Everyone needs a sick day once in a while, but healthcare professionals need a sick day more than most. A 2001 news release from the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported that healthcare workers were 1.5 times more likely to miss work due to illness or disability, when compared to workers in other sectors. Furthermore, this is a long-term trend that has continued from 1987 to 2000.

The news is hardly surprising, since working in healthcare comes with many health risks. In addition to frequent exposure to infectious diseases, healthcare professionals also deal with biohazardous agents, chronic stress, burnout, and other on-the-job hazards.

The arguments for not working while sick are clear. Sick employees who show up to work risk infecting patients and colleagues, and also prolong their own illness. For example, a 2006 fact sheet from the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) reported that a worker with the flu is likely to infect 1.8 out of every 10 coworkers, a scenario that could be disastrous in healthcare settings.

The CDC Guidelines for Infection Control in Health Care Personnel, 1998 lists common infectious diseases, and gives recommendations on what duties healthcare professionals should be excluded from when ill. Some hospitals also have their own infection control guidelines that restrict sick employees from working. The CDC also recommends that hospital policies should "encourage personnel to report their illnesses or exposures and not to penalize them with loss of wages, benefits, or job status. Workers' compensation laws do not cover exclusion from duty for exposures to infectious diseases; policies therefore should include a method for providing wages during the period that personnel are not able to work."

Of course, these scenarios assume that the sick healthcare worker knows exactly what disease they have and are taking the correct steps to treat it. But even doctors make mistakes in self-diagnosis and treatment. In 2003, a Midwestern doctor continued to work through what he believed was a bout of bronchitis, but which turned out to be active tuberculosis. Even more alarmingly, a New York City hospital worker with tuberculosis may have