Mental Illness, Reinvention, and Getting Into Medical School

[PinkGrover]

I will try to be short as I am not interested in projecting a sob story. I just really need some real world guidance. I know not every one is meant to become a doctor. But say someone like the one described here (yes, me) wants to try anyway? How might this problem be solved?
If you don't feel like reading, all that matters is in bold.


- 28, f, self employed, no kids, live alone, not a cat person.
- LONG transcript, trashed with a couple of failed semesters and a couple of medical withdrawals.
- survivor of a tragedy in my early twenties, on my own, no support system, no mentor, and super private. I keep my depression, anxiety, and darker monsters to myself. I assimilate well since I actually love people, am a warm person etc, i get away with a lot without people noticing.
- was undiagnosed then not medicated properly most of those years. Found my good fit, finally, within this year. I'm practically me again. But older.
- Aforementioned transcript is due to this struggle, some years worse than others, alone. I also did not know at the time how that would affect a goal of becoming a doctor. Should I ever try to become one that is.
- Not brand new to SDN (past life or two) or medicine. I've shadowed, worked, volunteered.. but really for my own fulfillment. My life is a blur, I don't know what happened when so I'm trying to start from scratch. I don't think I care to add those experiences to my app. Too spotty.
- Never graduated. I go to a great university, leading teaching hospital attached and I would not be accepted if I applied now. I thought it'd be dumb to grad with a low gpa with a psych degree I will never use so I just changed my major (only time I ever did) to something more useful to me. Also, the health care and the environment is incredible for my well being. (that's really why I kept registering. The care here has been my actual life line) Being self employed, I would just disappear otherwise. I belong no where.

ok.

Is there anyone here who can speak to managing mental illness and still becoming an MD?
I am also aware that MD may be out of my reach, DO might be doable.

Don't know what starting from the top looks like here, or what I am to say to Adcoms when really I don't want to talk about loss, struggling, illness, depression, gaps in work history because I was able to afford to hide. None of that.

I accept the cards I'm dealt - just a clue or two on how to play them would be a godsend.

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[Darth Doc]

I can't speak to mental illness and making it through medical school. I don't have severe depression and I haven't yet made it through medical school. People certainly have succeeded and accomplished what you want to do. An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison is about her struggle with bipolar disorder that wasn't diagnosed or treated until she was in her psych residency. It's an excellent read if anyone's interested.

It takes goal-oriented behavior despite the illness - completing the classes and having a GPA that adcoms will notice. You have to find a way to start completing the appropriate tasks. DO may be more likely. It doesn't matter at this point. You need to take the necessary classes with A's and B's. Sounds like you have clinical experiences you can use on the application. You state you have volunteer hours. You may still need the MCAT since you don't mention taking it yet.

If you don't want to talk about your mental health issues, don't. Tell them the truth in a different way. You had a life crisis and it took you a few years to sort it out, but as they will be able to see on your transcript, you figured it out and have been successful since that point. You have a deeper understanding of people. Your varied experiences can be beneficial since they've enriched your understanding of healthcare and patient care.

I hope this helps. I don't have anything more specific to your situation to offer.

 

[PinkGrover]

@Darth Doc From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the substantial reply.

The goal oriented behavior is what concerns me. Most times I think I'm just very goal oriented, other times I just float through and can't account for it all. I have to think that this is a function of what my life now is. i would then guess this is a matter of needing better management.

Nevertheless, how you phrased this made perfect sense to me. Thank you for helping me shift perspectives a bit

 

[achieve1]

I think we all lose perspective at one point or another, but this does not mean that we throw all of our goals aside. I'm going to be honest here -I believe that people need to look forward to something in their lives in order to progress. Personally, I establish goals for myself, and I try my hardest to remind myself everyday what my goals are, and why I want to accomplish them. If you really want to do something, then just go for it. You don't actually know what will happen unless you try.

 

[wholeheartedly]

I'll second @Darth Doc 's book recommendation, although it's worth noting Kay Redfield Jamison got a PhD in psychology not an M.D. It's still a very worthwhile, eye opening, and humbling read.

In your case, there are quite a few things you need to think about. There are more than this, but here are just a few:

1) is this path going to be healthy for you to pursue (will the stress, sleepless nights in the hospital, bureaucratic bs, hazing/hierarchy take too much of a toll on you or trigger recurrences for you). Physicians have a very high suicide rate compared to other professions read http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/04/physician-suicide-letters.html and further http://www.idealmedicalcare.org/blog/why-physicians-commit-suicide/ for some perspective.

2) will you be safe for patients to work with? (good intentions aren't enough here, I had a doc with serious anxiety issues royally screw me by documenting exams he didn't do and questions he didn't ask leading to major misdiagnosis and hell for me cuz he was too scared and anxious to admit to the attendings that he was struggling and forgetting what all he needed to do) If you're going to make poor decisions, lose focus/be distracted, or have boundary issues with patients that's a problem.

3.) Do you have good insight? This is really important because quite a few people without mental health issues seem to be sorely lacking in this critical attribute. Can you honestly assess where you are emotional and determine the cause, and seek help if and as you need it? If you're someone who can get a solid support system in place and use it and jump on things immediately if problems start to arise then you're in a much better position than someone who will try to trudge through silently and burry the problems until they are completely overwhelmed by them and having it cause major issues.

4.) Ask your mental health provider who knows you, preferably and MD who's been through this training, how they feel about you going down that road. Listen and seriously consider their perspective.

5.) will your mental healthy issues be a problem for getting licensed? a lot of state licensure applications ask questions about mental health and you could wind up with delays or being under the supervision of a monitoring board if they feel you are risky.

6.) Realize that while the healthcare community is all about talking about being supportive to patients with mental health issues, having them as a doctor is still very taboo in the field among your physician colleagues.


As for adcomms, if you have a solid, sustained performance after the fact and can talk around the issue a bit without mentioning mental illness then that's probably a good way to go.

 

[GunnarBronson]

I went through a pretty bad time after returning from Iraq. The fact that I made it through undergrad with a 3.0 is shocking in itself, as I constantly turned to booze to calm my mind.

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to prove to them that it was a problem. If they sense that it is something that is likely to affect your studies, they may be apprehensive about accepting you.

Good luck on your journey.