You don't need to justify your financial decisions to anyone.
It seems that some places will bar you from accessing EMR and other will allow it. This seems like something you should ask your school about to see what they recommend given the conditions.
If your primary goal is to have something portable then I would suggest the 13" macbook air.
I also imagine that you would feasibly be able to carry around an ipad / ipad mini with you in your coat pocket or a lanyard situation. Hopefully there will be a better ipad mini at some point, but there are dozens of great tablet options. Phones do seem to be more "go to" nowadays, and the Galaxy Fold series seems promising for having an ultra portable device that turns into a tablet. (Even if you don't use it over your iphone for normal stuff).
If you've never had a 16-17" laptop before then I can tell you, it's a portable workstation, not a 2lb ultrabook. Sometimes you need more than 1 or 2 devices so consider having the right tool for the job. I've long used multipurpose devices and it can get frustrating when having a separate dedicated device for each task '/ station works much better.