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Old 10-02-2009, 11:52 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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waves waves is offline
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waves's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10,329
15 yr Member
Lightbulb medical leave? a reprieve?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mari View Post
The culture of my workplace is that people are not supposed to be sick. People take off work without telling anyone why.
Ugh. Do you have differentiated "sick time" and "vacation time" or are you on a "PTO" (Personal Time Off) system - which covers both? I was under PTO for a while. it is nice in a way for the privacy, but it is messy if you run out of time and then get sick... or conversely are sick a lot and have no time left to take any "real" vacation." plus it has to accrue... which doesn't apply to differentiated sick time - ugh - it was weird.

But i digressed before even starting. I had been wondering if you felt you could benefit from a medical leave of absence for a time. Clearly your docs would have to write up the medical reason but it can be done in a vague way - such as "rehabilitation after trauma" or "convalescence after trauma" i dunno - they come up with all kinds of things. I am not sure what the laws are as far as medical disclosure but the releasing MD should know. If you did this, I would go through your GP, rather than a neuro, even if the neuro is actually behind/in contact with the GP.

In any event, I believe (not sure) only HR would be aware of the medical reason. Your boss should only be aware it was medical. You cannot be fired or laid off during a medical leave of absence. They are required to keep your position available you for 1 year of med leave. After that they can replace you, but I was thinking in terms of a single semester/rest of semester.

Now that you mention this culture thing... I don't know. But i thought i'd toss it out to you anyway.

((( hugs )))

~ waves ~
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"Thanks for this!" says:
bizi (10-02-2009)