Advisors said not to mention that parents are doctors?

[pikachoo]

My premed advisors (I know...) told me to not mention my parents being surgeons at all in my app. Don't they ask about your parental occupation on the app though?
My advisors first asked me what their occupations are, and then proceeded to tell me to avoid it like a plague on my app because it'll make me come off as too privileged.

I wasn't planning on really discussing it in my app, I know I have to communicate why I want to become a doctor, but I can't even have a sentence or two about how this is what introduced me to medicine/kept my exposure to it high? I feel it's unavoidable to not even mention, obviously it makes a difference

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[AllBleedingStops]

My premed advisors (I know...)

Then why are you asking?


Sounds unavoidable to me. I would look at it as a positive - it showed you the home life and, although possibly biased, gave you an early understanding of some of the nuances of a life in medicine.

 

[pikachoo]

Then why are you asking?

Because I can understand their point but they tend to say absurd things, so I have to run it through here first haha

 

[LizzyM]

Some schools actually include this type of fact in the committee letter and always give it a positive spin (they spin everything as positively as possible).
The names of your parents, their profession (it is just lumped together with other providers, not specifically "surgeons") and the most recent academic institution attended is an optional portion of the application. Doctors kids are a dime a dozen and we neither seek nor discourage their admission.

I have seen doctors kids applications get trashed but for what they did with the privlege rather than the privlege itself. If you spent 10 times more of your free time in recreational activitites than you did in community service, you might get criticized for that (particularly thinking about 1,000+ hours spent skiing, snowboarding, sailing, golf, horses, etc with 80 hours of community service over 3 years). See what I mean?

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Be prepared to have certain activities of yours closely examined: any high school shadowing will be assumed to be your parents or their friends, any shadowing in their specialty will similarly be considered nepotism, even up to any unpublished research activities in that field. When asked "why medicine" there should hopefully be an answer besides "I saw my parents do it" and I hope your PS is not about seeing a patient in the OR/clinic with mom/dad. As to your original question: Don't lie about it, also don't hide from it. It is fine if that was where you originally became interested but you have to show independent growth from that.

 

[pikachoo]

Thanks to everyone for your replies!

Be prepared to have certain activities of yours closely examined: any high school shadowing will be assumed to be your parents or their friends, any shadowing in their specialty will similarly be considered nepotism, even up to any unpublished research activities in that field.

This got me kind of concerned though; my parents actually strongly advise against going into medicine, it's not a situation where I'm doing it because of them.

All of my volunteering, shadowing, and research I've gotten myself without their involvement...are adcoms going to assume it was just given to me? Is there any way to show that my work with doctors is not them/their friends?

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Thanks to everyone for your replies!



This got me kind of concerned though; my parents actually strongly advise against going into medicine, it's not a situation where I'm doing it because of them.

All of my volunteering, shadowing, and research I've gotten myself without their involvement...are adcoms going to assume it was just given to me? Is there any way to show that my work with doctors is not them/their friends?

It'll help if they have different last names than you! Honestly it isn't something that would be too dissected unless your application looks like the stuff was given to you: that is, you did surgery research for 1000 hours as a high school senior or you shadowed the head of your parents' department. Don't be too worried; something like 1/3 of med students have a doctor parent.

 

[LizzyM]

We can actually answer this one easily. If you dont say that your parents are physicians and you put in another occupation , you are knowing submitting false information on the application. If found out, it would be an ethical issue and banning from AMCAS forever thus never becoming an MD. Frankly, your advisor is promoting unethical actions and should be told as such.

The question of parents' profession is optional and can be left blank. So there is no need to falsify, just choose not to answer.

 

[deleted804295]

If an individual's parents are health professionals would it be a bad idea to list those same parents as people you shadowed for your experiences?

 

[bbdylan87]

I think we are all reading too much into this. I think what the advisor meant was don't milk the fact that your parents are both doctors. Don't be that neurotic that you examine everything you hear with a 300x magnifying glass.

 

[pikachoo]

I think we are all reading too much into this. I think what the advisor meant was don't milk the fact that your parents are both doctors. Don't be that neurotic that you examine everything you hear with a 300x magnifying glass.

I understand that but I'm really not over-examining it, they said not to mention it at all on my app and kept emphasizing how it's a problem in itself

 

[DokterMom]

Be prepared to have certain activities of yours closely examined: any high school shadowing will be assumed to be your parents or their friends, any shadowing in their specialty will similarly be considered nepotism, even up to any unpublished research activities in that field. When asked "why medicine" there should hopefully be an answer besides "I saw my parents do it" and I hope your PS is not about seeing a patient in the OR/clinic with mom/dad. As to your original question: Don't lie about it, also don't hide from it. It is fine if that was where you originally became interested but you have to show independent growth from that.

It's not like shadowing is an earned achievement.
Yes, it will be presumed that you shadowed your parents' friends, and probably also that you were able to leverage your connections to locate other opportunities. So what? You could mention, where appropriate, that you got this research job through the university -- but that's using connections also.

Just make sure your non-medical volunteering is up to snuff

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

It's not like shadowing is an earned achievement.
Yes, it will be presumed that you shadowed your parents' friends, and probably also that you were able to leverage your connections to locate other opportunities. So what? You could mention, where appropriate, that you got this research job through the university -- but that's using connections also.

Just make sure your non-medical volunteering is up to snuff

My AdComm focused very much on the "why medicine" question. When doctor parents are involved it makes many members concerned that the applicant hasn't put in the appropriate legwork to truly figure out if this is a job for them. So I told OP what doesn't look good from our perspective.