Part 2: The Best (Really Worst) College Student Excuses of All Time - The Medical File

Overview

As an overview, this article is part of a series (Overview: The Best (Really Worst) College Student Excuses of All Time - Introduction to the Article Series), exploring what excuses college students have offered to explain an absence, a missed exam, a paper or project being late, etc. All of these excuses have been collected from this author’s contemporaries - professors and instructors at colleges and universities all across America. As such, it is a “crowdsourced” piece, and I owe them my gratitude for sharing their “best” excuses - which in reality means the “worst” - from their students over the years that provided the basis for this article series. And in all of these articles, each of which deals with a different “origin area” for student excuses, from health to tech to social to pets and more, we not only see excuses that make us laugh, but we also see some that could make you cry, as there are also stories of students who “went the extra mile” and persevered over the unique obstacles they might have faced in their lives to succeed in school.

In this article, we continue our exploration of student excuses by looking at health issues, which are unquestionably the most common reason students really, legitimately miss a class, a test, or a deadline - and the one they go to most often if they were to want to fabricate an excuse for themselves. So, without further ado, let’s open the medical file and see how health issues can make for some quite "interesting" student excuses.

Medical Excuses

Now when it comes to medical excuses, one professor expressed a sentiment that we all share when it comes to health issues...

“I've had students offer to show me wounds/injuries. Uh, I teach MATH, so I DO NOT want to see!”

And yes, sometimes - well many times - we get TMI (too much information) from students when trying to justify their health-based excuse:

“‘Sorry I had to miss class as I was getting my tattoo removed.’ Photo included in the email message...”

“I had a student miss multiple classes because of back problems. I was discussing her issues and she said, ‘it’s because, umm…’ she points to her chest, ‘my boobs are too big.’ That is just not a problem I can relate to!”

“I had one guy call me in class to say that he was at the STD clinic so could not make it....and so was another student in the class.”

“Sorry I missed class. I was having my foot tattoo removed. Picture was attached of a half removed tattoo.”

“I had a student tell me he smoked too much weed. I appreciated the honesty.”

“A student emailed me to tell me he was type 1 diabetic and he was having a really hard time managing his sugar that day and felt terrible. Fine, totally excusable. But he sent me a picture of the pee strip to prove his ketones were low!”

“I had one email that he missed class because the night before he got drunk, tried to jump a fence, and broke his face. He then attached a picture of his bruised and bloody face.”

“Sorry I missed class for a week. I went to a different state to donate my eggs.”

“I had a student who missed a couple labs because he got hit by a train. He was putting pennies on the tracks and a bar sticking out from the train hit him in the head and knocked him out, and his hand landed on the rail and he lost most of his fingers. I’ll never forget when he came back and told us - and showed us!”

“One of my favorites, from a non-trad student in class that met at night just once a week: ‘I had to miss class because my daughter just got her very first period and I needed to stay home to snuggle with her.’ I was conflicted about how to respond to that one!”

“I had a student send me photos of their vomit to prove they were really sick.”

"'I couldn't afford my meds, I got into a fight and got stabbed’ -- he also came back to class too early and had to run out of the room because his wound started to bleed. He offered to show me, I passed on that opportunity.”

“I have received pictures of rashes and infections, one clearly in the pubic region. I now explicitly tell students that I do not require any documentation for absences or make-up work.”

“I have chlamydia!”

“Okay, this one left me speechless, but I had a student email to tell me that she missed classes because she has a yeast infection and can't wear any underwear. TMI for sure!”

Medical issues can run the gamut, and literally, either the most absurd and unlucky things happen to students, or alternatively, students can just be darn creative in concocting their own health-related excuses:

“I had one student show up in my office with oozing sores all over to let me know that he had foot and mouth disease. Thanks!”

“Student says his aunt gives him medicine that makes him spacey, so it makes him forget to do his work. It was Metamucil.”

“Students said: ‘I thought I was dying and went to urgent care but my tongue was blue because of a lollipop.’ Got that one in an email 8 years ago that’s still in my ‘Keep’ folder.”

“A student missed a test after a run-in with a bat necessitated rabies shots.”

“I had a student who opened the cabinets in her kitchen, and a baking sheet fell out and hit her on the head! The student was fine, just wanted to take the test later!”

“I had one who said he missed class because his hemorrhoids were really bad. I’m not saying it wasn’t true, but I definitely wanted the brain bleach after getting that message.”

“Student emailed me that ‘he couldn’t come to class because of allergic reaction to pumpkin beer.’”

“A few years ago, the female students in my department liked to tell my senior male colleague that they had to miss class ‘for female problems.’ Now, I understand bad cramps--but they NEVER gave me that explanation for absences!”

“Student didn't finish the final project because they were "hungry and sleepy AF."

Of all student activities, skateboarding seems to be the one that brings about the most interesting - and some of the most painful (literally!) - excuses.

“I had one student who was skateboarding to get a coffee, crashed, and ended up with a concussion. They ended the email with ‘and I never got the coffee.’”

“A student walked into class 15 minutes late actively bleeding with a huge gash on his elbow and his skateboard in hand. So casually he said "sorry I am late--I got hit by a car on the way to class." I just stopped mid lecture and was like "omg do you need to see a doctor!?" Gotta give him props for still coming (and yes I told him to leave and go to the health center.)”

And there are those students with medical issues that just make you go, “why?:”

"‘I can't come to class for the next week because I have a severe concussion from trying to open a can of cinnamon rolls with my head.’"

And yes, one person’s perception of severity and relatedness can be quite different from another’s.

“My brother had to go get a dangerous shot.”

"I had a student miss the midterm because he had an in-grown toenail."

“‘I couldn’t type because I have a torn ACL in my elbow.’ (My fave!)”

Sometimes, a student medical excuse can even be a learning experience and make one more “hip” and knowledgeable of youth slang today - I know this one was for me!:

“This is actually an example of an instance that illustrates my lack of knowledge of popular culture/slang etc. and I do not think it is an unreasonable reason from my student. The student waited after class and walked out of the classroom with me. Once in the hallway, they said that they were sorry that they missed class, but it was "shark week." I thought they meant the TV programming. Luckily, another student was there and they chimed in about how terrible their shark week is, and eventually I realized it was a metaphor. . . .Later, I heard the reference in a TV show and felt *hip*, because I knew what it meant. Thanks, student.”

And yes, I too thought this excuse was about “shark week” on TV, as in well, “sharks.” However, upon further review and consulting with the Urban Dictionary, “shark week” today can be a label for having your period, as in: “the week a woman experiences menstruation; Shannon was in a bad mood because it was shark week.”

Finally, there is this story from an anonymous colleague, which reads almost like a medical excuse fused with the logic of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”:

“I had a student drop off the face of the earth for two months only to return two weeks before the end of the semester wanting to make up all the labs. When I refused, telling her that what she requested was too much work for her to succeed, she told me I couldn't refuse her because she was out due to a heart condition. When I asked why she didn't email, she said she couldn't because she had to stay flat on her back. When I asked why she didn't dictate an email to someone who could type it for her, she got pushy. When I asked why she didn't call me to inform me, she repeated that she had to stay flat on her back, to which I replied, ‘The phone still works no matter which way you are holding it.’"

Gastrointestinal Issues

Stomach issues deserve a category unto themselves, as not just simply having an upset stomach or a “stomach bug,” but specifically, throwing-up and having "active" diarrhea seem to be the “go to” excuses for many students. And if there is a leading cause of student absences when it comes to health, gastrointestinal issues certainly lead the way (and again, many will provide way too much information on what caused them to get sick!).

“I had a student miss a class due to, and I quote, 'extreme bowel movements.' I didn’t ask for details...just replied 'okay.'”

“In grad school, my first professor specifically told students not to eat convenience stores hot dogs on exam day. Grad school, public health... Students should have figured this out on their own.”

“Student missed an in-person exam due to eating a bad burrito. Unfortunately, they provided GRAPHIC detail about the digestive consequences of said burrito.”

"'I could not write the exam because I had severe diarrhea.' #tmi”

“Diarrhea. Offered to send time-stamped photos as evidence. On the flip side, I had a student who had been shot in the head check out of the hospital to come to class, despite my encouragement to take time to heal. (That student kinda ruined it for any other student, to be honest.)”

“One semester, a recurring excuse was a digestive malady that students believed to be brought on by a dining hall called ‘Observatory Hill’ or ‘O'Hill’ for short. Try to guess the students' name for the malady. Yep, ‘O'Bola.’ (There was a complete scrubdown of the facility and it was eventually determined that norovirus was the culprit... *not* people in the dining hall putting soap in the food!).”

“My Japanese students have been known to tell me they were suffering from ‘sushi bowels.’"

But when you try to play the “gastro card,” students would be well-advised to get their story - and their technology - in line:

“Student emailed me ‘I will miss class due to food poisoning.’ Then, a second email came from with a photo of her using a beer bong labeled ‘check out last night, Carmen.’ Then a third email came, frantically telling me not to open the second because she sent it to a friend with the same first name. I sent back an email stating only ‘unexcused absence’ (although I did think for a min that this really is a sort of food poisoning).”

Catching Students in a Health Lie

Of course, not every medical excuse is real. As a professor, you know that, and yes sometimes you do see evidence of such with your own eyes:

“Probably 20 years ago I received a phone call from a student who claimed to be in a cardiac intensive care unit. He claimed to be hooked to life support and heart monitor. The beeping sound of the heart monitor was a friend doing a bad imitation of a heart monitor. I could also hear faint giggling in the background. The student never returned to class after that.”

“I had a student submit a handwritten note to excuse 2 weeks' worth of absences. The note was in pencil, had several mis-spellings, and looked like a 7-year-old wrote it, but this student claimed it was from his doctor. The wacky thing was he was also attending my husband's class during that time and of course, he tried to pull it on him as well - so a ‘two fer!’”

“I had a student email me that he was rushed to the hospital for not feeling well... as I watched him play monopoly in the student union while I grabbed a coffee on break. This was the same student who handed in a plagiarized paper on Cats, the musical. The copy/paste was obvious because he had copied from catsonbroadway.com... which at the time was for a Veterinarian in Missoula, Montana.”

“I once received an absence note from 'Dr. Martin Lawrence.' (This was in the 90’s, so he [Martin Lawrence] was on TV and all.) Just for giggles, I drove by the building that was supposed to be his office, just in case there really was a doctor with that name. Nope.”

“I was on my way to the classroom to give an exam, and a student called and told me he was at the hospital with his girlfriend, who, he said, ‘was having an abortion at that minute.’ He was however, standing outside the classroom building as I walked in to give the exam.”

“I had a student miss a test because his grandfather was in the hospital. Of course I excused and let him make up the exam at a later date. However, turns out the student was the brother of a friend of mine and when I asked her about her grandfather, she had no idea what I was talking about...”

“In the early days of Facebook, a student missed a majority of my class and at the end of the semester, wanted an incomplete. She had gained the confidence of the assistant department chair, who scheduled a meeting where they were to make the case that the student had a mental health problem and should be excused from having missed all but 4 classes, and should be allowed to turn in the assignments sometime later (never mind this is a lab-based course with a field placement). Prior to the meeting, I looked her up on Facebook, only to find a fully public profile with hundreds of photos of her, underage drinking and partying across the country--on days when class was scheduled. In the meeting, I listened to the sad story of how she couldn't even get out of bed most days. I listened to the case from the administrator. Then I asked them both to put themselves in my shoes and consider how that explanation compared to what she's putting on Facebook. I had printed out her profile and set in on the table in front of her. That ended the meeting pretty quickly.”

“I had a student say that they were going to submit an assignment late because they were volunteering with a kid with cancer and then proceeded to provide me with extremely personal information about this child (who was in no way related to them) in a way that read to me like they were simply trying to tug at heartstrings and to also make themselves look superior as a person who volunteers with kids with cancer. I found it absolutely disgusting. Submitting the assignment late wasn’t a big deal for me, and I granted the extension, but the exploitation of a child really pissed me off.”

Then there’s this classic regarding a dental excuse, with a comment from the dentist involved that was spot-on:

“I had a student forge dental notes to excuse absences. Multiple days (not consecutively), and the dentist was a couple of hours away. When I called the dentist to confirm, he remarked, ‘If the student worked as hard in the class as he did to fake these notes, he would probably be doing a lot better in the course.’ Student ended up expelled.”

And for some reason, there seems to be some very real confusion as to the nature of prostate cancer among some male students out there!

“There was one time that a student told me he couldn’t make the exam because his grandmother had prostate cancer. I just stared at him blinking for a looooong time…”

“My favorite of all time happened to a colleague. A female prof had a male student tell her that he had gone home because his mom had cancer. Being a compassionate person, she asked him more about the situation. He volunteered that his mom had prostate cancer. She suggested that his mom might want to get a second opinion!”

Finally though, here is an excuse from one of my colleagues that captures just how much many of us in the professoriate want to believe our students when it comes to medical-related issues, but sometimes, there are indeed signs that we shouldn’t:

“First, I do have a tendency to believe people too often. Second, I was new to the Mayo Clinic area in Rochester, Minnesota. They do a lot of amazing things at the Mayo Clinic. This student told me that her husband was having a trans-species transplant. I believed her. It wasn’t true. However, that was at least 22 years ago. I’m going to guess that maybe that could happen today, LOL.”

Conclusion

Now while we may laugh at some of these excuses for their statistical unlikelihood and their absurdity, there are also excuses that are both absolutely true and in many cases, positively inspiring. So, almost every one of the articles in this series on student excuses will conclude with one or more stories submitted by professors across America of students who overcame adversity in dealing with their personal issues. And so, we will wrap-up this article where we have indeed had some fun looking at the excuses submitted by college faculty on how some students have used medical issues as an excuse with a reminder of how others have overcome their health circumstances to succeed in their college work and displayed qualities that will likely serve them very well in their careers and futures.

Of course, for all the seemingly absurd - and yes, sometimes questionable - health-related excuses we professors receive from students to try and justify an absence, a missed test, or a past due assignment, there are those students who persevere over their medical concerns, like these:

“I had a student who came in halfway through an exam because he hit himself in the face with his car door. The poor guy was rushing from a rotation at a hospital across town, got out of the car, and somehow cut himself on the corner of the car door as he was getting out. He was excused and I took him to the ER. He needed three stitches.”

“I actually had a former student have some weird freak accident while packing to move and stabbed herself in the eye with a half inch auger. She is blind in that eye now. Still got a 4.0 that semester and is kicking ass in PA (Physicians Assistant) school. But holy crap!”

“One of the strangest excuses I ever heard for not turning in that week's work (after they were a stellar straight-A student all semester, mind you) was that they'd severed their feet - technically their toes, I guess. The strangest part of the excuse was it was for real. They had had to get their feet surgically put back together after a ladder had broken and came down, the rungs mangling their feet at the arches. My poor student had been in the hospital and unconscious the entire week, so hadn't had a chance to even tell me they'd be late. When they finally woke up, the first thing they told their spouse was to contact me to say their work would be late that week. I told them to take two weeks, at least! Their adviser called me to say they had a doctor’s note if I needed it as proof and I said not to worry about it, I believed them.

It is always amazing to see how pregnant students manage to take classes while they are expecting (and BTW, my university does not have desks that are in any way friendly to expectant mothers!), and especially those who have a baby during the course of the semester - and finish classes successfully. There are, of course, a lot of situations that can and do happen with pregnant students, and among them are some truly incredible stories about women taking tests while in labor!:

“One of my coworkers had a situation where a student's water broke during an exam and she adamantly insisted that "it wasn't going to be that fast" and she was going to finish the final. My coworker had to work really hard to get her to accept transportation to the hospital and taking the exam later (it had just started and was a 3-hour final exam period).”

“One of my best students emailed me and said that she might be a few hours late with her assignment submission because she was in labor! I told her not to worry about! She ended up submitting her paper on time and then she sent me a baby picture the next day! Amazing!”

“I had a student take a final exam while in labor. She said it was her third she’d be fine, she’d just finish the exam and then go to the hospital.”

“I had a student in labor. The doctor told her it would probably be awhile. She came to class (having contractions) and took a final. Then went back to the hospital and had the baby! She even had the hospital band on her wrist! And she had one of the highest grades on the final!"

“Happy extreme: We actually had a write up in the newspaper of one of our students (at Middle Georgia State University) doing her final exam online while in labor in the hospital. It went viral! (See: ‘Unstoppable! New mom explains why she took a college exam during labor’)”

There are students who have to be talked out of doing things they think they need to do for their classes for the “bigger picture” of their own health, and sometimes, that’s where us professors come in to act all in loco parentis for them, as in these instances:

“I had a student show up with the hospital bracelet still on his wrist and his discharge papers hot off the presses in hand. I told him to go home and we would sort out the rest later.”

“I had a student who contacted me in the emergency room because she thought her appendix was bursting and might miss the next day's class. Needless to say, I told her to stop wasting time worrying about the class and to maybe call her mother and let her know!"

“I once had a student come take a midterm 2 days after an emergency appendectomy. She made a friend carry her backpack for her, since she wasn't allowed to yet. She was also on a ton of painkillers. I sent her home (and asked her friend to make sure she got there safely) and told her she could make it up later.”

And then, there are students with medical issues that can be downright inspiring!

“Student emailed me that she was missing class for surgery to give a kidney to her father.”

“Student gave 1/2 of his liver to his brother...”

“I had a student who suddenly went blind and was hospitalized while they tried to figure out what happened. I worked with his mother and he dictated his work to her and we got him through the class. He also was on the autism spectrum and his mom thanked me for working with her son. I told her I raised a son with Asperger's so I understand!”

“I had a student who was hospitalized (immunosuppressed for cancer treatment) show up with a pile of all the homework they'd missed during the weeks they were out, most of it right. I found they'd been working with the textbook and a tutor over the phone (was before videochats were widely available). Impressed as hell! I would've supported a medical withdrawal or incomplete, but they didn't want to go that route.”

“I had a student who emailed me in August, just before classes started. She informed me that she was taking the class from St. Jude because her daughter (3 years old) was getting cancer treatments. I had the syllabus out with exam dates. She asked if there was any way possible to take the exam, scheduled in October, early because the Make A Wish foundation scheduled a Disney trip the week of the exam. This student never turned a single assignment in late.”

Finally, there is the ultimate medical excuse - dying - and this student didn’t let that keep her down - or even miss class the next day, according to this memorable story from an anonymous colleague:

“I don’t know about my worst one (excuse), but I do have the best one... one of my students was late to class one morning because SHE DIED. Literally. She has a congenital heart defect and had to be rushed to the hospital where they revived her during the night. And she still showed up the next morning... just late.”

The Article Series

If you enjoyed reading this article on the best excuses offered by college students regarding health issues, please check out the other articles in the series exploring a whole host of other “causations” of absences, missed tests, late projects, etc. It’s all offered in a good spirit, and I hope you will check them out for yourself and perhaps share with your colleagues - and maybe even your students!

The Book

Enjoy this article - or these articles? Please buy Professor Wyld's ebook - The Handbook of College Student Excuses - that compiles all of these excuses in one place - for yourself, for a college student you know (or parent), or for a college faculty member. It is a great, fun read, and makes a great gift! Get it today from Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1073655) or on Amazon (https://amzn.to/3rM5IXZ). You can also view the college student "Excuse of the Day" on Dr. Wyld's blog at http://www.collegestudentexcuses.com/the-best-excuse-of-the-day/.

About David Wyld

David Wyld is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness.

Social Media Links to David Wyld:

+ on Facebook

+ on LinkedIn

+ on Twitter

+ on Medium

Did you enjoy this article? Please share it with your colleagues and friends! You can also show your support by “voting it up” by leaving a tip of a dollar or more by hitting the button below.