Mentioning Mental Illness?

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sytar

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If you mention that you have mental illness such as Depression or ADHD, and that you want to be a psychiatrist that specializes in the subsection of the ADHD population with comorbid bipolar disorder on your personal statement, will they count this against you? If you have a history that involves these explanations but have resolved these issues in such a way that it is unlikely to recur, will this bolster or hurt your chances of acceptance? What if you apply as a research-oriented MD-PhD candidate that wants to use their own experience and the experience of those encountered in the clinic to provide impetus for their own research?
I'm sure this is context dependent, but let's assume that the applicant has shown a 3 year+ trackrecord of good grades and stability.

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In a process as delicate as this, I think its best to avoid discussing things such as depression (where relapses are common). Try to avoid giving the adcoms any doubt as to whether you can perform at the medical student level.
 
It's just that my whole motivation to go into medicine stems from my own experience with mental illness. Should I just leave it at ADHD? I have a passion that I think few can match and a convincing story to go with it. It would be a real pity to have to concoct some elaborate lie and BS my adcoms the whole time.
 
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It's just that my whole motivation to go into medicine stems from my own experience with mental illness. Should I just leave it at ADHD? I have a passion that I think few can match and a convincing story to go with it. It would be a real pity to have to concoct some elaborate lie and BS my adcoms the whole time.

If it were up to me I would not admit you to my med school. I have seen too many students drop out or fail to match. The competetion to get into med school is tough. Only the ones with the best chance of success are given a chance. Having "a passion that few can match" is a strange thing to say. I know a lot of passionate people. Maybe you should reach out a little more and get to know other.

I would also not accept you to residency if I were a PD. You have too many red flags; most PDs and admissions people would spot it a mile away-
 
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I know a lot of passionate people. Maybe you should reach out a little more and get to know other.
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Speaking of strange things to say...

as soon as you walked in the door in your messy suit and messy hair 3 hours late for your interview.
Why is everyone on this site so presumptuous? My hair is barely a centimeter long.

I wish somebody who had some actual gravitas posted in this thread : [
 
If it were up to me I would not admit you to my med school. I have seen too many students drop out or fail to match. The competetion to get into med school is tough. Only the ones with the best chance of success are given a chance. Having "a passion that few can match" is a strange thing to say. I know a lot of passionate people. Maybe you should reach out a little more and get to know other.

I would also not accept you to residency if I were a PD. You have too many red flags; most PDs and admissions people would spot it a mile away-

as soon as you walked in the door in your messy suit and messy hair 3 hours late for your interview.

I respect your opinion as a resident. However, I think the OP deserves to read other thoughts on the matter as well. Here are some links to other threads where ADHD/depression in Med. Students has been discussed. The general consensus is that unless you disclose it in your application, it won't affect your chance of admission nor will it affect your success in medical school if you receive proper treatment.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=498765
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=721314&highlight=adhd
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=667345&highlight=adhd

Here is a research article I found on medical students with ADHD and related disorders. Might be interesting. The full PDF is available.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f11006174p807t21/
 
`Thank you very much Ioris. It is nice to get responses on this forum that aren't some kind of back-handed insult.


From what I read in those threads, Med Schools are very supportive of ADHD and encourage people to talk about such problems as depression, anxiety and ADHD. Although I worry that still, some ADComs will be ignorant enough to think that ADHD doesn't exist. It really, really scares the everloving **** out of me that allegedly Spinebound is a resident. He doesn't understand the first thing about mental health if his posts in other forums are an indication of anything. So there is the possibility that the Adcom will be someone as dim as Spinebound, isn't there? You'd think they'd be able to screen these kind of people out in the interviews. When people on this forum say ADHD doesn't exist I jokingly tell them to mention that to their interviewer. Maybe the interviewer will agree with them?! It's bizarre how so many doctors seem to be unable to think critically about mental health. I don't doubt that it could be the individualist worldview held by conservatives which is so antithetical to a materialist account of the mind. How did that B. F. Skinner maintain credibility for so long?
 
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`Thank you very much Ioris. It is nice to get responses on this forum that aren't some kind of back-handed insult.


From what I read in those threads, Med Schools are very supportive of ADHD and encourage people to talk about such problems as depression, anxiety and ADHD. Although I worry that still, some ADComs will be ignorant enough to think that ADHD doesn't exist. It really, really scares the everloving **** out of me that allegedly Spinebound is a resident. He doesn't understand the first thing about mental health if his posts in other forums are an indication of anything. So there is the possibility that the Adcom will be someone as dim as Spinebound, isn't there? You'd think they'd be able to screen these kind of people out in the interviews. When people on this forum say ADHD doesn't exist I jokingly tell them to mention that to their interviewer. Maybe the interviewer will agree with them?! It's bizarre how so many doctors seem to be unable to think critically about mental health. I don't doubt that it could be the individualist worldview held by conservatives which is so antithetical to a materialist account of the mind. How did that B. F. Skinner maintain credibility for so long?

You mention having an interest in bipolar disorder and depression. You mentioned having ADHD yourself, but didn't explicitly say you do/don't have a history of depression or bipolar disorder.

A history of depression or bipolar disorder can make it difficult to get a license to practice medicine. If you do have a history of those, or if it appears that you do (based on your personal statement), adcoms may have trepidations about accepting you. Why accept someone that can't get a license, in other words...

As for the rest, I'd avoid insulting the intelligence of others on an internet forum. Opinions are opinions, and when you disagree I wouldn't start drawing lines between intelligence, political ideology (WTF??), etc.
 
You mention having an interest in bipolar disorder and depression. You mentioned having ADHD yourself, but didn't explicitly say you do/don't have a history of depression or bipolar disorder.

A history of depression or bipolar disorder can make it difficult to get a license to practice medicine. If you do have a history of those, or if it appears that you do (based on your personal statement), adcoms may have trepidations about accepting you. Why accept someone that can't get a license, in other words...

As for the rest, I'd avoid insulting the intelligence of others on an internet forum. Opinions are opinions, and when you disagree I wouldn't start drawing lines between intelligence, political ideology (WTF??), etc.
There's not a lot of correlation between intelligence and political ideology. However, it's well known that political conservatives tend to reject a materialistic account of human behavior in favor of an individualist account with features like "choice" and "free will". An ingrained ethos of 'personal accountability' fitfully rejects the notion that a mentally ill person or substance abuser is in some way a prisoner of their own mind.

A history of depression or bipolar disorder can make it difficult to get a license to practice medicine
I'm just a regular depressive. Although I had a 3-day manic episode that seemed to be activated by taking Seroquel for the first time.
 
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even physicians have our biases.
Not everyone reviewing your app is guaranteed to be open-minded.
In this process I would hesitate to mention personal illnesses. There may be a risk at some schools of flagging gender/alternative lifestyle issues.

Some times caution and common sense must trump idealism.
 
`Thank you very much Ioris. It is nice to get responses on this forum that aren't some kind of back-handed insult.


From what I read in those threads, Med Schools are very supportive of ADHD and encourage people to talk about such problems as depression, anxiety and ADHD. Although I worry that still, some ADComs will be ignorant enough to think that ADHD doesn't exist. It really, really scares the everloving **** out of me that allegedly Spinebound is a resident. He doesn't understand the first thing about mental health if his posts in other forums are an indication of anything. So there is the possibility that the Adcom will be someone as dim as Spinebound, isn't there? You'd think they'd be able to screen these kind of people out in the interviews. When people on this forum say ADHD doesn't exist I jokingly tell them to mention that to their interviewer. Maybe the interviewer will agree with them?! It's bizarre how so many doctors seem to be unable to think critically about mental health. I don't doubt that it could be the individualist worldview held by conservatives which is so antithetical to a materialist account of the mind. How did that B. F. Skinner maintain credibility for so long?

This is just an MS3's opinion. I'm not an an ADCOM, so take it for what it's worth.

A lot of physicians have thought critically about modern psychiatry, and have decided that a lot of it is a psuedoscience that doesn't match the scientific rigor of the rest of medicine. ADHD is the classic example: a completley symptomatic diagnosis made based on an incredibly broad questionare, and a treatment that affects people who do and don't have the 'disease' in exactly the same way. Honestly I have always seen ADHD as an attempt by physicans to get around our ethics rules about patient autonomy and interject common sense into the distribuition of drugs. It would be awful and paternalistic to say 'No, we're not giving you amphetamines because you're getting Bs and you want As, but if you're about to fail out it might be worth the risk' so instead we tell the B student he's healthy and the F student he's sick.

Anyway, i think the main point that Spinebound was trying to make is that residencies and medical schools will, despite all their heartfelt profession to the contrary, do what they can to screen out problem children before matriculation. Once they have you, of course, they want you to be open about your mental illness. After all, they're stuck with you now and the only way for you not to affect their reputation is to medicate you through your education. For that matter, they're happy to hurl a diagnosis of late onset ADHD and an perscripton for adderall at any previously healthy straight A student who show signs of not handeling the coursework as well as his/her peers. However if you tell them about a long history of mental illness before you actually start medical school I think a lot of ADCOMs might look for other candidates. I could be wrong, of course.

So my opinion: If you have to say anything at all, limit it to your depressive episode and make it clear that it was an event in the past that completely resolved. One long past case of major depression where you were an inpatient looks, at least to me, a lot better than a continuing struggle. I wouldn't mention the learning disorder, or in any way imply that you continue to have problems with your mental health. Again, though, that's just an MS3's opinion.
 
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