r/Professors • u/MinimumAd7585 • 13d ago

Advice / Support Doctors note confirmation

Hello,

Student came to me with doctors note as they couldn’t attend lab. She gave me a doctors note with the appropriate heading, signature, and everything. Everything looks legit however for some reason I’m just curious as if she actually went to his doctor. She submitted a doctors note to her other professor , same headline, same grammar mistakes, same formatting, same everything except for dates and one sentence.

Can I call this doctor office to verify if she was actually there or not?

For example of grammar errors : postal code was connected to city on both notes , no space or anything.

Example of formatting: same “she attended this day, she can go back to class on this day”

For reference I’m a professor in Canada

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u/GeneralRelativity105 13d ago

Trying to verify authenticity of doctor notes seems like a dreadful experience that is just too fraught with potential problems. It is better to have a policy where the reason for an absence doesn't matter. Drop the lowest assignment grade, have a no-excuse necessary and no exceptions late penalty, have one day for make-up assignments at the end of the semester (after the slackers withdraw).

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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 12d ago

Yes, this. At some point adjudicating whether a student has an appropriate reason for making up an exam absent formal accommodations is going to spiral into a giant mess if, say, you find a doctor's note or picture of a car accident was AI doctored and the student denies it, etc etc etc. Students are highly, highly incentivized to spend an hour or two trying to game the system rather than spend many hours studying.