Health Care / Medicine, Law Schools

Congrats, Harvard Law Grads! Here's A Disease You Thought You'd Never Get!

Only thing worse than another copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go...

By  
on
"What else am I going to get?"

“What else am I going to get?”

It’s graduation time. Many beaming law school grads could never envision this day. For Harvard Law School grads, they certainly never imagined their graduation ceremony taking a backseat to an outbreak of the freaking mumps. But it’s happened! The disease everyone thought they were fully immunized against has reared its ugly head — literally, that’s one of the symptoms — at Harvard and the faculty has put out a revised graduation plan to deal with it. I assume they’re replacing Oh, The Places You’ll Go (affiliate link) with some of Dr. Seuss’s wartime gems.

But first, yes, you can still get the mumps even if you’re immunized. As we discussed when the University of Illinois College of Law announced its limited mumps outbreak during final exams, it turns out that the mumps vaccine is effective only 78 percent for the first dose, and 88 percent on the second. In other words, you’re still screwed.

Dean Marcia Sells sent an email to Harvard Law grads addressing just how this public health situation will impact graduation:

Dear Graduating Students:

Due to the recent and rising mumps outbreak throughout the University we are taking extra precautions this year at Class Day and Commencement. Please share the attached note with your family members and guests who are planning to attend the Class Day and/or Commencement ceremonies. First, you will not shake hands with your faculty section leaders or the Dean as you process across the stage and receive your diploma. A courteous head nod will take the place of a handshake. Second, we will have hand sanitizer available for all guests at the Information Booth and at a large station next to the Lunch Tent on Holmes Field.

Best regards,
Dean Sells

nod“A courteous head nod”? Wasn’t that a plot point in Contagion? If you were worried about having to pretend to like that crusty old faculty member who gave you a dreaded (this is Harvard we’re talking about, so I assume the lowest grade is a…) A- (or maybe that’s now a Pass), you can give them a friendly ‘sup instead.

You may be disappointed about potentially contracting the mumps at your own graduation, but is there any more fitting conclusion to the law school experience than “infections of the covering of the brain” and (for the men) “painful testicular swelling”? Sounds like a pretty good homage to your 1L Contracts final to me.

Sponsored

(The full “attached note” Dean Sells references is attached on the next page….)

Earlier: Law School Announces Mumps Outbreak

Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

Sponsored

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , ,