Hi everyone, I posted here yesterday asking how well-received talking about my eating disorder in high school would be for the challenges/adversity secondary prompt, and got mixed replies so I will probably stray away from that. Then I was thinking about discussing how I was bullied in middle school and how that's affected me today, but read some threads saying you shouldn't talk about events in childhood. I'm at a bit of a loss, as these are the two most challenging events of my life and it seems like I shouldn't talk about either of them. One other idea I have is talking about working in a covid hospital in close contact with positive patients, which I'm doing currently. But I'm concerned adcoms wouldn't like this as I *chose* to work at the hospital, it wasn't thrust upon me so may not fall under the adversity category. Thoughts?
Difficulties deciding on adversity essay prompt
- Thread starter opheliamg
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This. (I think.)
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Read the prompts carefully. Mostly the schools want to know how you deal with stresses that come with life, what your coping skills are, how you've demonstrated resillience in the face of difficulties. It can certainly be something you've chosen... you'll choose medical school if given the choice and that can present challenges and difficulities and stresses and you will need to deal with in healthy ways.
What do you mean?
Point taken. Thank you!
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Mental health is always a touchy subject when it comes to med-school applications. I am of the opinion that destigmatization can only begin when people like you stand up and take the risk, however, that is easy to say when it is not my application. I would only include the eating disorder if you meet the following two criteria:
1. It occurred and was successfully managed far enough in your past that there won't be a question if you are a high-risk student.
2. If you not only grew from it internally but can somehow show that through current actions: an example is you possibly volunteered at a mental health clinic or conducted some social science research/shadowing pertaining to it.
Either way, you can always bring this up in interviews if you cannot work it into your secondary prompt where you are able to read the room better. I think the bullying or covid topics are much safer but might not stand out as much since there is going to be a flood of people who volunteered and took temperatures outside of clinics during this upcoming cycle.
1. It occurred and was successfully managed far enough in your past that there won't be a question if you are a high-risk student.
2. If you not only grew from it internally but can somehow show that through current actions: an example is you possibly volunteered at a mental health clinic or conducted some social science research/shadowing pertaining to it.
Either way, you can always bring this up in interviews if you cannot work it into your secondary prompt where you are able to read the room better. I think the bullying or covid topics are much safer but might not stand out as much since there is going to be a flood of people who volunteered and took temperatures outside of clinics during this upcoming cycle.
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I see where you're coming from. I am quite risk averse so even though 1 and 2 apply to me I'm still reluctant to bring it up in secondaries/interviews. And wrt to covid work I'm not taking temps, I'm a orderly constantly exposed to and in close contact with very sick patients who often take off their masks and cough in my face lol. Do you think lots of applicants will be working that closely with covid patients? Because if so I probably won't write about that either.
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I think being an orderly is an excellent example of clinical experience and should definitely be mentioned where it applies! Not everything needs to be unique to be applicable, so while there will most definitely be a spike in covid focused essays (and possibly some fatigue among adcoms) it shouldn't deter you from going with it but should influence how you go about it. I would treat it like taking care of a patient with TB or any other infectious disease where it sets the stage but is not the only aspect of the essay.
Makes sense. Thanks so much!
