at Yale Health. 

Because the Yale Athletic Medicine staff treats a smaller subsection of the student population, “they tended to have a lot of last-minute or immediate availability,” Lockhart said. 

In addition to their Athletic Medicine general physician, each of Yale’s 35 varsity athletics teams has an athletic trainer to treat their team. According to their staff directory, Yale Athletics employs 16 trainers. Most trainers have one or two teams under their care and can treat all injuries and illnesses, regardless of whether they are athletics-related or not.

If the doctors at Athletic Medicine cannot treat a student’s concern, they can directly refer them to doctors in other departments, bypassing the bureaucratic delays other students recall facing before being seen, Lockhart noted. 

In the fall of her sophomore year, Lockhart inquired with Yale Gynecology about getting an IUD inserted on campus. 

At first, they told her there was no availability for a first-time consultation for at least two months. Hoping to complete the procedure faster, she went to Yale Athletic Medicine to ask her general practitioner there for advice, who advised her to tell the Gynecology department that Athletic Medicine sent her. 

“[It’s] a little crazy, considering that my IUD has nothing to do with my athletic performance,” she recalled. “They had me wait [for] 15 minutes and saw me for the first appointment that day.” Following her initial consultation, Lockhart scheduled the insertion procedure for a week later. 

“If I had done it through the normal route, it would have taken me months,” she added. 

“Two different worlds”: Navigating Yale Health as a non-athlete

Coming into Yale, Ugbaja was a healthy student-athlete. It wasn’t until the football team’s intense practice schedule that he realized his body’s difficulty with oxygen intake. 

During his first year, he suffered an episode of breathing difficulties during practice and was rushed off the field. He scheduled cardiology exams and tests through Yale Athletic Medicine and Yale Cardiology, all of which occurred quickly and led to his diagnosis of a genetic lung condition. 

While Ugbaja’s coach had been a staunch advocate for him when navigating the bureaucracies of Yale Health during his first year, things got more complicated in his sophomore year. After quitting the team for personal reasons, he was now flying solo. 

Despite his diagnosis less than a year prior, Ugbaja recalls being bounced between different departments, all of which were unable to help him schedule appointments or contact doctors. He even had trouble accessing his medical records from the previous school year. 

“I never got a test that whole school year … There was also just general unhelpfulness: the lack of response. [I would try] to use MyChart and schedule things, and then call to make sure that the [appointment] was scheduled, and then they’d say, ‘Oh, we didn’t see anything that was scheduled. Nothing came in.’” 

Head Athletic Trainer Jason Cordone, who treats Yale’s football team, did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding Ugbaja after initially agreeing to be interviewed.

Lily Kim Scott ’27, a sophomore ballet dancer at Yale, also had difficulties with the disorganization of Yale Health. 

In fall 2023, Scott tore the MPFL ligament in her knee in a dance class. While Ubgaja was rushed off the field and given medical attention during his on-field respiratory episode, Scott had to Uber herself to the Yale New Haven Hospital despite getting injured in a formal Yale course. Doctors told her she needed an MRI and recommended doing the scans on campus for efficiency and accessibility. She was discharged with an MRI referral, which she took to Yale Health the next day. 

Scott was then turned away and told MRIs were not a service offered at the center because she had waived Yale’s hospitalization and specialty care coverage and only had the Yale basic insurance plan. Although her external insurance plan covered diagnostic imaging, they told her the tests could not be done at Yale. 

Scott also inquired about physical therapy options since her doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital had recommended she start sessions. The Physical Therapy office at Yale Health told her they couldn’t provide her with that service either. Scott ended up having to Uber to Orange, Connecticut, multiple times a week for physical therapy. 

Professor Daniel Ulbricht, the teacher of Scott’s “Ballet Now” class, works with dancers at the beginning of the course to mitigate injuries. When asked about injury prevention and management services on campus for dancers, Ulbricht said he was “unaware” of any trainers or physical therapists. 

Ulbricht added that the Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Department does not have a set of guidelines to help faculty address cases like Scott’s. In comparison, the Yale Athletics website features extensive resources on student-athlete medicine and injury procedures, including a thirteen-section student athletic medicine handbook. 

Ulbricht proposed dance specialists in the Yale Orthopedic Department and in-case-of-emergency trainers for students to contact if they are hurt during rehearsal as potential resources. 

“It all comes down to awareness and being proactive … [the] responsibility is on both the individual and Yale,” he said. 

After attempting to be proactive with her recovery, Scott felt frustrated. When she turned to her friends for support, she discovered that one of her suitemates, a varsity tennis player, was receiving treatment from the Yale Health Physical Therapy office even though she had also waived Yale’s specialty coverage. 

“She’s able to go to their team’s personal trainer and a physical therapist. I think each team has their own that’s assigned. I know she’s gone in and gotten massages or ice baths, things like that,” Scott said.

These expenses are covered if the student is on Yale’s specialization coverage health plan. If they waive Yale’s specialty coverage plan, they can still access these resources, as long as their personal insurance plan can cover the cost or the student pays out of pocket, according to the student-athlete secondary insurance guide.

Additionally, all varsity athletes, those who waive specialty coverage and those who do not, have access to services at Yale Athletic Medicine — such as physical training sessions, one-on-one appointments with a primary physician and nutrition counseling — for free. 

These same services that fall under basic Athletic Medicine care are not offered to other students who waive the specialty coverage plan. In other words, in addition to receiving expedited referrals and treatment, non-varsity-athlete students pay a premium for services available free of charge to varsity athletes.

When asked about other special Athletic Medicine services, like nutrition counseling and ice baths, Brown, the Yale Health communications director, reaffirmed the office’s commitment to “dedicated” services for student-athletes, required by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. 

“Certified athletic trainers who are care team members may refer varsity student-athletes to Athletic Medicine based on assessments made during varsity practices or competitions,” Brown wrote to the News. “This immediate response is vital for maintaining the student-athlete’s health and performance and is in accordance with NCAA Division I rules.” 

Access to Athletic Medicine does not extend to Yale’s higher-intensity club sports, including the cheer and rugby teams. 

Because injuries are so common in the sport, Yale men’s rugby hired its own trainer, separate from Yale Athletics, to treat players during practices or games. Alumni donations cover the cost. 

Rosa Alcala ’26, a former member of the Yale cheerleading team, said she felt it was “taboo” for team members to ask their coaching staff and Yale Athletics for a trainer and athletic medicine resources. She said there was no room in the budget to hire a cheer trainer, and the team does not have the robust alumni base that the rugby team has to fund a trainer independently.

Even if cheerleaders get injured during varsity athletics games — where trainers are always present for the competing athletes — trainers are “not allowed” to treat them, according to Alcala. 

During her first year, Alcala injured herself at a football game. Although she was bleeding profusely from her lip and nose, healthcare providers affiliated with Yale Athletics did not treat her and instead referred her to Yale Health.

“No one took a look at me, and it was up to me to go to Yale Health with no support of Athletics,” she said. In her experience, cheerleaders are instructed to sit out if injured at practice, but no formal medical examinations occur. 

Colleen Murphy, Yale Athletics’ director of communications, commented on behalf of the Yale Cheerleading Coach Danielle Vitagliano, noting that “members of the Yale Cheer team, similar to other students competing in club sports and intramurals, have access to care at Yale [Student] Health.”

In his response to the News, Brown did not explain the lack of physical therapy options for injured non-varsity athlete students who contribute to Yale’s extracurricular life, such as rugby players or dancers. He also reaffirmed that MRI imaging is available to all students who do not waive Yale Health’s Specialty Care Coverage plan. 

“When you have Athletic Medicine, and you’re able to go in that day or the next day, you’re much more inclined to actually take care of yourself,” Lockhart said. “It isn’t such a burden to schedule and be sure that you’re sticking with it … the disparity is so huge in scheduling ability and probably in quality of care.”

Yale Health is located at 55 Lock St.