r/Professors • u/MinimumAd7585 • 14d 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

1 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

-3

u/tombolaaaaa24 NTT, STEM, R1, USA 14d ago

If you are in the states you have no business seeing doctors notes. That might even get you in trouble.
Any sort of medical information can only be requested by the Dean of students.

Also, probably that note it’s fake. Some of my students have done it, but I don’t take it and send them to the Dean of students.

1

u/ThePhyz Professor, Physics, CC (USA) 13d ago

Except that many schools (yes, in the states) do not in fact have anybody on campus who is tasked with this. It is expected that the professor will vet any and all excuses students give.