Should I Mention it?

[ry835]

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I have an unusual question. A large part of the reason I want to go into Medicine is because of my personal experience with a disease. I have Diabetes, and I would like to mention this in my personal statement. I am just afraid that schools could use this information against me, implying that I could not handle medical school. I know that this is definitely not true for me. How could I handle this?

 

[isa]

I'm also applying this June. My pre-med advisor and all my other med friends always stress the importance of being true to myself throughout this whole process. If your diabetic condition really influenced your passion for medicine, your sincerity will come out and they'll see you as a better applicant for it. I'm not too familiar with adcoms, but if mentioning diabetes lowers your chances of getting in, isn't that some form of discrimination?

 

[Col_4:14]

I think you can use it. So long as you try not to purposefully invoke sympathy. I know you don't intend to do that, but that might be an edge you may want to watch for. I seriously doubt an adcom would look down on you for having diabetes. If anything, this topic could give your personal statement an advantage in terms of standing out.
I may be wrong on this so lets see what others will add.

 

[docuw]

You should definitely talk about it. Your source of inspiration/reason for choosing medicine is a very important thing to include in a personal essay. You will not down upon for having a very easily controlled disease either.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Sure...go head and mention it if it is a prime motivator for your interest in medicine. As another poster said, don't make the mention of it in your essay into some weepy tv movie, evoking sympathy and try to avoid stereotypical cliches like, "seeing how hard my endocrinologist worked to improve lives made me want to follow in his footsteps," etc.

There is no reason a person with IDDM cannot function successfully in medical school with a little forward planning and notification of those who *need* to know (ie, your resident when on clinical rotations, in case you need to slip away for a BSL or to eat).

Best of luck to you! 🙂

 

[ry835]

Thank you all for answering. That's the direction I was leaning in...just needed someone to confirm it.

 

[electra]

Your experience with diabetes will also be something you can use in your secondary application essays. Don't sacrifice anything on your initial application to include your medical condition, since you will have a later chance to expound on it.

electra

 

[Winged Scapula]

Originally posted by electra:
•Your experience with diabetes will also be something you can use in your secondary application essays. Don't sacrifice anything on your initial application to include your medical condition, since you will have a later chance to expound on it.

electra•

I beg to differ. Many secondary applications ask SPECIFIC questions (ie, why here, name an ethical dilemma you have wrestled with, etc.) and may not provide the forum for the discussion of the gentleman's diabetes.

Personal statements which reflect the individual rather than a reiteration of one's CV are the most interesting and the most useful, that is why people commonly talk about what drew them to medicine, weaving in details of their application, CV which couldn't be expounded upon elsewhere in the application.

 

[Rhiana]

I struggle with the same question. I have severe endometriosis and have had six surgeries in the four years I've been in school. I reluctant to mention it because I'm afraid that they'll think I can't cut it. But , my disease was a strong motivating factor in deciding to be a doc. My disease is partially caused by a toxic chemical leakage that no body did anything about because it was an ethnic neighborhood. I've been without insurance most of the time and am thousands of dollars in debt. Because of this I have a strong desire to work in poor underserved neighborhoods. I know it's important for the med schools to know why I want to work in this field but i still worry about bringing it up.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Originally posted by Rhiana:
•I struggle with the same question. I have severe endometriosis and have had six surgeries in the four years I've been in school. I reluctant to mention it because I'm afraid that they'll think I can't cut it. But , my disease was a strong motivating factor in deciding to be a doc. My disease is partially caused by a toxic chemical leakage that no body did anything about because it was an ethnic neighborhood. I've been without insurance most of the time and am thousands of dollars in debt. Because of this I have a strong desire to work in poor underserved neighborhoods. I know it's important for the med schools to know why I want to work in this field but i still worry about bringing it up.•

Rhiana....

While I would venture to say that it would be perfectly aceptable to talk about how your experience with endometriosis, you should be careful how you handle some of the more contentious aspects of the story (as you've given it above).

To wit: I know of no widely accepted medical evidence that endometriosis is caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. Menstrual backwash is the usual accepted explanation. Frankly, you must bear in mind that medicine is conservative and evidence based, if you make comments which fly against the conventional beliefs you risk having your application not taken seriously.

Secondly, the sociopolitical issue of not being taken seriously because you live in a neighborhood with a low SES is a touchy one as well. I DO NOT doubt that this happens, but I have observed that many others, especially those in middle to upper middle classes, see such comments as whiny and unrealistic. MOST people in medicine are in the upper SES levels, and always have been; they may find it difficult to accept your version of the events.

Obviously I'm painting a negative picture here, I'm not encouraging you to reinvent yourself but there is an accepted model of what a "doctor" is, most AdComs have some variation of this in their head . And while that image has changed substantially frm the white male, IMHO they still believe that a doctor is someone who accepts conventional Western medicine and its theories and tenets. Go head and talk about your problems with endometriosis but my advice is to leave the sociopolitical factors and the toxic chemicals out of it.

Best of luck. 🙂

 

[Rhiana]

Kim, FYI the theory of menstral backwash basically went out in the eighties when the started finding men with endometriosis. Obviously men don't menstrate but they do have the genetic code to make endometrial cells. At the same time a researcher studying dioxin started having a problem with the research animals dying. When they opened them up they found endometriosis and the severity occured in a dose dependent response to the dioxin. As a result of this they began to study the dioxin endometriosis link further and the accepted theory is now that estrogenic chemicals cause a de-differentiation of cells and then turns these cells into endometrial cells.
On a personal note, I am one of the rare individuals with endometriosis in my lungs (diagnosed two months ago)and I've been on meds to prevent my period for the past five years. Trust me menstral bakwash is not a factor in my disease.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Thank you Rhiana. You are right - I'd forgotten about men with it and the findings of enddometrial tissue in women outside of the reproductive tract and abdomen. Perhaps my Ob-Gyn professors were relying on old data or I just remembered the backwash theory more.

What are your thoughts on the original poster's conviction that toxic chemicals caused her endometriosis? You seem quite knowledgeable about the subject - any evidence for it? I couldn't find any when I did a MedLine search before my original post.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Thanks Rhiana. You are right - I'd forgotten about men with endometriosis and I would have a hard time explaining menstrual backwash as a cause for pulmonary endometrisos! 😀 For some reason that theory was what I recall being taught - granted it has been 2 1/2 years since my Ob-Gyn rotation - either I was taught incorrectly or just remembered incorrectly.

At any rate, I'm still confused about the relationship of "toxic chemicals" you mentioned in your original post. Can you expand on its relationship to endometriosis? Are the chemicals believed to "turn on" estrogenic cells? I couldn't find any articles on the subject when I did a Medline search before my original post.

If this IS now widely accepted as the cause of endometriosis, at least in some cases, then I retract my original statement about avoiding mention of it. Although tip-toeing around social politics might still be wise.

Thanks for teaching me a lesson. Not that I won't continue to comment on things I haven't a clue about! 😉

 

[FlameBoy]

Originally posted by Kimberli Cox:
•Not that I won't continue to comment on things I haven't a clue about! 😉•

This was never in doubt. 😡