Mentioning CURRENT major illness in personal statement?

[alanseaspan]

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I was born with a congenital defect that required me to have life-saving surgery as both an infant and again as a teenager. This drove my interest in pursuing medicine, and most of my volunteering/research/clinical experiences are related to patients with problems of the same organ system. As such, I will definitely be talking about it in my personal statement.

However, I recently learned that the repair from when I was a teenager is beginning to fail and I will require another intervention again within the next 12 months. It's currently up in the air as to the exact form this intervention will take; depending on which intervention is required the recovery time will be between a few days (more likely) and a month or two, so it won't interfere with interviews or starting med school (andI should then be completely healthy for at least another 7+ years following the intervention).

Would it be safe to talk about this new information in my personal statement? I feel it would actually provide very useful content that the previous discussion of my medical history wouldn't be able to. Having to face my own mortality again right before applying, and now having to come to grips with the fact that my life expectancy is probably more like 60 rather than 75+ has forced me to re-evaluate all of my actions, and it has only driven me to pursue medicine (and improving treatment options/outcomes for others) even harder, made me more empathetic with my patients, etc. There's some reasons I feel it could create a compelling narrative that just discussing my previous history alone wouldn't be able to, but that would take another couple paragraphs to explain (PM me if that information might sway the decision). I would, of course, write about it in a professional way that is in no way trying to elicit pity, etc.

So... is it dangerous and potentially app-sinking to some ADCOMS to discuss currently having a major health issue?

 

[DiscusKeeper]

I had the same problem with my personal statement. I had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease 6 months before I applied and had recently been hospitalized for an extended period of time, missing a good chunk of the semester. I wanted to include it to demonstrate my resolve to pursue medicine in spite of obstacles, but I didn't want to make it look like it would stop me from performing well in medical school.

I decided to mention it and have a bunch of people proofread it. The goal was to frame it more in the sense of overcoming an obstacle and make sure it didn't sound like something that would stop me from doing well in med school.

I got asked about it in most interviews. Be prepared for the "How will you handle this with the stress of medical school?" questions. If you have good answers and demonstrate a strong resolve to pursue medicine and good coping skills, it can possibly help your application by showing a strong sense of perseverance in your statement.

I'd wait till people more familiar with the admissions process weigh in before making a decision on whether or not to include it, but that was my personal experience.

 

[alanseaspan]

I had the same problem with my personal statement. I had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease 6 months before I applied and had recently been hospitalized for an extended period of time, missing a good chunk of the semester. I wanted to include it to demonstrate my resolve to pursue medicine in spite of obstacles, but I didn't want to make it look like it would stop me from performing well in medical school.

I decided to mention it and have a bunch of people proofread it. The goal was to frame it more in the sense of overcoming an obstacle and make sure it didn't sound like something that would stop me from doing well in med school.

I got asked about it in most interviews. Be prepared for the "How will you handle this with the stress of medical school?" questions. If you have good answers and demonstrate a strong resolve to pursue medicine and good coping skills, it can possibly help your application by showing a strong sense of perseverance in your statement.

I'd wait till people more familiar with the admissions process weigh in before making a decision on whether or not to include it, but that was my personal experience.

Best of luck with your Crohn's!

My condition isn't quite chronic in the same way as Crohn's in that it doesn't frequently affect my daily life and is much less prone to causing "issues handling it" in medical school. Mine is more long periods of no issues at all punctuated by slowly developing but serious problems that require interventions associated with non-trivial mortality /morbidity. Given I'm reaching the point of needing intervention, I am currently very mildly symptomatic, but my symptoms, even if they get bad, shouldn't affect being able to go on interviews. So I don't think medical schools would be worried about me being able to handle my condition during medical school as much as maybe worried about me having serious complications during my procedure and being too sick to start next year, or maybe even thinking I might become too sick to attend interviews (if the procedure ends up being feb/march)?

 

[LizzyM]

Do keep in mind that you are not applying to be a patient. Also keep in mind that not every adcom member /interviewer is a physician and even some who are may not have had any experience with the condition you have since medical school, if then. (imagine being interviewed by a psychiatrist or a bacteriologist).
Also keep in mind that major medical centers tend to see the most serious cases and those that do not respond to first line therapy. Therefore, the clinicians at these centers often suffer from "spectrum bias" meaning that they consider a given condition to be more problematic than it is in reality when all the mild cases treated in the community are taken into account.

If your illness sparked your interest in medicine and if you are open to practicing medicine even if going into the specialty you are most familiar with is not an option, and if you recognize that it is unlikely that you will limit your practice to others with the condition you have, then work it into your essay but do so in a way that doesn't send the oldsters running for their physiology textbooks (don't use a lot of fancy language just because you know it). Do keep in mind that your application could be read by members of the committee who are not clinicians as well as those who are.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

I would say go for it by tread lightly. I talked about having ulcerative colitis in many of my secondaries and it seemed well received. Just make it abundantly clear that you plan to do everything in your power to overcome it.