I agree. The one positive about COVID was that sick people actually were required to…stay home and not spread their germs.
Are any of your classes recorded or synchronous? IOW are the lectures available online?
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I think it is unrealistic to stay home with a mild cold. Students may get frequent colds all semester - missing too many classes will be problematic. For a mild cold I would wear a mask, eat well, get your sleep, and try go to class unless there is a fever or other symptoms. If the classes are recorded that would help a lot.
I am, however, concerned about this student’s health vulnerabilities which could possibly lead to more than just a few mild colds. Premed could be difficult, as will medical school if they attend.
This student will learn a lot about themself in the coming months. Navigating health issues as a potential medical student will be one of them.
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Of course I wish kids didn’t have to go to class with colds. But from what I’ve seen, professors are no longer providing class material (like during covid) so it is very hard to keep up with the work.
My kid (no other health conditions) goes to class when they have a cold, but definitely with a mask. I think that is a great compromise.
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Yeah, the lectures pretty much all recorded in case someone is sick. But I’ll still go to class- at least, until or unless I get a fever. /sighing
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Yes, that seems reasonable. I wish more people were considerate enough to at least mask when sick.
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I agree with this in regular life. However, my kids were always sick with the college crud in school, and many professors do not excuse absences, and with only 3 hours a week in a class, it’s SO easy to fall behind fast. If students missed class with every illness (considering many are sick more than well), they’d flunk out. Sit in the back, wear a mask if possible.
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I have to sit in front due to my preferential seating accommodation, but I’ll be wearing a mask for sure! /warmly
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One might argue that if people stopped coming to class sick, two things could happen: first, you would get sick less often because of less contact with people sick various viruses thus overall more healthy days vs sick days and second, when you did get sick, you would recover more quickly by getting adequate rest rather than running yourself down by trying to carry on as usual, also leading to more healthy days than sick days.
But I agree that if you must attend class, then try to distance from others as much as possible and very definitely mask. Unfortunately, not everyone is so considerate. I wish they were.
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If you have to stay home from college because you are coming down with a cold, then medicine is probably not a good match for you. There is a culture born of necessity that if you are not sick enough to be the patient in the hospital bed, then you keep working.
This is absolutely true. Medicine has a really culture of “toughing it out”. Unless you’re so sick you’re a danger to your patients, you’re expected to be there in person doing your job.
Older D was back on her clinical rotation in med school <24 hours post an emergency appendectomy. Younger D was diagnosed with cancer during her first year of med school. She missed exactly 1 day of classes over the course of a year while she was in cancer treatment. The one day she missed was for surgery to remove her tumor, and she scheduled that for a Friday morning so she could be back in class Monday morning. (And she was…)
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Duly noted. I will be attending classes pretty much unless I’m dying. /warmly
The difference is that these are not contagious conditions. I believe you about the culture, but I personally would not want a doctor sick with an infectious disease seeing me. I would prefer they cancel my appointment rather than risk my getting infected with their nasty germs. I would be pissed if my doctor gave me the flu or some other illness because they put “a culture of toughness” over my well-being as their patient.
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Wanted to add one of mine is a D1 athlete, and is expected to go to practice/competition when sick. Nothing worse than early morning winter lift sessions when sick. And they are all so close together when they travel, they all pass their illnesses around. 
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During covid, you probably did and didn’t know it if you went to any ER or hospital in the US . The state and national advisory said that any physician who tested positive for covid could return to work 24 hours after initially testing positive even if they were still testing positive/displaying symptoms/running a fever. So most did. Why? Because if they didn’t, there wouldn’t have been enough physicians to care for all the patients flooding into the ER. D1 and every single one of her EM colleagues at her 3 practice hospitals worked even when they were sick. D1 keeps in contact with all her fellow former co-residents who practice in a dozen different states–they (and their colleagues) ALL went to work when sick, whether with covid, the flu or colds. They wore n-95 masks at all times to protect their patients and themselves as best they could.
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Fortunately, I did not have occasion to visit an ER during Covid. I did, however, receive cancer treatment during Covid and I would certainly hope that the people working at the cancer center were not so cavalier about potentially spreading a serious contagious disease to medically vulnerable patients such as myself. That would be the height of irresponsibility and unethical behavior to me, even if technically legal. I don’t care what’s allowed, as a patient I can say I would not want that. And I wish we could encourage a cultural shift around this attitude, rather than just accept it as “well, that’s the way it is, sorry.”
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They really had no choice during Covid, a lot more people would’ve died, at least here where we were hit very hard. Desperate times. My 65 year old OB was asked to work in a field hospital with Covid patients, everywhere was overwhelmed.
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OK possibly so. But do they have that justification now? If the situation has changed, isn’t it reasonable to expect the behavior to change?
respectfully, can we please stop the discourse on this? I think we can agree that medical culture can (and should) find a balance between toughing it out and prioritizing our health. Imagine a doctor doesn’t prioritize their health, but tells their patient to! Hypocritical- and I’d honestly rather practice what I preach. I can and will tough things out as much as I can, not only in preparation for being a doctor, but to help myself- but I can also know and say that I know my own limits and will make sure to rest when I need to- at least in college. It’s imperative we all take care of ourselves- whatever that looks like, and without taking care of ourselves, as doctors, we cannot give the best possible care to our patients. That’s my two cents on the matter- feel free to comment your thoughts on it but pLEASe no more discourse on this- if y’all are want to continue it, make a different thread in CC to discuss it! /warmly, also exasperated
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Please move on from what we should or should not be doing in regards to illness, covid, masking, etc…Further posts on this topic will be deleted. (And the Covid thread is still alive and well so feel free to move the discussion there).
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Wow. I have doctor-worked through all sorts of things: pneumonia, a miscarriage, broken ankle, postop from surgery, but even I, starker von shtarker, could not have worked through chemo. I hope she is doing well now.
my dorm got evacuated at 12:30am because there was a fire in a stairwell or something like that. (i don’t know what happened) We were up for awhile- TLDR: I was the last one out because I couldn’t hear the alarm and my hallmates were (allegedly) banging on my door to try to wake me up. 0/10. I got less than 3 hours of sleep as a result. /sighing
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