Do Everybody a Favor: Take a Sick Day

[groovedaddy]

My patient was a 25-year-old man. He sat on the examination table, the picture of misery, coughing, red-eyed and shivering. His fever was 103. An interview and an examination suggested influenza (the rapid diagnostic test for flu wasn’t available at that time), but there was little I could offer him, other than ibuprofen and some homespun advice.

“Go home and get to bed,” I told him.

He looked at me. “Bed? I’ve got to get back to work.” He put on his jacket and power tie and headed back to Wall Street.

I was appalled. Work in that condition? How could he even think straight with that fever? Whom else would he infect along the way?

Still, a tiny part of me was filled with admiration. Here was a tough guy. No reason to let minor delirium keep him from doing his job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/health/12case.html?ref=health

[AndyTiedye]

1. What's a "Sick Day"?

Nowadays you take a "PTO" day which you were hoping to use for vacation.

[paulsby]

2. my job has sick days. totally seperate from comp time, and vacation days

depends on where you work.

we get a little over 2 weeks sick leave, 2 weeks vacation time per year.

comp time we can build up by working overtime.

[Warpy]

3. This is what is setting us up for pandemic

Nobody is that essential. The world will continue on its merry way if a sick person stays home until s/he is no longer contagious.

Unfortunately, staying home is no longer an option for much of anyone on the bottom and for few in the middle. Workers who never use their sick time are praised to the skies and workers who stay home instead of infecting everybody else are scorned at raise time as being unmotivated.

The work ethic as practiced in this country is a sick one and it could end up killing us all. Sick workers went in to work in 1918, too, no sick time then, either.

But what the hell, that flu only killed 2 1/2%-5% of the people who caught it.

The focus has got to change if we want to survive.

[groovedaddy]

13. Most European countries have very liberal policies for vacation/sick/personal days.

They strike me as far more civilized than our country.

[newfie11]

4. My last job had sick days and vacation days lumped together

a friend that worked at another hospital had both vacation days and sick days but you had to use a week of vacation up (each time sick) before allowed to use sick days. That means if you were out for 2 days with a cold or flu several times you could use up all your vacation days but never be allowed to use the sick days.

[uppityperson]

5. If you are a customer of mine, and infect me, you are responsible for my lost wages for a week

It is that simple. In the past I have gotten sick, then had a customer tell me a couple wks later that they came to see me the wk before I got sick and were sick then but "didn't want to miss their massage" (I do insurance massage therapy).

It really upsets me that they consider it fine to make me sick.

FEW of us can afford to take time off, but making more of us sick isn't a good idea.

[Orrex]

6. How could you confirm, that, though?

Unless you only see one client per week, I don't see how you can reliably confirm that this or that client infected you. At least not well enough to put them on the hook for lost wages.

[uppityperson]

7. Not putting them on the hook, but they are responsible for not coming in when sick

If they do, they have risked getting me, and following customers, sick also.

[Orrex]

8. Well, yeah, but it could have been the guy next to you on the subway

or the woman in line with you at the deli. My point was that I don't know how, generally speaking, you can specifically identify one person as your infector without bloodwork on both of you.

When I worked at a small restaurant years ago in a college town, we'd routinely get calls from kids trying to get a free meal by claiming that we'd given them food poisoning. When we asked how they knew that our food was responsible, they invariably responded in one of three ways:

1. "I didn't anything but your food in the last 48 hours." Unlikely at best, unhealthy at worst

2. "I ate the same food that I eat all the time, but I also ate your food and got sick, so it must be your food that did it." Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

3. They would just hang up.

So my question again is how you could identify one particular client as the source. Did you have no other human contact that week? Did you contract an illness so exotic that only the client, who likewise had that exotic ailment, could have infected you? Might you have contracted it from some other client who didn't later confess to being sick?

Having thought about this, though, it's occurred to me that if we're talking about a skin condition, then it might be much easier to localize after all. I mean, if you develop intermittent weeping lesions after seeing Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith later confesses that he'd been suffering from intermittent weeping lesions, then you have a fairly strong case against Mr. Smith. But if Mr. Smith reveals that he has "that cold that's going around," then it seems far less certain.

[uppityperson]

9. Are you saying that someone who knows they have a contagious disease is fine

going out in public because, after all, there are probably other contagious people out there?

I'm not fine with that.

You seem to be assuming that I am trying to trace this back to one person, but I'm not. I am saying that if you are sick, if you know you have a contagious disease, DON'T go spread it around.

[Orrex]

10. Depends on the disease, to be honest

If we're talking about the common cold, then I'd say it's not a big deal, because what's the option, really? Quarantine for everyone who has the sniffles?

If we're talking about a more serious malady readily identified as a more serious malady, then he or she should probably stay home or at least minimize the types of contact that might pass the disease along.

If we're talking about a more serious malady that might reasonably be mistaken for a less serious one, then it's unfortunate but probably unavoidable that the person will go about her or his daily business as much as possible. Again, what's the option? Quarantine anyone who has sniffles that might indicate a more serious condition?

Until we have easy access to health care that enables the average sick person to identify his or her sickness in a timely manner, the best we can say is "if you believe, in good faith, that you have a serious contagious illness, please use your judgment and stay home if possible."


However, for all of the reasons that I cited upthread, there's no way to enforce that, because for every person who stays home with a contagious illness, 10 or 20 more are going to go out into the world because they have no other choice. Certainly a person shouldn't knowingly infect anyone else, but even in a case like that, if it's a common illness, I still don't know how you could definitively isolate it to that one customer.

[uppityperson]

11. I am not trying to "definitively isolate it to that one customer"

"if you believe that you have a serious contagious illness, please use your judgment and stay home if possible." Of course. That is what I am saying.

Don't quarantine, but stay home as much as possible.

Since I posted my request at work (if you are sick or think you may be getting sick, please cancel at the last minute. I can't afford to get sick, I don't want to infect other customers.) my people have been very considerate. Even those who used to come in sick.

[Orrex]

12. Perhaps I misread you, then

In your first post in the thread, you seemed to be identifying a particular customer as the source of your illness, based on his after-the-fact admission that he'd been sick.

I don't doubt that he was, nor do I doubt that you became sick. The part that eludes me is how you were able to conclude that he was the proximate cause, especially since it sounded as though you were blaming him for lost wages.


Regardless, I'm glad to hear that your sign is working out. Almost gives one hope for the fate of our stubborn herd.

[brunhilde]

14. "Insurance massage therapy?" WTF is THAT?!

You promise to give all your johns a happy ending?:rofl:

[uppityperson]

15. welcome back and ts'd already. It is the weekend but why do you continue to stalk me?

You sound like a fool, not knowing that insurance pays for medically prescribed massage therapy. And you sound like a fool since you obviously have no clue what massage therapy is.

Tata troll

[mizz pibb]

16. Yah, I sussed that out...I'm not as dumb as I type...

But it was an odd term; I mean, do you refuse people who pay in cash?

Oh, and did you REALLY think I don't know about massage therapy; being the natural foods guru that I am and all?

[uppityperson]

17. Well, you laster 14 posts this time. To answer, yes, I do not think you know

what massage therapy is. Otherwise you would not be confused about insurance massage

[uppityperson]

18. That's ok, I'll wait for the weekend when you have time to

reregister and all. Makes for a slow conversation but hey

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

20. Do you really not know that massage therapy can be covered under medical insurance?

For your wide breadth of CAM things, that doesn't seem very bright

[uppityperson]

21. Dang, have to wait for next incarnation. Wonder if you will ever answer the questions