For the well-being of students and others, students must not attend classes, see patients, or take exams if they are ill.

An absence due to personal illness will be approved once appropriate documentation from a provider or Health Services is submitted. Refer to the applicable procedures in the Medical Student Handbook. 

Medical appointments should be scheduled during non-required classroom sessions or clinical responsibilities whenever possible to avoid disruption to required activities. If this is not possible, an absence due to a scheduled medical appointment should be requested early and subsequent documentation provided to excuse the absence. 

Regularly-scheduled appointments with a healthcare provider (e.g., weekly therapy) are considered an academic accommodation and not an approved Excused Absence. To receive accommodation, appropriate documentation must be submitted to the Office of Academic Support in a timely manner to obtain approval. The Office of Academic Support will then provide guidance for communicating these accommodations to the appropriate course/rotation personnel. 

Students can request an Excused Absence to address an acute student support need (e.g., a personal crisis). Students who are experiencing a difficult time or feel that they need a student support day to urgently step away from their medical student responsibilities and address an acute need should request an absence using the (confidential) Acute Student Support Day Absence form; doing so will prompt a check-in meeting with the Associate Dean for Student Affairs or Assistant Dean for Student Well-Being.

An acute student support day absence does not require provider documentation.

A meeting with a student support administrator is required to ensure that students are granted necessary time-off, connected with support resources, and appropriate follow-up care is arranged.

Acute student support days are not meant to replace a denied Personal Day request.

Students who present at a conference or represent Brown University in a leadership capacity at a conference or meeting may apply for an Excused Absence or exam extension/rescheduling using the Excused Absence form on the class Canvas page. Conference or meeting attendance without presentation or leadership responsibilities does not meet the requirements for an Excused Absence or exam extension/rescheduling and will not be granted. Students must give six weeks’ advance notice on clerkship and post-clerkship rotations.

Students may request an Excused Absence for major life events involving a close relative or friend, including, but not limited to, death, wedding, or a major milestone. Excused absence requests are granted at the discretion of the appropriate administrator and should be made so there is minimal disruption to any required classroom or clinical activities.

Students may request an Excused Absence or exam extension/rescheduling for religious holidays or observances.

All Excused Absences for Integrated Medical Sciences (IMS), Health Systems Science, or Doctoring course activities must be approved by the appropriate curriculum director. Students will be required to complete make-up work.

Two Excused Absences per clerkship are permitted in the clerkship phase of curriculum. Exceptions to this are the Internal Medicine clerkship, which allows four Excused Absences over the 12-week clerkship, and Clinical Neurosciences which allows two Excused Absences in each Psychiatry and Neurology clinical rotation.

More than two Excused Absences may necessitate clinical make-up work.

Two Excused Absences per four-week clinical rotation are permitted in the post-clerkship phase of the curriculum. More than two Excused Absences may necessitate clinical make-up work.

PC-PM students on the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) can have two Excused Absences per clerkship clinic site during the clerkship year before make-up clinical work will be required (e.g., students may have two absences from their Pediatrics outpatient site).