depression personal statement med school

Mental Health Issues and Med School Applications

It is best to disclose such experiences, without providing unnecessary detail, in the application process before acceptance.

Mental Health and Med School Application

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Personal statements in the primary med school application may include a short section on mental illness if that is why you decided to go to medical school. It might be about a family member, dear friend or yourself.

Many people suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental conditions. It is endemic in the culture – everyone is vulnerable, including medical school students.

Based on nearly 200 studies, an estimated 27% of 129,000 medical students in 47 countries reported suffering from depression or symptoms of it at some time during medical school, according to research published in 2016 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some smaller studies since have indicated even higher rates. Depression also increases dramatically during the intern year or the first year of residency.

In med school, even more students will experience anxiety than depression, whether a short and mild episode or something that lasts much longer, according to some studies.

How, then, does a thoughtful student who has already had an episode of mental illness approach the topic once he or she has decided to apply to med school? As a psychiatrist and prior dean of student affairs and admissions, I recommend that applicants consider this aspect before applying, and not wait until getting accepted to med school.

Unless your experience with mental illness was the major reason you wanted to go to medical school, it is unlikely to be a part of the primary application or personal essay on why you want to become a physician. However, it is quite likely to come out in a supplemental essay about hurdles in life or explaining gaps in your education.

Address this upfront. Screeners on admissions committees are not happy with gaps left unexplained or vague smokescreens about what actually happened. If you had to drop out or take a leave of absence from the program for hospitalization or rehabilitation, explain that.

Perhaps the stress that led up to the situation is a good place to start. It likely may include lifestyle contributions. For example, poor sleep is a known physiological factor that can set off depression. If that was a major provocation for the depression, how has that changed and how were you able to control for that in the future?

Lack of exercise, a poor diet loaded with processed carbohydrates, taking on excessive tasks and other circumstances require reflection. If you are prone to any of these, think about them and begin living your life in a new way. Setting an example for future patients begins with your personal insight and lifetime experience. It may also include staying on medication, following directions of your physician, attending therapy regularly or other ways of protecting the psyche like mindfulness or deep breathing.

Waiting until med school to address these factors is not a good idea. You might get into a medical school, but if you haven't dealt with trying to live a healthy lifestyle, then mood disorders or excessive anxiety will attack again. These concerns are rarely one and done. If you want to attend med school and accept the stress and demands, you must work on the solution ahead of the game.

But remember that med school includes many specialties, and so do admissions committees. Too much emphasis on one area may not convince the majority of the committee that you will be equally dedicated or effective in all areas. Medical students must be proficient broadly, and only later will be given the opportunity to specialize.

Gaps without explanation or insufficient discussion can lead to uncomfortable questions during an interview . The plan during the interview generally would be the same as for the application. Avoidance of a direct question is not recommended, but every single detail is not required.

Show insight and growth in terms of your emotional and physical health. How you have fortified your lifestyle with tools and a support team is important to disclose. These same tools will allow you handle future questions and stressors.

Any period of more than a couple of weeks when you weren't performing well should give you pause. Plan how that could be described in the application process and what has been done to prevent a recurrence. You don't have to describe every detail, but it is important to include the progress you have made on any treatment plan and how you have adopted a healthy lifestyle that can ensure against returning symptoms and keep you at your best.

It is noteworthy that alcohol, marijuana or any other type of substance abuse is complex and often begins with periods of anxiety or depression. Undergraduate students often underestimate the impact of this during those early college years when it seems that "everyone is doing it." Panic disorders and depression often worsen during substance use.

I have advised students, besides seeking therapy, to volunteer for programs like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other community groups that help adolescents avoid misuse of substances. It's best to choose to get preventive help or early intervention when symptoms of a problem surface.

Self-reflection is important for every applicant to consider. Will med school be a good decision for your health? Medical school is probably not the healthiest choice, but if you go will you have the tools to combat the stressors and succeed?

The answer isn't straightforward and will vary from school to school. Some considerations like sleep deprivation can be problematic to most medical students and doctors. One young man I knew considered medical school for psychiatry but eventually decided against med school and went on to earn his doctorate in clinical psychology. He avoided years of night call that he knew would repeatedly throw him into depression.

Although it seems far in advance of choosing your residency , some future medical students begin setting their heart on a certain program that may not benefit their health. For some individuals, sleep deprivation and sleep-wake cycle alterations can be intolerable. I have known individuals who needed to leave emergency medicine or neurosurgical programs because of debilitating depression. Even though those specialties may be attractive for other reasons, they may not be the healthy choice that allows someone to continue indefinitely.

I also know individuals who had to leave residency programs for nearly uncontrollable mood swings. Such individuals can end up finding a job after medical training that allows more consistent sleep, or they may try to work in the same field in a different capacity. With better sleep schedules, they can practice and enjoy careers in other areas of medicine. Keeping an open mind to various specialties is a healthy decision.

Students with a history of mental illness can certainly become physicians. Many more students will develop depression or anxiety for the first time during their medical training. There is help, but students have to admit a problem and be willing to seek assistance and be committed to health-affirming decisions along the way.

If a student is unable to put in place a plan that will help protect himself or herself as much as possible from periods of anxiety and depression, then he or she should think twice about whether medical school is the right option.

If you decide that med school is right for you, make good choices about where you train that will support your total personal growth. You know the adage about square pegs and round holes. Seek out what will help you be your best.

Medical School Application Mistakes

Tags: medical school , graduate schools , mental health , education , students

About Medical School Admissions Doctor

Need a guide through the murky medical school admissions process? Medical School Admissions Doctor offers a roundup of expert and student voices in the field to guide prospective students in their pursuit of a medical education. The blog is currently authored by Dr. Ali Loftizadeh, Dr. Azadeh Salek and Zach Grimmett at Admissions Helpers , a provider of medical school application services; Dr. Renee Marinelli at MedSchoolCoach , a premed and med school admissions consultancy; Dr. Rachel Rizal, co-founder and CEO of the Cracking Med School Admissions consultancy; Dr. Cassie Kosarec at Varsity Tutors , an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report; Dr. Kathleen Franco, a med school emeritus professor and psychiatrist; and Liana Meffert, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and a writer for Admissions Helpers. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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Should you mention your history with mental health issues in your medical school application? Plus, what issues often affect disadvantaged students and URMs?

Our episodes are recorded live on Facebook at 3pm ET on most weekdays. Like the page to be notified.

For more help on your medical school application, check out The Premed Years Podcast .

[00:26] Question of the Day

Q: “I was wanting to know how medical schools view mental health and if that’s something that we should disclose to medical schools or if that’s still kind of a taboo in society?”

A: This is a very tough question. But this is something I talk a lot about because it’s always something that is top of mind for students who have struggled with mental health.

And ultimately, the question that medical schools have when they’re looking at an application is: Will this student succeed in our medical school? Will this student represent our medical school to the fullest? Will this student finish medical school in the time we have allotted, which is typically four years for most medical schools?

If students are taking longer to graduate medical school, that’s typically something they have to report for accreditation purposes. They don’t like reporting stuff to the accreditation bodies.

Medical schools are looking at GPA, MCAT score, and the rest of the application to see if the student is going to do well in their school. And if you have a history of any mental health struggles and you have a demonstrated issue because of the mental health struggles that you have, this is going to start to raise some red flags for medical schools.

By demonstrated issues, meaning, they’re going to look at whether you had to take time off of undergrad. Did you fail out of a semester? Did you have to withdraw a semester or take a year off or whatever that journey looks like?

If you have an academic record, that’s stellar. If you didn’t miss any classes and did well in undergrad and did well on the MCAT. And then you have depression or have bipolar, but your academic history says, you’re doing okay, it’s probably not going to be an issue.

[02:52] Should You Discuss Your Mental Health Issues?

There is a huge stigma in our society around mental health. And you would hope it’d be less in medical school admissions, but we’re all healthcare professionals. We want to take care of people with mental health. At the end of the day, they are still individuals reviewing applications.

Maybe you won’t have to focus on it 1,000% because the point of the application is really about why you want to be a doctor. If part of that reason of why you want to be a doctor is because of your mental health struggles, go for it. But also need to understand that it could be a red flag for some medical schools. They may not look at the application because of that, which stinks. But that’s just the way it is.

[04:11] Discussing Breaks in Your Education Due to Mental Health Issues

Q: Is it best for students who have taken time off to not disclose that about their mental health?

A: In the primary application, there really isn’t any specific place for disclosing time off. Where a lot of time off comes from, in terms of answering that question, is in secondary essays. A lot of schools will ask if you had any breaks in your education, and that’s where you can talk about those breaks in your education. Now, it is completely individual. You may have had multiple breaks. Someone else may have had just one semester to deal with something and so on.

At the end of the day, try to put yourself in the shoes of the admissions committee. If you’ve had multiple breaks and multiple issues over the period of your undergrad career, you will likely need breaks again throughout medical school because medical school is that much harder. Your sleep is going to be less and self-care is going to be less. And that exacerbates mental health issues. So a person reading that will probably assume that you’re going to need a lot of extra help in medical school.

If you can potentially frame it in a different way, then you can try that. But if you just really want to be you and you want schools to accept and support you, that’s another potential argument for why you should disclose.

If you’re going to apply to 20 schools and you disclose your mental health struggles and taking time off, and there are five schools that are okay with it, then great. You can be who you are in those schools. And you can step forward and be honest and go ask for help.

On the contrary, some students who may avoid putting stuff on an application may be scared to go seek help. And so students suffer in silence, which isn’t good either.

[07:00] Mental Health Support

Q: Do medical schools offer any type of mental health services? Do they do anything at all to help check on you and just make sure that you, as a student, are okay and to help lift that burden?

A: As you go through this process and you’re looking at schools to apply to, either ask students who go to that school or search anywhere online where you can find students at those schools. Ask them if they have resources for mental health stress, or testing anxiety, or whatever. A lot of schools will have that in place because they know that they need it.

[08:12] How Do They Look Upon LGBT Applicants

Q: How do you think medical schools view being LGBT?

A: It’s something that that is just looked at separately. A lot of schools may look at it at some secondary essays. They may ask if you identify as part of the LGBT community. And it’s a simple yes, no, or essay type response. Schools will use that to add diversity to their class.

It’s a very med school-specific thing to determine how they potentially ask those questions, and how they weigh that into a diversity conversation.

It’s just another part of the application. It’s another part of who you are as a student. Medical schools are going to look at all the applications holistically. And a lot of students roll their eyes with that word. Holistically doesn’t mean they’re not looking at your scores. But it means that if you have shown yourself academically capable of succeeding in medical school, they’re going to look at your whole application to determine who you are.

Again, it’s not about being LGBT or whether you have mental health issues. It’s just part of your story and the whole application.

[11:30] Going Against Religion or Personal Beliefs

Everyone’s an individual. We all have our own beliefs and our own thoughts about religion and the LGBT community and everything else. Unfortunately, not everyone is open, progressive, and accepting of everyone. And that’s their own issue to deal with. 

Depending on the state, depending on the hospital, there are going to be policies and procedures in place to have them be able to take care of people that they may not specifically want to take care of.

That being said, there’s no need to disclose with medical schools to say it’s against their religion so they wouldn’t want to care for this type of patient.

[12:31] Can’t Afford to Fly Out to Interviews

Q: What do you recommend for students who can’t afford to fly out for interviews?

A: You need to understand that the application process is expensive – from the primary applications to the secondary applications, to having a suit to wear for the interviews, to actually flying and staying in a hotel, food, and everything – while you’re traveling.

Check out the Medical School Applications Cost Estimator and use it to estimate the costs of applying. You just need to budget and save as much as you can before you apply.

The worst thing that you can do is apply to medical school, drain all of your funds, and when it comes to getting an interview going, you can’t go. That just shows them that you probably didn’t plan very well. And that shows a part of who you are.

For example, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, which is a relatively new school, doesn’t do interviews. They do a video recorded-type response, but they don’t do in-person interviews. So that’s one school out of almost 200 that doesn’t do interviews.

I don’t see interviews changing because humans need to have someone sit in front of them. Although data shows that’s not necessarily true to be able to get to know someone and have that interaction. But that’s just the way it’s been and it’s probably going to be that way for a long time.

Moreover, there is a benefit to going to the schools and seeing the school and seeing the culture and talking to students and looking at facilities. I personally think an in-person interaction is always the best.

I’m not saying the interview process typically is the best to do in-person. In fact, there are a lot of issues with in-person interviews and the MMI, hopefully, is fixing some of that. That being said, Skype interviews for a lot of people would definitely be beneficial. It would help overcome a lot of the financial barriers for disadvantaged students.

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