Adversity Essay- appropriate topic and time period to use?

[medlife52525]

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[Moko]

I personally do not see it as being immature. Severe scoliosis can have a tremendous negative psychologic impact on any child and teen. All the more power to you if you got through your childhood without being emotionally scarred from it.

Focus on the things you learned from these years being a patient, include how you coped with being "different", and how these experiences have I suspect helped you deal with college and other adversities that you've faced.

 

[bluerock]

I was born with a moderately rare illness that gave me pretty severe scoliosis at a young age. I spent 7 years wearing a bulky painful back brace till age 17 and it was probably one of the biggest adversities I faced (with the exception of other stuff from this illness).
The bracing failed after 7 years of trying and I had to get a complete reconstructive surgery my senior year of high school (I detail this recovery part in my PS).

Basically, I learned a lot from these years of bracing that I could talk about. Is this appropriate for adversity essays? I technically overcame scoliosis at 17 w/ surgery, so it was before college, but the college 'adversities' I faced in no way compare to this. My premed peers told me to not include it because it's apparently immature as it was when I was a child and they said scoliosis is way too common for those reading, which i told them I was aware of but I felt strongly about the topic and now I don't know what to do.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

I'm debating whether to write about my chronic illness, so same boat. I think the best advice I've gotten on the topic of writing about health issues is that it can't hurt you, but if it's going to help you, you need to focus on what you learned from the experience. How did it shape you differently? How is that difference beneficial to their program?
Also, if demonstrating motivation has been a weak point for you, an admissions officer told me that applicants with long complicated medical histories, particularly with big diagnosis in hands, are historically incredibly well motivated to practice medicine.