That's true, Roxanne... but it doesn't answer the question. Want to try again?
Medicine is not always the answer and some cannot afford it!
You are quite right, Jerry. I didn't fool you one bit! It is NOT our job -- or our authority -- to require someone to take medication. Moreover, it is not within our legal purview to deny a student with a disability the appropriate accommodation because we think he/she should be handling their disability differently. The key word in that sentence is "THEIR disability." Whether it is the student with a spinal cord injury whom we think would be more independent in a motorized, rather than manual, wheelchair or the student with ADHD who chooses not to take the medication prescribed, those are personal decisions on the part of the student.
You have also correctly identified one of the reasons that students with ADHD sometimes do not want to take the prescribed medication. The side effects can be both disorienting and debilitating for some folks. And I think you offered exactly the right response in suggesting that he return to the prescribing physician to have a talk about alternatives. It is important to keep in mind, however, that if the student's behavior or performance suffers during the time he is not on medication, he must still be held accountable for what he DID do, or DID produce. As is true with every other student, you must judge on the basis of your observations, not your expectations!
Hi Dr. Jarrow,
If I'm interpreting these questions correctly, I see a couple of potential problems related to ethics here. The first reason I say this is because coming from a health care environment, patients are still allowed to refuse to take their prescribed medications at any time. We as the providers could only encourage and warn them of the possible consequences, but we still could not simply force the drugs upon them.
I also had a recent experience in the classroom where one of my students who was diagnosed with ADHD came to me with his concerns. Apparantly he was acting out more because he stopped taking his medications. His main reason for that decision was the unbearable side effects he experienced. I could not have him disrupting the class, so I suggested that he speak with his physician in hopes of finding an alternate. I still don't believe I had the right to mandate to that student that he take his medicine, side effects notwithstanding.
I think you have it just right, Ursula. It is the instructor's job to help the student in the classroom, not to interfere with their personal decisions regarding management of their disability. AND you are right when you say we would want to reach out to any student we saw struggling, for whatever reason, to offer assistance. It is important, when interacting with students with disabilities, that you make your observations and your recommendations based on their individual experience, and not on the basis of what you have seen in the past with someone else who appeared to be dealing with the same issues. But having said that, my general rule of thumb is, "it is NEVER inappropriate to offer assistance. It is simply inappropriate to give assistance that the individual hasn't agreed to."
