/r/legaladvice: College Student gets Told about his "right" to have a cellphone in class

Gods below, kid, let me tell you -- the world has done you a terrible disservice by allowing you to reach the age where you can be both a college student and so terribly misinformed about your rights. At some point you're really going to have to come to terms with the fact that the real world isn't going to let you indulge your every whim the way your parents did.

To be clear: Your are in possession of exactly zero rights that are applicable in this case. You have only one thing: the opportunity to take this class, not the right to, and that opportunity is contingent on many factors - your grades, your paying for it, your attendance, your abiding by the rules the professor has set.

You have no right to carry any given personal item on you at all times in all places. Your professor can outlaw cell phones. He or she isn't requiring you to put it in the box -- he or she is stating in the syllabus that if you choose to bring your cell phone into class, you must put it in the box. You have at least two other options here: don't take the class and don't bring your cell phone into the class. If you don't like it, don't take the class. Or turn it off and stick it in your book-bag, though be prepared for the consequences the day you forget to turn it off (yes, he can kick you out, reduce your grades, etc.).
You don't have to "listen to his silly rules" because you are his student, you only need to abide by them as long as you want to be his student. If you don't want to abide, then don't be his student.

Where does your logic end? You want to take the class, but you don't feel like you should have to pay the silly costs? You want to take the class, but you don't feel like you should have to show up to the silly classroom or do the silly assignments?

Who cares if your cell phone holder is also your wallet? Why do you need either in the class? What prevents you from taking your cell phone out of the holder and leaving it in your car, or at home, or anywhere else? What other distracting and unnecessary items do you want to take into a classroom? An iPod so you can listen to music instead of the lecture? Your paraphernalia so that you can blaze up at the back of the class?

One of the goals of college is to prepare you for how the real world works. Most employers require "two years of experience or an equivalent degree" for entry-level positions not because they value what you learned in drama class or humanities but because there is a hope -- though apparently an increasingly small one -- that someone who has gone through two years of college has learned that no, they can't act however they want, no, they can't put off their responsibilities, no, the world doesn't revolve around him or her. Employees in many work environments are required to leave their cell phones locked up during working hours -- I've worked at a half-a-dozen places where a glimpse of a cell phone is an immediate write-up. What makes you think a college class is any different?

Where did you get the notion that you have the same "right" to carry your cell phone in a classroom that you have on the sidewalk? And where oh where oh where did you get the idea that your college professor cannot require you to print up a few pages?

/r/rage : Nursing student decries "the whole medical industry", praises alternative medicine; /u/BrobaFett administers a 2.5-dose suppository of told, stat!

BrobaFett:

So... I'm a medical student.

When I hear this, I used to really give a shit. It used to bother me a whole lot. I used to really want to invest in active public debate. Now I'm just apathetic to the whole thing. People aren't going to change their minds when they've abandoned an evidence-based view of the world.

I say, let the fuckers kill themselves with herbs, and crystals, and prayer.

When your infection turns septic, and the MI, stroke, or trauma eventually happens- I'll be here. I'll be waiting. I will help you.

And I won't need to convince you to save you.

My only fucking request is that we establish a legal precedent to prevent these people from harming their children with this bullshit.

Modern medicine can kill people. Read some of the side effects of prescriptions, some of them say " death". Not to mention how cancer treatment leaves people weak and near death, sometimes resulting in it. For a med student, you sure don't know shit. A lot of medicines are derived from plants, heres a list. Even things like fish oil, prevent things like heart disease, and vitamins help boost your immune system. Even Penicillin is derived from a fungus.

I dont know who is feeding you this bullshit, but a parent should be able to decide what their children should take. A lot of the immunizations are bullshit. Does a 10 year old kid really need an immunization for Hep B? Im sure a kid that age really cares about unprotected sex and intravenous drug use.

Edit - Still getting downvotes almost 3 months later.

Before I just... type out a long reply, I have to ask: are you actually replying to me, or just fucking with me?

And, if it's the former, do you actually care what I might say or have you convinced yourself that you are right, despite what I may say?

Edit: cause we can do this, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

I am actually replying to you. Not only am I a nursing student, but I have been in the medical field for several years, through rehab facilities, Alzheimers facilities, long term care units, and hospice units. I currently work at a state hospital.

People think Alternative medicine is quackery, but it has been around longer then our established medical system now. I am not saying I believe in all of it, but their are plenty of "herbs" with medicinal qualities, as well as lifestyle changes that can easily benefit a patient. Doctors seem so quick to write scripts, when there are easy things to do to lower risks of heart disease. strokes, and diabetes. But those things don't make the pharmaceutical companies money, and its much easier to take an expensive pill, with tons of side effects. The side effects are OK to, because you can just take some other pills to clear that up.Its a racket. The whole medical industry is a sham, and you will see that once you are out in the field, working. I'll give you an example, a few years ago, I was uninsured, and had to go to the hospital due to a allergic reaction. It was late at night and was afraid my throat was going to swell. I was in and out in 2 hours, and received a short doctor visit, 2 steroid tablets, and an Albuterol Breathing treatment from the RT. The 15 minute visit from the RT cost me 900 dollars, the 2 minutes from the uncaring doctor cost me another grand. He wrote me a few scripts, for some more steroids, and albuterol inhaler and 2 epi pens. The epi pens where 200 dollars a piece, and have the shelf life of a year. How is it that something so many people need, costs so much, and has such a short shelf life?

Now on to some of the vaccinations for children.

• Hep A ( Not usually serious in children under 6 )
• PC-Pnemoncoccal ( Bacterial Meningitis not normally seen after 24 months)
• HiB ( Viral meningitis not normally seen after 36 months )
• Hep B ( Like i said, What 10 year old is going to be having sex unprotected, and using iV drugs)

There is no "Right of Wrong in this" But simply another persons belief . I think it is ridiculous that someone going to med school thinks so little of alternative medicines, when so many of the medications out on the market are derived from nature.

Alright, this is gonna be a long reply because you seem to care and have taken my half-tongue-in-cheek sardonic reply personally. I’m going to try to address your stuff point by point. Sorry that it’s a lot to read, but there’s a lot to talk about. A lot you get right and as much that you get very, very wrong.

First, in reference to your original post, you take issue with the fact that I scoff at “herbs” as much as the other “alternative” forms of medicine. Kind of reminds me of a quote I hear repeated a lot that goes something like, “You know what we call ‘alternative’ medicine when it works? Medicine.” You infer that I dismiss all plant-based medicines. I don’t. I completely recognize that a majority of our medications are derived in some way or another from plants and fungi (including broad classes of chemotherapy, analgesics, and antibiotics).

Plants make medicine? No shit, guy. When I say “herbs” in my informal rant, I’m talking about using Cat’s Claw to treat viral hepatitis not fucking Vincristine. You recognize the distinction I’m making here, right?

So let’s get into the more recent points.

People think Alternative medicine is quackery, but it has been around longer then our established medical system now.

Who gives a shit? Longer doesn’t equal better any more than newer equals better.

I am not saying I believe in all of it, but their are plenty of "herbs" with medicinal qualities, as well as lifestyle changes that can easily benefit a patient. Doctors seem so quick to write scripts, when there are easy things to do to lower risks of heart disease. strokes, and diabetes.

So in the treatment of essential hypertension and diabetes, what is the “first line” of treatment? Every single recommendation starts with lifestyle changes. Everything from increase in aerobic activity (speaking with the patient regarding what activity he/she can tolerate) to getting on a DASH diet. Now why would I still prescribe hydrochlorothiazide on the follow up visit? Because maybe about 1 in 10 patients actually implements the diet and exercise to a point where their health measurably improves. The people that do approve don’t get drugs. We don’t prescribe them drugs. Diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes are major habits that are hard to change. I get it. People don’t like to stop drinking high fructose corn syrup. So we give them medications. Now why do we give them medications?

To line our pockets, right?

Let’s try the fact that hypertension is the most important risk factor in premature cardiovascular disease, end stage renal failure (Diabetes more than HTN for ESRD), stroke (both ischemic and hemorrhagic), and heart failure. No, I want to manage a girl’s blood pressure so she doesn’t die ten years earlier than without from a heart attack. I’d like to prevent her from needing dialysis. I’d like to keep her healthy enough to be able to walk from her bedroom to the kitchen without huffing and puffing from pulmonary edema. 

Allow me to pause this for a second and point out that hydrochlorothiazide works. The drugs work. People’s blood pressures actually go down. They go down and we still encourage them to make healthy lifestyle choices. We get them case workers and dieticians. We send them to physical therapy if necessary and educate them on ways that they can exercise. You know what doesn’t work? Goddamned crystal therapy.

How the fuck do you not know this already? This is standard of care medicine, I’m talking about. Seriously, how did this pass you by in all of your “years of experience”?

But those things don't make the pharmaceutical companies money, and its much easier to take an expensive pill, with tons of side effects. The side effects are OK to, because you can just take some other pills to clear that up.Its a racket.

So someone pointed out that “driving can result in death”. I appreciated the analogy. Regarding side effects- which in the first reply, you make a big deal out of “death” being one of them- normal saline can kill you if you push enough of it.

It might disappoint you to find that I’m not an apologist for the pharmaceutical industry. When it comes to prescribing every physician I’ve learned from follows a few simple rules:  

1. Only prescribe it if you absolutely have to.   
2. Make sure the side effects are minimal and, if present, managed   
3. Bend over backwards to get generic, make sure insurers cover it, or find pharmacy deals that limit cost. We want our patients to take the treatments we prescribe. You know what the biggest barrier to care is? Cost. You know who knows? We fucking know this.

There. Sometimes the treatments are absurdly expensive. Sometimes the hospitals gouge the price. Doctors sometimes don’t know how much the drugs cost and when they are uncertain…fucking get this… pharmacies actually won’t tell you the cost until the drug is dispensed. Is the pharmaceutical industry a racket? Sure is.

Do they make lifesaving drugs? Also yes.

So I’ll shake a few hands with the devil and do the best I can for my patients. 

And treating side effects with other drugs? You bet your ass I do. Have you ever seen intractable vomiting from chemotherapy? You know what Mallory-Weiss tears are? Have you seen when a calcium channel blocker causes peripheral edema? Of course I’ll use a medication to treat these goddamn miserable conditions. I’ll also consider discontinuing the med, changing the med, or –best of all- changing to a different similarly efficacious treatment (such as switching one lady’s nifedipine with hctz, knocking out her edema AND keeping her HTN controlled; two birds, one pill). I’m not special here, either. I’m trying hard to think of one in the hundred or so physicians I’ve worked with who doesn’t take these sorts of things into consideration with every patient.

The whole medical industry is a sham, and you will see that once you are out in the field, working.

I am working and “in the field”. And the example you give is of limited use to the discussion. I really am sorry that your doctor was uncaring and your medical bills were so high. I know it’s impossible to convey and you probably don’t believe a word of it given the fact that we tend to disagree on a few things, but I’m with you on this. Healthcare costs are too high for a number of reasons. The pharmaceutical industry, which spends more on advertising than RnD, marks the shit out of drug prices while their competitors scramble to find an isomer. Patients are disconnected from the “supply and demand” of healthcare and not able to control their own costs because treatments are decided for them based on medical indication and insurers can screw them (and the doc) over essentially whenever they feel like it. Insurance is hard for people with chronic illnesses, who need it most, to get if they’ve lost it at some point. Hospitals are for-profit machines that cash in billions. And docs order too much stuff in order to find a zebra within the herd of horses and partly to keep their asses from being sued. You want me to defend the system? Hah.

But when some crazy fucking parents decide to drag their now septic two year old into the emergency room because they tried to “pray away” the appendicitis (which is now a full body infection), I’ll still do everything in my power to save that child’s life. And, thanks to the evil pharmaceutical companies efforts, there’s actually a pretty damn good chance I COULD save the kid’s life.

And that’s my point. I don’t force anyone to come to see me. If mom or dad wants to forego medication for weekly Reiki, that’s on him. I’m happy to respect his choice and mock it on Reddit—obviously I’m not going to lie to anyone that decides to ask me to my face what I think on the matter. In my free time, I’ll advocate however I can for healthcare reform that benefits both patients and providers (you’d be surprised how often the measures correlate).

So, let’s talk vaccines. I’ll try to use an anecdote to sort of illustrate why we disagree. You’re of the opinion that the decision should be up to the parents. It is. We wait until your kid’s life is in jeopardy until taking protective custody for the purpose of administering emergency healthcare. Good example of this is the Jehova Witness parents walking in with a kid who’s bleeding out and will die without transfusion. We’ll get a judge order to treat the kid. I’ve seen this happen once. I wish I could convey the weird mix of frustration and relief on their faces (mostly relief).

Parents and doctors really do, 99.9 percent of the time have the same interests of the child in mind.

So, after all that, here’s the anecdote. Mom walks in with an infant limp and cyanotic in her arms. Despite aggressive attempts at resuscitating the kid, the baby dies. Autopsy shows the cause of death to be airway occlusion from HiB epiglottitis. Mom refused vaccines because of some schpeel she heard from Jenny McCarthy or something her husband, who listens to Alex Jones, told her.

There’s the story. Wish it were more theatrical. I wish I had more to say on it. But these are the scenarios we are looking at: preventable epiglottitis, bacteremia, empyema, pneumonia, and meningitis. 

Before routine immunizations Haemophilus influenza B (Hib) was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in children. 15.3% of cases were fatal. The annual incidence of invasive Hib was between 70-140 per 100,000. After routine vaccination was introduced the incidence is down to less than 0.5 in 100,000 of invasive Hib (actual infection). Estimates suggest that’s over 25,000 cases of invasive Hib prevented per year; though it’s hard to measure what the difference is because vaccines are keeping kids from dying from the disease.

That’s just Hib. Let’s check out your list a bit more:

Hep A ( Not usually serious in children under 6 )

You’re right. And it’s only given to kids with endemic risk. My region doesn’t give it as part of the routine schedule. That being said, the case-fatality rate for Hep A in kids younger than 14 is 0.3% compared to 0.1% in young adults (15-29). Hep A isn’t partuclarly endemic to the US. However in countries where the disease is prevalent, such as Latin America, it accounts for 60% of liver failure- of which 30% will die.

PC-Pnemoncoccal ( Bacterial Meningitis not normally seen after 24 months)

Since the introduction of the PC vaccine the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease has declined by 60-90% in children LESS than 24 months of age.

HiB ( Viral meningitis not normally seen after 36 months )

This has been dealt with.

Hep B ( Like i said, What 10 year old is going to be having sex unprotected, and using iv drugs)

Let’s talk Hepatitis B.

First, it’s not just an adult disease. Before vaccination, Hepatitis B infected 13.8 per 100,000 children. Post vac, the number is down to 0.35 per 100,000 in 2005.

Some general info about Hep B. It’s a disease that causes inflammation of the liver and, in an of itself, is rarely fatal. The problem is that, depending on when you get it, it can go from being sort of this short-infection do becoming chronic liver disease. In kids less than five, the chances of it progressing to lifetime liver disease is about 30-50%. If your mom gives it to you while she’s pregnant with you, the chances are closer to 90%. If you get it when you are an adult, it’s down to 5%. It’s the second leading cause of preventable liver failure (behind alcohol) and the most important cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).

And, holy fuck, we can prevent it. We have the ability to literally STOP the disease from happening regardless of life choices and your response is, “why’s a kid gotta worry about dirty needles and sex?” I mean, I thought we both agreed that healthcare costs are high. We can prevent millions of dollars worth of morbidity and mortality with routine vaccinations and this is your rebuttal?

See, you’re big on “there’s no right or wrong” choice. The thing is, where you and I seem to differ in belief is regarding how seriously we take the concept of “evidence-based medicine”. Namely, I believe the evidence.

Hope to hear your reply. Good luck in nursing.

Thanks for standing up for sanity Broba. My mother and grandmother tried to brainwash me and my siblings with that homeopathic alternative BS for years. I quickly saw through it, but my little sister wasn't so lucky. Then she noticed a lump in her breast at 26. And guess where my mom took her for treatment. That's right. The witch doctor's office.
When she told us my dad (long divorced from my mom) and I begged and pleaded for her to go see an oncologist. They flat out refused for 8 months, instead electing for vitamin C infusions and a bunch of other nonsense. I explained to both of them that if this was really cancer then this was killing her. But they'd say, "you just don't understand." 8 months later the afflicted breast had more than doubled in size. We're talking A cup on one side D on the other. Not until the tumor burst through the skin did they finally go to the hospital. Of course by then it was way too late.
The doctor we spoke too said that they only saw untreated cases this bad in the homeless and old people with dementia. My sister died days after her 28th birthday of one of the most treatable forms of cancer because she believed in their bullshit. Fuck alternative medicine and the charlatans who sell it.