August 1, 2003

Poke, Poke

Law School Rant No. tres:

My law school wants records of my immunization since birth. And a physical. And a medical history.

But, I'm opting out of the school's insurance, I have my own doctor, and I don't want to give up any of my private medical information. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't too stoked to take my healthy self to the doctor for a cheesy check-up that required the following:

1. Breast/Prostate exam (Wha???? This is actually the main cause of this rant. I don't get it. Aren't most law students in their 20's? Aren't these tests for cancer? Why don't they require other cancer tests? You know, a head scan? Lung scan? I just don't get it.)
2. Immunization records for Measles, Mumps and Rubella (Fine, I think this is a bit silly for anyone born and educated in the US, since it was required in order to enter grade school, but fine. I can respect this one. It's just a pain to bother my mom and ask her to find the records.)
3. Hepatitis A and B immunization records? (Oh, so I don't accidentally donate or accept untested blood from a fellow student? Or perhaps they are going to post Hep A/B infection rates somewhere on campus so that if you want to hook up, you can check the list first. Of course, there's no other STDs on the list, so I'm not quite certain how useful this would be. What could possibly be the logic here?)
4. Tetanus booster within the last 10 years. (Okay, so this is a good idea for your health. But does the school have a habit of leaving rusty needles on the floor? Perhaps the desks bite gunners who move too quickly? I think I'm grumpy about this one because I hadn't had a booster in 10 years, so now I have a very sore left arm. Damn.)
5. 4 vials of blood drawn for various immunity tests and 1 sub-cutaneous injection for the TB test.

The arbitrary choice of immunization and infection tests gives credence to the often-cited theory that grades are just random. Sure, there's some stuff that makes sense, but at least half of it is absolutely silly.

Also, I can now say that the pain of law school has commenced. It is currently residing in 3 poked holes in my arms.







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