Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung

...or why Jacobs students are always sick when exam time comes around

A beautifully long, typically German word which means “attestation of being unable to work.” This is the yellow piece of paper you receive when you go to a doctor and he signs you off sick. The Jacobs University administration has recently decided not to accept any more sick notes from Dr. Schmidtmann, also known as “Dr. Holiday.” This is because during finals time last semester, roughly a fifth of our student body was excused from exams by said doctor. Only eighteen excuses came from other doctors. The decision of the administration was greeted by an uproar of protest, pointing out that you can go to any other doctor and get a sick note just as easily.
The question is why there are so many sick notes and why they are all from one doctor. Is something wrong with this doctor that makes him sign off so many students or are this many students actually sick?
Why do most students go to Dr. Schmidtmann in the first place? It starts out with O-Week when we are told that a doctor in close vicinity speaks English, but even now after the decision not to accept anymore of his “Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigungs” there are still flyers hanging in the colleges with Dr. Schmidtmann's address, making him the unofficial Jacobs doctor. Advertising him all over campus naturally leads to him as a first choice, explaining why he is the one who writes so many excuses. If the whole university always goes there when they're sick, according to social proof everyone else will follow. We might think, “what everyone else does can't be so wrong” and docilely trot to Dr. Schmidtmann when ill.
The second question is much more important: Why are so many people sick during exams? Several explanations come to mind. The swine flu is not the only contagious disease; there are many more. Especially in winter when our immune systems are already weakened by the ongoing gray Bremen weather, we are very susceptible to common flus, colds, coughs, and the like. Coupled with the stresses of class and private life, community living breeds sickness. Maybe not a fifth of the student body is actually unhealthy, but nevertheless a significantly higher number of students than during exam-free time.
What about the rest of the people, those who are diagnosed and excused from classes but aren't necessarily lying in bed with a fever? It has happened to everyone here, one week chases the next and every day there is something to do. Once you are done with your presentation you have to start on your paper, study for the next quiz, do readings or lab reports. Weeks on end the stress just continues. Some people surely procrastinate but the workload is demanding for everyone. It is a doctor's job to help his patients and if a patient comes to him asking for a break because he is simply close to having a breakdown, a doctor should have pity and write him an excuse
What can the administration do when faced with such a large number of sick notes? Alternative solutions have already been spammed around, with the strongest argument to look at the root of the problem. Students are usually not skipping classes because it's fun; after all it's a hassle to go to the doctor, pay 10 Euros, hand in the note to the administration, and then take an often more difficult make-up exam. They are signed off sick because the workload is too much for them to handle while still getting good grades. If this happened throughout the year the general workload would need remodeling. However, since this occurs mainly during exam time maybe it has to do with the way exams are scheduled. Some midterms reach until right before finals, some people have four finals in four consecutive days, or sometimes even several exams on the same day. There has also been an email explaining the reason for the chaotic exam schedule. Two actors are involved: The students and their long drop/add period and the professors who need to indicate if they need a special room or other requirements for their exams.
Due to the often detail-oriented exams of multiple choice questions, most students resort to “bulimia-studying” to succeed at this school, cramming as much information as possible into their heads a couple of days before exams just to “delete” all the learned information right after the exam to make room for the next class. Of course many important things still stay in our minds, but the details become a little hazy.
There comes the point where you just need a break, whether your body tells you this by getting sick, having insomniac tendencies, emotional lowpoints, or showing other kinds of stress-related symptoms. Not all of these are physically measureable but they are there.
It is hard to say who is wrong here. Obviously the number of sick notes has reached a drastic height and needs to be reduced. The question is just how this can be achieved. Less procrastination, better immune systems, less hectic exam schedules, and then maybe some of the best medicine in the world: laughter :-)