Mental Illness History-Med school

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Hi, I had a history of trying to kill myself and was kept in a mental ward for a week. There's probably a record of that. Do you think medical school will reject me for that reason?

No, your medical information is confidential. And stay strong

Actually Im just saying this so nobody misunderstand. I did not trying to kill myself because of the course load. I love school. But because I am gay, I just feeling depress for the last ten years so that was the reason. Don't think that I tried to kill myself because I could not handle the classes.

are you aware that physicians currently have the greatest suicide rate, depression, burn out, and overall stress?


Amazing documentary: http://www.doctorswithdepression.org/


You could be making a major mistake... Make sure you're mentally healthy before you start this wild road.

Keep your head up. You're protected by HIPAA.

What is the mistake that you are talking of? The mistake that I am gay and try to pursue this career or is that the fact that I cannot handle this because I am gay?
No I am not angry, I just dont have any energy left to be angry whenever someone call me names.... It just does not matter what i will become in life you know, someone will just hate me (I came to college as a closet, have plenty of friends, when I thought that they really my friends I came out, I have no friends left)

Originally Posted by hell0

What is the mistake that you are talking of? The mistake that I am gay and try to pursue this career or is that the fact that I am gay?

The mistake of starting medical school while depressed.

Originally Posted by hell0

What is the mistake that you are talking of? The mistake that I am gay and try to pursue this career or is that the fact that I am gay?

are you kidding me? Its obvious. Just as perrotfish said.

What is the mistake that you are talking of? The mistake that I am gay and try to pursue this career or is that the fact that I cannot handle this because I am gay?
No I am not angry, I just dont have any energy left to be angry whenever someone call me names.... It just does not matter what i will become in life you know, someone will just hate me (I came to college as a closet, have plenty of friends, when I thought that they really my friends I came out, I have no friends left)

Troll.

sorry I was trying to edit my post because I figured I did not make any sense so that's why there was a double post.

I'm just going to tell you a story when I was in the mental hospital (don't worry, medical related)
My psychiatrist who supposed to talk to me at least every day. She decided that it was enough to come in once every four days. I needed to talk to someone but there was no body available except screaming patients who just cannot wait till they get out of there. To be honest, i thought I really hated doctors after I got out of the hospital. No medicine, no advise, I ened up have $2000 in debt and I could not pay it off. The hospital gave my name to the collection agency.
But last week, my uncle passed away because of AIDS, I finally found the original idea why I wanted to become a doctor in the first place. I mean stuff happened and I could not change it so I hope that my past will not be an obstacle to my bigger dream than the mere fact that I am gay.

Thank you for your response

Depression and mental instability are probably the first things adcoms look for after academic qualifications.

If there will be any signs of your admission or condition on your application, yes, it will hurt your chances.

Originally Posted by hell0

What is the mistake that you are talking of? The mistake that I am gay and try to pursue this career or is that the fact that I cannot handle this because I am gay?
No I am not angry, I just dont have any energy left to be angry whenever someone call me names.... It just does not matter what i will become in life you know, someone will just hate me (I came to college as a closet, have plenty of friends, when I thought that they really my friends I came out, I have no friends left)

Are you mentally healthy now? Because you're clearly not reading the posts.

A career of a physician is extremely stressful; physicians currently lead professions with suicide/depression etc. It is a major mistake to start medical school with a suicide issues that have not been resolved because even medical students are at much greater risk for suicide. 1 in 16 surgeons have contemplated suicide, and of those 3/4th of them had a plan. This is a horrible field for people who don't have strong mental health. 300 physicians commit suicide each year (it takes 2 graduating medical school classes to replace them). So just take a breather, and get things in your life in order before you make the commitment.

I didn't mentioned anything about you being gay in my post.

No i read the post it just that you guys reply too quick before I could finish clarify myself and the repeating post just made me look stupid.

Originally Posted by hell0

No i read the post it just that you guys reply too quick before I could finish clarify myself and the repeating post just made me look stupid.

No, your usage of the English language makes you look stupid.

sorry, i just came to the U.S 3 years ago so I'm still trying to improve my English. ( I took the Toefl instead of the SAT)

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Originally Posted by MuAgonist

No, your usage of the English language makes you look stupid.

Your ignorance makes you look stupid. Not everyone participating in these forums is a 1st language English speaker.

Sent from my Vodafone 858 using SDN Mobile

Originally Posted by Lots2offer

Your ignorance makes you look stupid. Not everyone participating in these forums is a 1st language English speaker.

Sent from my Vodafone 858 using SDN Mobile

I think the guy is a troll, thus my response.

Originally Posted by Holy FranZ

Are you mentally healthy now? Because you're clearly not reading the posts.

A career of a physician is extremely stressful; physicians currently lead professions with suicide/depression etc. It is a major mistake to start medical school with a suicide issues that have not been resolved because even medical students are at much greater risk for suicide. 1 in 16 surgeons have contemplated suicide, and of those 3/4th of them had a plan. This is a horrible field for people who don't have strong mental health. 300 physicians commit suicide each year (it takes 2 graduating medical school classes to replace them). So just take a breather, and get things in your life in order before you make the commitment.

I didn't mentioned anything about you being gay in my post.

Without looking at the statistics I'm pretty sure soldiers/veterans would be the top of the depression/suicide ladder, but then perhaps you meant doctors are near the top but not necessarily the absolute top of that statistic.

Originally Posted by UrshumMurshum

Without looking at the statistics I'm pretty sure soldiers/veterans would be the top of the depression/suicide ladder, but then perhaps you meant doctors are near the top but not necessarily the absolute top of that statistic.

doctors were #1 of professionals. Who know knows, maybe military guys were on it, but I doubt they have the title of professional.


However, there were a lot of fields one may not call a professional, such a stock broker. Do a google search and some interesting stuff will come up. I went to a talk about it rather recently (literally last week).

Originally Posted by hell0

I don't understand why you think I am a troll. If you want I will post up a medical form that clearly state "mental illness." It really was an honest question. I was admitted 5 days in the Lewis Gale psychiatric center January 16-January 21, 2012.
Thank you everyone for actually answering my question. I was just wondering if that could keep me out of medical school that's all. If you look through my past posts, all of my questions were serious and concern about the process.

If they find out, yes, it could keep you out of medical school.

It's something which technically they probably couldn't use directly against you, but good luck proving that was what they did.

Originally Posted by Lots2offer

Your ignorance makes you look stupid. Not everyone participating in these forums is a 1st language English speaker.

Sent from my Vodafone 858 using SDN Mobile

Not to disagree with this notion or anything, but this is a forum primarily for US/Canadian premeds trying to get into US/Canadian medical schools, of which, one of the most important requirements is a strong grasp of the English language.

@OP, continue going to your psychiatrist and therapist and keep yourself in check. Also learn to be more comfortable with yourself and your identity.

Depression and mental instability are probably the first things adcoms look for after academic qualifications.

If there will be any signs of your admission or condition on your application, yes, it will hurt your chances.

I have a feeling this is a troll topic, but I actually went into some level of depth about mental health problems I had on my personal statement. I was accepted into three schools because, in addition to everything else, I was able to talk about what I learned from it and how it can help me in the future. You have to be honest with yourself during the application process

Mental health problems seem to have this huge stigma, but it doesn't have to be that way

Just a reminder to all reading this, you may not be required to disclose mental illness or treatment, but many state medical license applications do require to you disclose mental illness or treatment, or may require you to disclose any condition "that may reasonably interfere with patient care." A suicide attempt may constitue just such a condition and in that circumstance should be reported. Disclosure does not mean that you will be ineligible to practice as a doctor, but failure to disclose could stop someone from getting a license.

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Originally Posted by UrshumMurshum

Without looking at the statistics I'm pretty sure soldiers/veterans would be the top of the depression/suicide ladder, but then perhaps you meant doctors are near the top but not necessarily the absolute top of that statistic.

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Will it hurt your chances if they find out? If you haven't resolved it, then yes.

Make SURE that you are mentally healthy before thinking about medical school. As a premed, you might be unaware of this, but medical school is one of the most mentally and physically brutal experiences one will ever have the pleasure of experiencing.

You NEED to be on top of your game, physically, mentally, and emotionally to succeed in medical school.

I wish you the best of luck with your counseling. Those who make fun of you just because you are gay are just low/ignorant jerks. Don't listen to them. Rather, get healthy and succeed. That oughta show 'em.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

Can I ask you why this is an issue? I think you are paranoid. What you're asking is along the lines of "will the adcoms know about serious injuries from car accident that was my fault because I'm reckless and irresponsible, and reject me on that premise?"

I think you need to handle your illness and THEN go to medical school. You need to be on medication. I'm not a psychiatrist but I can tell you that my mother has bipolar disorder, and she was hospitalized in her 20's for a suicide attempt. It's not normal to be suicidal and no one has control over being in that state.

Please see a psychiatrist at a research hospital who specializes in mood disorders or bipolar disorder. I'm not saying you're bipolar, but if you are and you see a run of the mill psychiatrist they will probably give you an SSRI antidepressant. This is bad.....very bad for someone with bipolar disorder.

Take care of yourself and I'm sure you will be in medical school someday.

Paranoia is not a symptom of bi-polar 1 or 2. There is no evidence of mania. Regardless take home message is that the OP needs to remain going to his psychiatrist and or therapist.

I told one of my interviews I had a bout of depression and I actually got accepted to that school. Anyway if you don't actually tell anyone, they shouldn't know anything.

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Originally Posted by hell0

Hi, I had a history of trying to kill myself and was kept in a mental ward for a week. There's probably a record of that. Do you think medical school will reject me for that reason?

Med schools never found out about my own similar experiences. However, I absolutely agree with everyone who has urged you to worry about recovery first, THEN medical school. You do NOT want to have another meltdown once there, or past it.

Assuming the attempts are well in the past and you are not depressed at present there is no reason that you can't go, however carefully consider as previous posters have mentioned that med school is draining, isolating and the like so having a support system in place is imperative seeing a psychiatrist/therapist sounds appropriate as well.

I'm sorry that things got that bad for you, coming out is something that no one could really understand unless they were in your shoes. But I hope you have come to terms with the past, and the decisions you've made. As long as you have done that and accepted who you are, I believe you shouldn't have a problem.

Depression is more common then most people like to admit. And like most have posted, physicians are in the leading profession for depression and suicidal issues. If you can use this lesson as a way to improve yourself and thrive with your dreams, then I think this can have a much more positive outcome then you've anticipated.

Good luck, and hang in there

What if one was to tell the interviewers that if not accepted into med school they would commit suicide?

Originally Posted by TheVillain

What if one was to tell the interviewers that if not accepted into med school they would commit suicide?

They would probably reject him and have him committed.

I had a psych patient who was committed because he had told a school committee if they expelled him he would kill himself.

They still expelled him, just sent him straight to the nuthouse afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

Oh please like you can judge whether or not someone is manic from an SDN post. For all you know he IS manic and thinking he can go to medical school is a grandiose delusion. (OP I'm not saying that is true but for the sake of my argument).

Bipolar people can absolutely be paranoid when they're depressed or manic and irritable. It's not like "my neighbor is reading my mind and selling my thoughts" paranoia but they can worry to the point of being sort of paranoid.

However, I wasn't saying OP IS paranoid (edit: ok, yes I did and i will go back and edit that because I meant something different) or that its a symptom of bipolar disorder. He was being sort of paranoid in worrying about people finding out his medical history on their own, without him specifically telling them. Many people with bipolar disorder become suicidal. It's not unreasonable for me to bring it up in this context.

Which is why giving medical advice outside of seeing a specialist/doctor is forbidden on SDN even for the attendings. Furthermore it's not completely absurd for you to worry about something with a very real socially attached stigma. Also if someone presented that example to me then I would assume they were schizophrenic or had a psychotic disorder as opposed to having a mood disorder. And yes, suicidality is a symptom of bipolar disorder, however it is also a symptom of almost every other psychiatric disorder under the sun.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

I doubt this is really true. I think physicians are just more likely to admit that they are or have been depressed because they are aware of it and unconcerned with the social stigma.

Studies have shown that this will not contribute completely to the higher rate. Physicians generally are just generally like other certain groups more at risk of developing certain psychiatric and psychological disorders due to their daily activities and lifestyle.

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Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

Anyone could be at risk for developing depression. It's genetic first and Environmentally triggered second. Common sense says that doctors are less likely to be prone to depression, otherwise they probably wouldn't be doctors. Someone who is truly depressed would not be able to successfully meet the daily demands of medical school.

The proprotion of medical students being treated for depression might surprise you. Schools will do what they need to do to help students successfully complete their degrees and if a student has a chronic illness, or becomes ill while in school, a school will be supportive in seeing that a student regains/maintains good health.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

Can you please explain the relationship between my original post and the above statements? I don't know which part of my post you're replying to.

I misread your post regarding the delusional thinking.

I have to agree and say this is probably a troll.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

You seem to be forgetting about the thousands of jobs that are far less rewarding, more underpaid, are dangerous, involve physical labor, etc. I'm not discounting the difficulty of medical school and then subsequently a career in medicine but , to act like physicians are more psychologically and physically challenged than other professions is totally absurd.
There are studies showing that higher IQ persons may be at higher risk for certain psychopathologies.

What about engineers for private firms who design weapons? Or planes for the military? Im not talking about lockheed martin or raytheon, im talking about the small private firms who actually do the top secret engineering and design work. You don't think they operate under intense deadlines for 25 million dollar contracts? Or engineers who are designing medical devices or new imaging methods? Or cancer researchers who are aware of the lives lost every day because they haven't succeeded in developing a specific treatment yet?
You're drawing at straws here.

Then there are the garbage men who spend their entire life driving a garbage truck......and I could go on and on.
Because seeing people die after working with them for prolonged periods of time is equivalent here.

Anyone could be at risk for developing depression. It's genetic first and Environmentally triggered second. Common sense says that doctors are less likely to be prone to depression, otherwise they probably wouldn't be doctors. Someone who is truly depressed would not be able to successfully meet the daily demands of medical school.

1) Source, preferable one with monozygotic twins. And your conclusion makes no sense, where are you getting this information for your arguments from? It's so inductive that it doesn't even warrant an argument.


I honestly don't see why you can't accept that some groups are more at risk statistically for certain psychopathologies? For example women have a higher incidence of certain psychopathologies because as a consequence of them being statistically more likely to be on the receiving end of abuse and experiences that induce trauma than men.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

What about engineers for private firms who design weapons? Or planes for the military? Im not talking about lockheed martin or raytheon, im talking about the small private firms who actually do the top secret engineering and design work. You don't think they operate under intense deadlines for 25 million dollar contracts? Or engineers who are designing medical devices or new imaging methods? Or cancer researchers who are aware of the lives lost every day because they haven't succeeded in developing a specific treatment yet?

The human mind doesn't work this way. If you have a few hours I highly recommend Col Grossman's book 'On Killing'. He was a military psychiatrist that wrote about the psychological training necessary to enable human beings to kill, and the psychological trauma that resulted from it. One of the interesting things he found was that while it took enormous psychological conditioning to get someone to point a rifle at someone and pull a trigger(and causes enormous psychological strain), it took basically no conditioning (and causes no strain) to get them to kill unseen targets via a degree of mechanical separation, for example by shelling a town. We're not built to have an emotional response to lives that we are not in direct contact with, even if we consciously know our actions are having a huge effect on them. That's why running a code, even on an essentially brain dead patient in the Neuro-ICU, can be an extremely emotional experience while bench research, even to help treat suffering children with Leukemia, is not. For that matter its why someone who feels bad killing a bug in their home can eat a steak dinner without so much as a pang of guilt.

Originally Posted by Perrotfish

The human mind doesn't work this way. If you have a few hours I highly recommend Col Grossman's book 'On Killing'. He was a military psychiatrist that wrote about the psychological training necessary to enable human beings to kill, and the psychological trauma that resulted from it. One of the interesting things he found was that while it took enormous psychological conditioning to get someone to point a rifle at someone and pull a trigger(and causes enormous psychological strain), it took basically no conditioning (and causes no strain) to get them to kill unseen targets via a degree of mechanical separation, for example by shelling a town. We're not built to have an emotional response to lives that we are not in direct contact with, even if we consciously know our actions are having a huge effect on them. That's why running a code, even on an essentially brain dead patient in the Neuro-ICU, can be an extremely emotional experience while bench research, even to help treat suffering children with Leukemia, is not. For that matter its why someone who feels bad killing a bug in their home can eat a steak dinner without so much as a pang of guilt.

this is so interesting.

Originally Posted by Tatiana3325

It's genetic first and Environmentally triggered second.

This is an idealogical claim, not a scientific claim. Many things are wrong with this statement, not the least of which that it is unfalsifiable.

MULTIEDIT: psychiatrists did not discover that depression is a disease of the brain, they successfully advocated to society that sad people be deemed ill. This is very different from discovering a new virus or cancer. We discovered that cancer is a disease, we do not advocate that people with cancer be deemed ill, we discovered that they are ill.

Originally Posted by pre med 2014

This is an idealogical claim, not a scientific claim. Many things are wrong with this statement, not the least of which that it is unfalsifiable.

EDIT: psychiatrists did not discover that depression is a disease of the brain, they simply advocated to society, and successfully at that, that sad people be deemed ill. This is very different from discovering a new virus for example.

What?

Actually this is falsifiable through environment v.s genetics experiments through monozygotic twins. Furthermore depression is not a disease in the same regard that visceral pathology is, there is a cultural component, but people are REQUIRED as stated by the DSM to feel impaired or negatively impact, or else they cannot be diagnosed with depression (Save for extreme cases).

Psychopathology is real.

Edit: Are you that disgruntled pilot who believes that schizophrenia is a lie?
Edit: I think cancer is also a disease by virtue of culture. Some cultures could consider cancer a sacrament from god.