Yes and no. You will be required to disclose your history of physiciatric illness at various stages of your medical career. You may also be required to release records to various bodies, so make sure you keep copies of everything readily available.
That being said, there are many physicians with mental illness, and most are allowed to practice with minimal difficulty. Expect some level of periodic monitoring.
Thanks for the information. I'm assuming I won't be the only student to have gone through this at some point in my life, so hopefully it won't stand in my way too much.
I will leave with this advice. LIVE YOUR LIFE IN PENCIL AND NOT INK.
P.S. get use to rejection. Also, I wrote some advice in the above areas (above the text below the quoted area). Enjoy!
Your post was VERY helpful!
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I understand that a job as a doctor is going to involve a considerable bit of routine work, but the overall position is still intriguing enough (and constantly changing and expanding, for example in neurology--a field that isn't as well-researched as it could be) to hold my attention. I'll keep in mind Emergency Medicine, although I'm not yet sure what that involves.
Wasn't ever that enamored with The Fountainhead or We the Living. I think a lot of people are Rand fans in HS and college....I think what disillusioned me was when I started getting more into her nonfiction in college and discovered how poorly she and those closest to her lived up to her own ideals. I read several books by David Kelley too; I liked him much better than Peikoff and the ARI purists. I even emailed with Harry Binswanger about science and philosophy for a while; his views are ridiculously extreme and absolute, but he's extremely bright and knowledgeable about science even though his training is in philosophy. If you've never read any of her nonfiction or the writings of her followers, give it a shot. There's a lot more out there, but not all of it is very pretty.
Wow! You've actually e-mailed back and forth with Harry Binswanger. I'd be just a tad intimidated.
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I will definitely read books by David Kelley. Which ones do you recommend I take a look at first?
I've actually just recently checked out a nonfiction book on Ayn Rand by James T. Baker. I'm curious what in her life led her to think the way she does.
🙂 She may have lived up to her own ideals poorly, but the fact that she could come up with such a set of ideals is still mesmerizing. But, then again, I need to read the book before I say any more.
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You'll have to be careful if being under extreme stress and having little control over your schedule tend to make you relapse. People do get depressed or have eating disorders during medical school, and a lot of schools (if not all of them) have counseling services available for students who need them. You definitely wouldn't be alone, but you do need to be aware of your triggers and ask for help if you need it. That's going to be true no matter what you wind up doing.
I realize that. If my eating disorder begins to reapper, I'll have to seek help immediately, because it tends to be viciously more and more mind-altering as it progresses. Despite my own personal views on eating or lack thereof, anorexia WILL get in my way during medical school if I let it, and that can't happen. I'll enlist a few trusted friends to let me know when I'm beginning to resemble a cadaver.
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You sound almost like a carbon copy of myself.
To begin with, BE CAREFUL! I did that and REALLY regret it. Granted there were some other things that factored in as well (my cousin almost died, grandma got breast cancer, etc). I lost many of my friends and grew apart from others. I became very depressed and extremely stressed and was also not getting enough sleep trying to keep up with everything.
My grandmother actually just recently died of breast cancer. I've been isolated and slightly depressed, but having a goal to strive for usually keeps negative feelings at bay!
Keep in mind, you can be the valedictorian and still take tough classes. Often taking so many hard classes will only Lower your GPA. I knew someone who was valedictorian because they had over a 4.0 becasue they took ALL easy classes and easy A.P. classes like AP Art and AP Dance instead of like AP Calc and AP Physics. (I hate people like that, it's not fair to the people like us who work really hard and take difficult classes). *tangent sorry*
Honestly, I don't take AP classes to increase my GPA. I just can't stand the thought of missing ANY information by taking an honors course. I don't want to be the best in the class, but it's difficult to avoid that when I study and love work as much as I do. I've tried to have a social life, but found it...boring. It feels like I'm wasting my time, and there's no point in doing so if it doesn't even generate happiness. It is not as though I don't have fun, but most of it is of the solitary or tiny group kind. Maybe it's time to go psychoanalyze myself.
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If anything they may help as you can talk about overcoming anorexia for example in your Personal Essay for apps and if you are anything like me, (which from reading your posts thus far you are VERY much like me) having OCD includes being an extreme perfectionist - which helps you keep your grades up. It also may or may not help you to stay organized. You can PM me if you have questions.
Is it a good idea to mention anorexia in my Personal Essay? I don't want to draw too much attention to my faults!
I am an extreme perfectionist. But I find that in the top classes, everyone seems to have a considerable quantity of OCD-like tendencies! The benefits greatly outweight any cons, so there's not really much of a problem with it. Thanks so much for your answers!
😀 I'll definitely PM you with any questions!
I'm worried about my lack of leadership roles. 
