VCOM College Catalog and Student Handbook

Students who require the use of a service animal or emotional support animal must be aware of the following: • Service animals that provide life-saving services or monitoring to avoid serious medical complications are allowed in the classroom. Animals are restricted from the clinical environment, anatomy laboratory, microbiology laboratory, simulation labs, and standardized patient encounters. VCOM does not own or operate the hospitals or clinics in which students train; therefore, student’s experiences are subject to the hospital or clinic’s approval for participation. For these reasons, VCOM allow the use of a service animal in the classroom in year one and provides assistance for reasonable accommodations to replace the use of a service animal where possible during the second year with alternate devices the student will need to use during their clinical education experiences. The student must be aware (as a future physician) that the safety and well-being of the patient remains first, and accommodation cannot be provided in the majority of required clinical settings. If the animal is out of control and the handler does not take effective action to control it, or if it is not housebroken, that animal may be excluded. If the presence of the animal causes other students, faculty, and staff to experience serious allergic or asthmatic complications, the animal may be restricted to specific locations within the room or in severe cases, the student with the service animal or the student with the allergic or asthmatic complication will be provided a private room setting where the lecture can be observed live and/or recorded. VCOM reserves the right to require the student to consult with specialists with specific expertise in assisting students with alternate accommodations for their chronic illness prior to the student entering clinical experiences. • The use of a service animal is an accommodation that must be approved by the VCOM Section 504 Committee. • Emotional support animals are not allowed in the classroom. While VCOM supports the concept that animals may assist with emotional support, emotional stability is a technical standard that must be met without the accommodation of an animal. • VCOM is supportive of the use of an animal in the home to provide emotional support for a student; however, a student should be aware that there are students, faculty, and staff that also require an animal free/dander free environment due to serious allergic reactions and asthma. For this reason, emotional support animals are not allowed in VCOM’s clinical housing. • Students must notify the Office of Clinical Affairs of the need for a service or emotional support animal in the home setting in advance of the OMS 3 clinical site match. Students must provide appropriate physician verification of the need for the support animal. During the clinical rotation match process, if a student requires the use of a service or emotional support animal in the home setting, the student will be placed at a clinical site where the student does not require VCOM housing for out rotations. These placements are performed outside of the regular match and VCOM reserves the right to place any student requiring a service or emotional support animal in the home, in a clinical site that does not require the student to utilize VCOM housing. Should a student fail to notify VCOM of the need for a service or emotional support animal in the home setting before the clinical site match, VCOM reserves the right to re-assign the student to an appropriate site of VCOM’s choosing. If the need for a service or emotional support animal is not known to VCOM prior to clinical assignments being made and a student must do an out rotation, VCOM student housing for the animal is still not provided, which may result in a delay of the completion of the clinical program in order to accommodate the student for the out rotation in June or July following the OMS 3 year. Requesting Accommodations The process for determining eligibility and arranging accommodations is lengthy; therefore, whenever the student knows in advance of a need for accommodations, he or she should begin the process as soon as possible. Students are requested to notify VCOM of any disability that is diagnosed after admission immediately so that a request for accommodation may be made as early as possible. VCOM students have the obligation to self-identify if they believe that they do not meet the technical standards. Students who fail in the curriculum or who are suspended or dismissed may not claim failure due to disability not previously identified prior to the failures or for one that is in

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