Could I still get in after illness?

[Mel Belle]

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I'm just wondering what people think about this. I spent a year low on credits (I didn't want to get too behind - I'll just say it was definitely less than 18 for the entire year) and while I didn't get ideal grades (i.e., perfect As), they weren't "bad" (B+s, A-s and ONE C). If I recover from this and the rest of my application is virtually spotless do I still have a chance? My pre-med advisor seems to think it will be "easily explainable" but she herself admits that she doesn't know as much about MD/PhD as she does pure MD.

I've actually been struggling for awhile thinking about if MD/PhD is what I want to do, thinking about if just PhD would be better. I've long accepted the fact I will be in school awhile, especially now that I have to take an extra year in undergrad to make up for last. I've done my research, read some books, and from that I feel like MD/PhD would be the better path for me. I'm just nervous about it because, well, I can't help having an illness destroying my life for a little while. My thought for PhD was also that perhaps it would be... I don't want to say less grueling than medical school, but grueling in a different way. Maybe in a way that I can deal well enough if my illness relapses during graduate school.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[StIGMA]

Whether MD/PhD training is something you should pursue depends on a) the illness and b) your capacity to deal with the illness during training. Regarding illnesses, alcoholism/drug addiction and certain psychiatric illnesses can be a problem. Somatic illnesses can generally be dealt with and are more easily forgiven. With all these, it is really case by case depending on how it affects you.

You should speak to your physician as to how your illness could impact medical training, especially regarding periods of intense stress, long hours, and the inability to take significant periods of time off. PhD training has different types of stress than medical training, but if you are confident enough to pursue the medical training, you should also feel confident enough to overcome challenges that you may face during the PhD (where you should have significantly more freedom in your schedule).

As long as your GPA is "Ok" as outlined in the FAQ, you do not need to worry about a poor semester. It is doubtful that it would come up in interviews, and it should not affect how many interviews you receive as long as your GPA is good. Make sure you really are competitive at MD/PhD programs as outlined in the FAQ: linked here. If/when you apply, you should consider the pros/cons of mentioning your illness in the application. It doesn't need to be mentioned.

It is inconsequential that you took fewer credit hours for a few semesters.

 

[Mel Belle]

Whether MD/PhD training is something you should pursue depends on a) the illness and b) your capacity to deal with the illness during training. Regarding illnesses, alcoholism/drug addiction and certain psychiatric illnesses can be a problem. Somatic illnesses can generally be dealt with and are more easily forgiven. With all these, it is really case by case depending on how it affects you.

You should speak to your physician as to how your illness could impact medical training, especially regarding periods of intense stress, long hours, and the inability to take significant periods of time off. PhD training has different types of stress than medical training, but if you are confident enough to pursue the medical training, you should also feel confident enough to overcome challenges that you may face during the PhD (where you should have significantly more freedom in your schedule).

As long as your GPA is "Ok" as outlined in the FAQ, you do not need to worry about a poor semester. It is doubtful that it would come up in interviews, and it should not affect how many interviews you receive as long as your GPA is good. Make sure you really are competitive at MD/PhD programs as outlined in the FAQ: linked here. If/when you apply, you should consider the pros/cons of mentioning your illness in the application. It doesn't need to be mentioned.

It is inconsequential that you took fewer credit hours for a few semesters.

Thank you for sharing this. My GPA went down a little from the illness but it's recoverable. The biggest problem with it is that my physicians are just now starting to figure out what exactly the problem is (it's a physical health problem, for the record) so it's been hard to medicate effecively. But I will definitely ask them about it next time I see them.