Trouble in past

[NotAProgDirector]

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When I was a young adult I made some mistakes. I was immature, selfish, and made poor choices in making friends. I plan on running a full background check with fingerprints, but it seems like my best bet would to just be clean and provide the information on my AMCAS and hope for understanding.

I don't remember the exact dates as I am 25 now (26 in a few months). I was arrested for petit larceny when I was 18 or so. I was given an ACD and took a course. I was also arrested when I was 19 for smoking marijuana in public.

I was with a group of people who were smoking and police came out of nowhere. Everyone fled except for one person (the one who invited me) and his entire immediate family were police officers so I was the only one arrested. This was pleaded as a violation.

Since these indiscretions I have gone on to do very well for myself in school and have literally done a 180 as a person. This is without a doubt due to maturity. The first step in turning myself around was getting rid of all my friends and thinking about the effects my actions had on others. I have had great experiences in researching and teaching with good LOR's.

It seems to me that I can possibly get my record expunged and my fingerprint history removed, but I really don't want to enter medical school and be removed or turned down for licensing. I'm willing to consult a lawyer but I'm not sure I trust a lawyer to really be able to predict my future.

I feel like I've been asked this same question several times in the last week. A few similar threads are on the Gen Res board. In any case:

Getting your record expunged might be a good idea in general. It would stop friends (or enemies) from simply ordering a background search on you and finding this stuff. Also, if you were to apply for some non-medical position that does background checks (like a volunteer) then you'd come out clean.

But getting your record expunged for your medical career is pointless. You will ALWAYS be disclosing this in the future -- on your residency applications, on your licensing apps, etc. This is because of several major reasons: 1) laws vary from state to state about what expungement means, 2) medical boards get to search records that include all expunged records, and 3) if you work at a VA (including as part of a residency program), they do background checks via the DOJ and find everything. Since it would be much worse to not declare something and then have it appear on your record than declare something that's been cleared, you're always going to do the latter.

That all said, distant minor issues like this will almost never create a problem for you getting a medical license in the future. Anything with a sexual nature, violence, racism, or involving children will clearly create concern.

So, bottom line, expunge your record if you want to for the rest of your life issues. For your medical career, doesn't matter either way, same result.