I study in the USA.
Can a professor ask me to waive my right to privacy so he can talk to my doctor about my medical condition? He says he needs that in order to allow me to take a make-up midterm for an exam that I missed, even though a medical note certifying my illness is provided.
Also, the doctor that gave the note is usually a nurse practitioner (NP), but he instead wants a note from a doctor of medicine (MD).
That sounds like a big no to me, but that comes from Germany with very strict rules on privacy. Your medical condition is your thing, and yours alone. If you have a document that certifies your illnesss, that should be enough.
Check your university policies, what you need to provide in case off illness HAS to be written down somewhere. If it states there that a written thing is enough, it is enough. Point your professor to that document, if that does not help talk to faculty cousellors. They should be able to help you.
I am not sure if it is relevant to your situation since you haven't mentioned a country (I am in the UK), however I have personally been asked a similar thing when the professor wanted to check that the medical note provided was indeed from my doctor and relevant to the allowances being made for me.
The privacy I was giving up by letting him talk about my condition was not for them to fully discuss the details of my illness, but instead to merely check that the note was real, that my illness did indeed prevent me from being able to take an exam. This was standard uni procedure, so should be documented for you to check if its something similar.
If you have data protection laws similar to the UK in your country then the doctor cannot even confirm that you exist to a 3rd party until you give them permission to discuss with that specific 3rd party, and if that is the case then it is perfectly reasonable for the university to request you give the doctors office permission to disclose that you are a patient, and that the letter is genuine.
Equally it is perfectly acceptable for you to only give the doctor's permission to give that specific information (and withhold any additional information) as it is your data, and they would be bound by the permissions you give them.
On the other hand if the university are asking for complete access that is a no go, but I think if you communicate more with the lecturer about what they actually want, it won't be as bad as giving them full access and details.
At my university (a well-off private university in the USA), there is an Office of Disability Services who, in situations like this, acts as the middle-man between doctors and professors to determine test accommodations. You fill out an accommodation application, your doctor fills out a form that this office supplies, you submit both to the office, then they meet with you and determine reasonable accommodation. The professor is then informed by this office what the accommodations are and is required to abide by them.
I bring this up so that you can check whether your university has a similar office or service. It's good in that the revelation of private medical information is contained only to a single office specifically designed to handle such information appropriately, and professors and other university members need not know the information, just the required accommodations.
If your university does not have such a service, then I don't know what to do, but I'd imagine (as others have pointed out) that there must exists some policy of what is an appropriate level of proof of necessity of medical accommodation, and if what your professor is asking exceeds that, then point them to the policy.
It is highly unethical for the professor to make this request. The professor is asking for the student to waive their right to medical privacy and in exchange all the professor will do is their job.
The professor has the right to contact the student's NP to confirm the information on the note and discuss whether student had a bona fide reason to miss the midterm. (I have done this.) However the nature of that reason is none of their business.
Whether and NP is good enough or an MD is required should be set out in the university's policies. If the university doesn't have a policy, then the department may. If the department doesn't, the policy should be on the information provided by the instructor. If there is no policy, then an NP should be as good as an MD, since making this sort of assessment is within the normal scope of practice for NPs (in most jurisdictions).
That said, the best advice for the student is to find out what their university's policies are on medical notes.
(I'm working in Canada. This would be the situation in Canada and I expect also in the U.S. and Europe. Other places could have other norms.)
As someone who has both been an undergraduate student and, oddly, served as Instructor of Record for a college-level undergraduate course, in the US:
it is completely reasonable for him to ask you for a doctor's note, and it is not too unreasonable to stipulate that the note come from a professional physician (MD, DO, DDS, etc.) and/or bear the letterhead of the clinic, etc. Use your judgement.
By HIPAA, your healthcare provider can't discuss anything about your treatment with others without your consent (barring a few exceptional cases). By FERPA, your professor can't discuss anything related to your education with others without your consent. So, neither of them can contact each other about you without your consent; a conversation between them would be even more off limits.
Give him a note signed by a MD and w/ the clinic's letterhead. This should be authoritative enough for every reasonable person. If he insists, say NO immediately.
Again, if he insists, he is treating you unfairly. Escalate the issue immediately. Especially, contact the following people, as you see fit:
I would not contact HR, though, as it is not their issue. This is an academic/instructional issue involving the mistreatment of a student by an instructor.
As with any privacy matter, the one ultimately making a decision is you. A professor is allowed to ask for you to waive your rights to privacy so your medical discussion can be discussed with the doctor, but you have the choice to agree or say no.
So, a professor can most definitely ask if it would ease communication with the doctor and evaluation of a re-take exam. Nothing wrong with that request and the comments I've read so far on this question are a little on the strong side. No need to jump on the professor's case just for asking.
Where the line is drawn here is if your refusal to waive your right to privacy has a direct impact on your exam or result from it. In that case, taking this to HR or the uni board would be a good thing, because that would not be proper.
One thing the professor can do, without violating medical privacy laws, is to simply contact the medical practice to ask if they can speak to Doctor Such-And-Such (in other words, verify that the doctor is, actually, doctor), and then to ask Doctor Such-And-Such to verify that he/she was indeed the author of the note. After all, the doctor sent the note. So you could say to the doctor "While I do not wish you to talk to my doctor about my medical condition, feel free to talk to my doctor to verify that the note is valid".
You ask about what's allowed, which may not be the same as what's right or ethical. In the absence of some course and/or university policy (and/or state law) stating otherwise, the decision of whether or not to allow a student to retake a missed exam is entirely at the professor's discretion.
As a first step, you should check to see whether any such policy exists at your school or for your course. If one does, then you're in luck. Refer your professor to it. If they still don't come around, involve an advisor, department head, or similar third-party to resolve the duspute.
If there is no such policy, you'll need to shift your perspective a bit.
The default scenario at this point is that you've failed the midterm. That's the outcome you have if the professor simply sits there and does nothing.
So while it's true that the professor cannot legally require or otherwise compel you to waive doctor-patient confidentiality, it may also be true (barring any university policies in your favor) that you cannot require or compel the professor to let you retake the midterm. They can deny your request for any reason, or for none at all.
You've got a stalemate; the professor is almost certainly allowed to ask you to waive doctor-patient confidentiality, and you're certainly allowed to refuse. In which case the stalemate continues, and you're stuck with the default outcome of a failed midterm.
In essence, nobody is requiring anything. You missed an exam, and you want to be allowed to retake it. You may have a completely valid and reasonable excuse for missing the exam, but in the absence of any policy to the contrary whether or not you get to an exam is at the professor's sole discretion. You're asking the professor for a favor, and they're asking one back.
None of which means that the professor has been reasonable or fair or ethical if they've not accepted a genuine medical excuse at face value, or that the incident couldn't have negative repercussions for the professor if the details get out, or that you wouldn't find support if you took the matter higher up in the university food-chain.
But your question is about what the professor can do. And they can ask you to let them speak to your doctor, yes. They can't force you to, but they can sit on their hands and do nothing if you refuse. They shouldn't do that sort of thing, but without a university policy stating otherwise they almost certainly can.
The answer will greatly depends on your region.
Some things to consider would be to look at your local laws and your University's guidelines, too.
A note from and MD rather than an NP may be a valid request depending on your University's guidelines. Many universities require a note specifically from an MD for such occasions.
As for his asking to talk to your doctor, it would be useful to know what he is trying to achieve that a note couldn't do. Ask him why exactly he needs to speak to your doctor.
If he doubts that you have/had an illness then it should be completely unnecessary to ask for more than a note from an MD. If that's all he wants to do and doesn't back down after getting a note, look at your local laws and University's guidelines and contact HR if he oversteps any of those.
But you didn't mention what your illness was, perhaps he may not be doubting that you have the illness but rather wants to assess whether or not it was a good reason to defer an exam. If his questions are about the illness in general and why it would be a valid reason to miss an exam, suggest consulting any doctor about it.
Lastly, and perhaps the least popular suggestion, ask yourself exactly what you'll lose by letting your professor know about your illness. Perhaps the easiest solution, albeit least favorable, is to just let him speak to your doctor about it. His demands may be out of line, but if you were honest about your illness there's no real harm to you for allowing him to speak to your doctor about it.
Since this sounds like a disability, talk to your college/university's disability office. Get an accommodation letter that allows you to make up classes and exams. In every college I have attended, this letter is sufficient for establishing that you have a disability and the professor would be violating university policies if he were to require more information on the medical condition.
