being 'out' in the app process

[jak21]

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just wondering if anyone out there is gay and told the med schools that they applied to. i'm applying for entrance in 2004 and i don't really know how to handle the whole thing.

 

[Pre-Dent-David]

U better tell them that you are gay and make a big deal about it by prancing around and screaming like an injured cat....because if you dont and they find out later they can revoke your admission for concealing information about your sexual preference. If they dont like it just use the old racist accusation card.... That always works.

 

[lisa13579]

I don't see why they would need to know that. It really has nothing to do with your ability to be a good physician either way. If it comes up in a secondary essay and you feel comfortable sharing, by all means go ahead.

 

[Cydney Foote]

I think the schools (most of them anyway) care more about your interests and actions, and and your reasons for wanting to be a doctor, than about your sexual preference.

If being gay is part of your story, and you can write a compelling essay that integrates that into your story, then you might want to include it. For instance, you might want to mention your leadership efforts during our campus' Pride Week. Know, however, that even this might turn off some of the conservative schools --- but do you want to go to those places if that's the case?

If it's not a necessary part of your story, though, I wouldn't mention it. You aren't hiding it -- your postsec experiences might "out" you, for instance -- but it might not be the main point you want to get across to the admissions committee.

You might want to read this essay tip on handling controversial issues. It's more about religion and politics, but you might find it helpful.

Good luck!

 

[Herpeto]

There is no reason to discuss your sexual preferences with the admissions committee unless your previous experiences of persecution etc.. have somehow molded your character, strength or perception on life. Unless you have significant reasons why being gay has anything to do with why you chose medicine or how it will make you a better doctor, just leave it alone. Although I grew up in a home watching physical abuse and in the presence of several drug addicts, I certainly didn't select medicine as a career based upon those experiences. Sure the whole situation helped form my perception on life and developed a strong character, but I don't view my childhood as being any different than anyone else's.


Herp

 

[Paws]

I think we all have personal stories or things about us that we feel strongly about, but medicine is a job like alot of others and what we do in our personal lives - or our childhoods - is personal. Sometimes these things come through secondarily and then well, it's less of a big deal like having freckles or whatever.

I have know gay doctors and also gay wall streeters - first comes business and then your private life is your own. People have a sense of what's going on but in a professional environment people respect that privacy.

If I was gay or lesbian, I would just talk about myself in my application as I am, but not really make a big deal about my personal life. Medicine is still pretty conservative. On the other hand, a well known Equity Analyst at one of the NY Investment Banks just had a baby and she's a lesbian - so times and attitudes are changing.

I hope that helps !

 

[Lab-Rat21]

Now while it may be good for you, i doubt this will help your application unless you can tie it to specific events like HIV prevention, or research or something...(someone I know did this and got in). But the problem is you're immediately setting yourself up for resistance from certain committee members, as impartial as they may try to be, subconsciously or whatever, they will likely hold more against you than for you. I suggest you write up your essay mentioning your other strengths and if you want kind of hint at this part of yourself in your post-sec experiences...that way if an interviewer closely reads your file, and asks it would be cool to talk about.

I suggest you do a search on this topic; i think i have seen it before in the Allo or Pre-Allo forums. But talk to your advisor or mentor about it before you include it...

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

Seeing as your sexual orientation really has nothing to do with your ability to perform your duties as a doctor, I would just avoid the issue altogether. Do you have any ECs that separate you from the rest of the crowd of premeds? Do you have any research that an interviewer might be interested in? Try to focus on aspects that will actually affect your admission to medical school rather than what you do behind closed doors in your bedroom. Personally, I really don't know why any med school adcom has to know about this seeing as it really won't affect your abilities as a medical student or as a practicing physician.

 

[jak21]

Originally posted by BerkeleyPremed
Seeing as your sexual orientation really has nothing to do with your ability to perform your duties as a doctor, I would just avoid the issue altogether.

i disagree, and i think the same argument can be made about race, however med schools definitely use race as a factor when deciding admissions. (Let me make one thing clear first, i'm NOT looking for any sort of affirmative action and i've "jumped through the hoops" just like everyone else, i have done lots of research, volunteering, i have a publication, solid mcat scores and gpa, etc...)

anyway, i think that since my point of view is different than that of a straight guy, i think that my future career will be necessarily affected. also, i tend to believe that being gay makes it easier to treat gay patients and understand where they are coming from, just as being a certain ethnicity can make it easier to treat patients of that same ethnicity.

I guess my major question wasn't, "should I tell them?" but more like "if they ask if I have a girlfriend should I tell them?" or "if they ask if I ever want to get married should I tell them?" At this point, I don't think i'm going to put "homosexuality" as one of my post-sec experiences or make a deal out of telling every interviewer that I (hopefully!!!!) get, but at the same time i don't know how much of myself to reveal if they ask a question about something in that realm of my life.

 

[BerkeleyPremed]

I really don't understand the part about how being gay/being of a particular ethnicity helps you interact with patients that are gay/of the same ethnicity as your patient. How would the diagnosis be any different if it was coming from a straight guy/someone of a different ethnicity? Why is it that even with the affirmative action in medical school admissions, the vast majority of doctors working in the inner city areas (which predominantly black and hispanic) are still white, Asian, and East Indian? Don't these doctors who work in Oakland Hospital (Oakland is a predominantly black community) perform just as well as the few doctors that work in that hospital that happen to be black? On the same note, how would a gay physician serve a gay patient any better than a straight physician? Isn't the underlying medical science (applied biology) the same?


"Long Live the Order of the Golden Bear."

 

[thackl]

Whether it's ethically correct or not, don't give ADCOM's any reason to not like you or think you will not integrate well into their school. By all means, don't hide your preference, but I wouldn't offer it in an essay either.

I don't like it either, but with the number of applicants they have to review, the ADCOM's often spend their time looking for reasons NOT to accept you (easier than comparing 1000 identical applicants for strengths).

 

[MeowMix]

I agree that gay patients are often more comfortable with a gay physician. However, there is a little edge in your discussion of putting it in your essay, like you want people to know you're gay and you want it to be OK, testing them to make sure they're going to be OK with you being gay.

If being gay is important to you, and a major part of your cultural life, then I imagine it will be transparent through your involvement with gay-rights organizations, gay-oriented health education, AIDS service organizations, etc.. If your primary motivation in entering medicine is to provide service to the underserved gay community and to sensitively address their immediate and long-term needs, then it would be fine to talk about that.

Otherwise, introducing your sexual orientation into your essay is just unwelcome information about what goes on in your bedroom, like others said. I anticipate that I might get questions about why I'm not married, why I don't have kids, etc.. I'll deal with them in interviews; I certainly don't want to go into that in my essay.

 

[LoneCoyote]

Originally posted by BerkeleyPremed
I really don't understand the part about how being gay/being of a particular ethnicity helps you interact with patients that are gay/of the same ethnicity as your patient. How would the diagnosis be any different if it was coming from a straight guy/someone of a different ethnicity? Why is it that even with the affirmative action in medical school admissions, the vast majority of doctors working in the inner city areas (which predominantly black and hispanic) are still white, Asian, and East Indian? Don't these doctors who work in Oakland Hospital (Oakland is a predominantly black community) perform just as well as the few doctors that work in that hospital that happen to be black? On the same note, how would a gay physician serve a gay patient any better than a straight physician? Isn't the underlying medical science (applied biology) the same?

Berkeley,

It is not about diagnosis. It is about how you feel you are being treated by the health care professional. As a lesbian, I can tell you that I have had some very bad experiences with doctors who made some very ignorant statements or asked questions that made me feel very uncomfortable. Just like a woman may be more comfortable going to a female OB-GYN, a GLBTQ patient may be more comfortable going to a GLBTQ physician because he/she feels that this physician will understand their concerns better and not subject them to ridicule, tense situations, etc. In fact, I have done research on lesbian health issues and lesbians, as a whole (though most of the current research is on white women), tend to be a group that avoids going to the doctor because they do not feel that they will be treated well when they are there. So the issue for GLBTQ patients, like for everyone else, is finding a doctor that they are comfortable with, be it a gay or straight doctor. Maybe as the medical profession becomes less homophobic, this can become more of a reality for those who live outside large, urban areas.

 

[LoneCoyote]

Jak21,

There have been several threads in the past about this which have gotten a variety of responses from hostility to some good discussion about this issues. I am going to paste the links for some of them here for you to look at. In terms of my own experience, I am applying right now, was not out in my personal statement, but plan to be on secondaries where it is relevant. I did "tone down" some of my activities, as I was advised to do by several different people. But I did not leave things off. I think overall the medical profession is pretty conservative and there is a lot of homophobia still out there. I was advised that you do not want your application rejected if what you put on it angers someone who reads it. At the same time would you want to go to a school where that could happen? It's a tough call, and you have to make it yourself depending on how important it is to you to be out. Anyway, good luck with this and if you want to chat about it feel free to PM me or email me thru my profile.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/sho...BT&pagenumber=1

http://www.studentdoctor.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69371&highlight=gay+and+out

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/sho...&highlight=lgbt

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/sho...&highlight=lgbt

 

[jamylk02]

Ok so every once in awhile I read through this forum and find one of these topics, and I am always shocked by the amount of ignorant opinions that are offered from people with absolutely no experience with this topic.

I won't offer you an opinion, but I will let you know how my own experience went. I got into a top med school (one of those ivies...) and I got in off the waitlist. I wrote a personal statement that discussed in detail my comming out experience and I went through several uncomfortable interviews that made me second guess my choice (including one at the school i am going to attend).

Then I got a call from the dean of my new med school informing me that my essay was one of the most original, best written essays he could remember, and that after reading it he had decided that I had to go to that school! A day later I was admitted and I will be attending in a couple weeks.

I don't exactly know what to make of this experience. I know that over the year I learned a lot about myself because I was honest. I wasn't trying to be who they wanted me to be. I just tried to make sense of my past experiences including comming out and dealing with gay issues and relationship issues that I believed will make me a good physcian. I didn't seperate those parts of my life from anything else because I thought that this would hurt or help me.

Somehow this all worked out for me, and I'll admit I have good grades, high MCATs and went to a top school so maybe this would have happened anyway, but I do know it feels better because I know they accepted me on my own terms and that I belong here. I hope this confidence will help me deal with the challenges of med school.

Take what you want from my story. Good luck everyone!

 

[saphenous]

Hi,
I wouldn't include it. Why is this significant to whether you will be a good doctor or not? And why give the admissions committee something to talk about. Your personal business is none of theirs.