Mental Illness and Post-Bacc programs

[ElJamo17]

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[Philly145]

I just want to thank you for sharing your story with us and that I hope you are able to continue to find peace with your background. I'm sorry I don't have much to contribute.

 

[Goro]

You can say "health issues" and that's as far as you have to go.

You need to go into this eyes open. Medical school is a furnace, and I've seen it break even healthy students. The #1 reason my school loses students to withdrawal, dismissal or LOA is to unresolved mental health issues. Honestly, I made an involuntary gasp when I read your story. A long stretch of academic excellence will allay any Adcom's concerns, however.

@Mad Jack , what say you?

 

[ElJamo17]

You can say "health issues" and that's as far as you have to go.

You need to go into this eyes open. Medical school is a furnace, and I've seen it break even healthy students. The #1 reason my school loses students to withdrawal, dismissal or LOA is to unresolved mental health issues. Honestly, I made an involuntary gasp when I read your story. A long stretch of academic excellence will allay any Adcom's concerns, however.

@Mad Jack , what say you?

Thanks for the response.

 

[LunaOri]

You are still very young, so you have time. Do a post-bacc. Volunteer, shadow, etc. Give yourself enough time in recovery that you are certain that the stress of going to medical school won't cause another meltdown.

 

[ElJamo17]

You can say "health issues" and that's as far as you have to go.

You need to go into this eyes open. Medical school is a furnace, and I've seen it break even healthy students. The #1 reason my school loses students to withdrawal, dismissal or LOA is to unresolved mental health issues. Honestly, I made an involuntary gasp when I read your story. A long stretch of academic excellence will allay any Adcom's concerns, however.

@Mad Jack , what say you?

What is LOA

You are still very young, so you have time. Do a post-bacc. Volunteer, shadow, etc. Give yourself enough time in recovery that you are certain that the stress of going to medical school won't cause another meltdown.

Thanks. I don't think stress caused my mixed episode. I think it was something that just happened to be getting worse over a long period of time. As I started to sleep less and less I think it just got worse. I think I thought I could power through it but I couldn't, it just got worse.

 

[Goro]

LOA = leave of absence

 

[Bloobury]

I can't advise re: how to frame it in your application, but I do know three MD's who had substance use problems during undergrad/med school/residency and I've done some work with people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders.

- One had to take a LOA during residency to go to inpatient treatment for alcohol use and has now been sober for a few years but has to do UA's every month as part of a 5-year monitoring program
- One left residency/clinical practice after some legal issues related to alcohol use and now does non-clinical work and has been sober for a number of years
- One had ALL kinds of problems (including risky behaviors, stealing drugs, etc) and lost their license, went to jail, and can never practice medicine again

I don't know the third well at all (just met in passing while I was doing a training for a residential treatment facility in which the person was residing as part of their sentencing), but I can say that one of the others is completely burned out and feels like residency was an awful experience, even without having a mental illness. I follow some people on twitter who are open about their experiences with mental illness in the medical profession and seem to be doing well. It's not impossible, but it does sound very hard.

If you can get to a few years of stability and sobriety and have a really solid support system and understanding of yourself, I'm sure it's possible. If you're really strongly interested in medicine, I'd say just do the postbacc and see how you do. You may be able to find a mentor who is a physician in recovery/or diagnosed bipolar if you put yourself out there by asking around. There are special AA groups for medical professionals (caduceus groups) and other resources for physician wellbeing. Someone who has been through it directly would be the best to talk to, IMHO.

 

[TragicalDrFaust]

We have some significant commonalities in our backgrounds. PM if you want to know more. According to my applications essays and my interviews, I took 3 years off after my freshman year for "financial reasons", which... wasn't untrue, and immediately pivoted to how much I learned working full time to support myself as a shift leader at a coffee shop at age 19. You can definitely spin it. Take control of the narrative before they can ask. And if you must, once you say "health reasons" they're not going to be able ask anything else. Your mental health, since you're taking care of it, needn't stop you from getting into and succeeding in medical school. That being said, it seems like you have a lot of GPA repair to do. I would suggest buckling down for 3 months to study for the MCAT and use that to diagnose the viability of your application before investing time and finances in dedicated GPA repair.

 

[ElJamo17]

We have some significant commonalities in our backgrounds. PM if you want to know more. According to my applications essays and my interviews, I took 3 years off after my freshman year for "financial reasons", which... wasn't untrue, and immediately pivoted to how much I learned working full time to support myself as a shift leader at a coffee shop at age 19. You can definitely spin it. Take control of the narrative before they can ask. And if you must, once you say "health reasons" they're not going to be able ask anything else. Your mental health, since you're taking care of it, needn't stop you from getting into and succeeding in medical school. That being said, it seems like you have a lot of GPA repair to do. I would suggest buckling down for 3 months to study for the MCAT and use that to diagnose the viability of your application before investing time and finances in dedicated GPA repair.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.