I'm old. I'm jaded. I assume students self-diagnose and dramatize. Hell, that assumption works pretty good for many adults as well. Unless I have some facts, that's the premise on which I operate. And my steps are as follows.
1. Investigate -- or you are just being a patsy. Try a couple of questions such as "do you remember when and how your doctor determined that you were allergic to both latex and nitrile?" If the answer is "hum-a-hum-a," proceed on the original assumption. [In this particular case, I might ask, "When does your doc plan to write this up and publish in Lancet?"]
a) If you get good answers to your medical questions, ask the student to obtain their doctor's advice on how best to deal with this problem. Explain that we are chemists, not medical doctors specializing in allergy. For example, if the student has a serious natural rubber allergy, merely providing different gloves is not enough. Rubber gloves worn by other students, the aprons, rubber tubing, stoppers, and other sources in the lab can be a threat. But however you do it, put that ball back in the student's court and have the student and/or their doctor suggest the precautions.
NOTE: Not only are we NOT qualified to provide precautions for a specific allergy patient, our expertise in this case is limited to the extremely incomplete ingredient information provided by the manufacturers of the alternative gloves we might offer as a solution.
b) If the student's answers to the medical questions are not good ones and you are getting nowhere in obtaining advice from their doctor, then cope with the very, VERY slim possibility that the student is actually telling the truth. Propose the same kinds of fixes you would guess as a layman (not a medical expert) would be acceptable for someone with an "allergy." This will provide you reasonable, albeit shaky, "due diligence" defense.
For example, try giving the student gloves unlike those the rest of the class uses. Or try excusing the student from the activity. Try whatever -- until you find a solution in keeping with the student's self-diagnosis, ego-involvement, and which provides the student with a dignified descent from the limb they crawled out onto.
BASIC PRINCIPLE: Never be the "medical expert" who determined the precautions. Get the student, and hopefully their doctor, involved in the fix. Keep a written account of your attempts to find a medical solution appropriate to the particular student's allergy based on your interviews with the student, their doctor, or whoever else is foolish enough to get involved.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
181 Thompson St., #23
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
-----Original Message-----
From: Amanda MacPherson <amacpherson**At_Symbol_Here**YCP.EDU>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Sent: Fri, Sep 2, 2016 7:40 am
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Latex and Nitrile Glove Allergies
Hi Monona,
If the student has had a doctor confirm the allergy, the student has not shared this information with us.
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