Medical

Dear Professor,

I just got injured/ill and my work in your course XYZ is negatively affected. What should I do?

– Sick and tired.

Dear Sick and Tired,

Your first priority should normally be to see a medical doctor (M.D.) – your family general practitioner or a medical doctor at a walk-in clinic. See a doctor sooner rather than later! This is your first step in healing. It also provides documentation of the timeline of your injury/illness. (Tip: it is also wise to take your own notes about how your injury/illness progresses.)

Seek assistance also from your College Registrar, and any other relevant University support people you feel comfortable approaching. Consult University rule books (on paper and/or on the web) in order to remind yourself of your rights and responsibilities.

When it comes to UofT rules, there are many details, depending on the course and on the student, but the essential principle is the same. Medical exceptions must be handled by UofT (and its teachers) in a way that is fair to the individual student and fair to the entire class in which that student is enrolled.

Fairness to the individual student is obviously the right thing to do, so we aim for that goal. However, an individual remedy cannot be stretched to the point of academic implausibility, and it cannot unfairly impact the rest of the class. In particular, this means that certain standards of evidence are applied to ensure that the system is not abused.

Since Ph.D.s are not M.D.s, UofT requires a medical certificate to be submitted if a student requests medical consideration for missed graded course work. The point of the medical certificate is to show how severely, and for what period, the student’s medical misfortune degraded their ability to do scheduled graded course work.

The detailed medical reasoning behind statements on the medical certificate is none of the teacher’s business – either literally or figuratively! So please do not give out those details either verbally in writing to any of your professors. We do not want to be involved in violating your privacy.

What is important to your professor, especially this professor, is the timeline of your injury/illness (as well as a brief indicator of its severity). The timeline is the most important thing because that information is what drives the creation of appropriate make-up work and/or altered grade weighting to cover the exceptional circumstances.

I hope you feel better soon. Best wishes for speedy healing.

– Professor Peet.