Hi all!
I’ve been a lurker of the forums for a while now and have gained encouragement and insight from all of you. Now I finally feel I have a question that I haven’t necessarily seen addressed and it involves a bit of a introduction so, here it goes.
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis at 11 years old. I’m assuming some or most of you know what that is, but just in case, it’s an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid gland. Normally it is not seen until much later in life but is becoming more common in 20 & 30 year olds, with a higher presentation in women than men. In order to be caught and diagnosed normally function of the thyroid has to have declined to such a point that TSH has risen out of the accepted parameters. So to be 11 and already be damaged so much that it was functioning poorly enough for diagnosis seems significant. But at the time my doctors just prescribed levothyroxine, gave us a pamphlet that vaguely addressed hypothyroidism- not the autoimmune disease side of it, and sent my mom and I on our way. My mom did not understand the significance of the disease and myself moving right into the moody teenage years didn’t seem to care anyways. So I didn’t take the medication like I should, my young metabolism made up for some of the drag and the rest of the symptoms I and my mom assumed were due to my age and significant extracurricular activity levels. I was shooting to go to a military academy or Rice University but ended up not even applying because of a mental state of depression and physical exhaustion and burnout by the time my senior year came around. I went on to go to a state school for a few years, got married, had a baby, and when my husband’s job needed us to move to Alaska while I was pregnant with our second child I decided to put a college degree on pause for a while.
In the 5 years since that time we have lived in Alaska, California, Texas, and Wisconsin and are currently living back in California again. Those moves exposed me to a wide variety of doctors and cultures that educated me much more on my disease as well as the lifestyle changes I could make to support it. I am forever grateful for finally finding doctors who will truly listen to my concerns and treat a disease with a more functional and holistic approach. It literally changed my life. Reflecting back to when I was first diagnosed, if I had been treated differently and educated further, I think my life would have taken a much different path. I don’t blame my first doctors, I recognize that more information is available and widely accepted now than back then. However, I hope to serve others and potentially be the key to a shift in the course of someone’s disease, as other’s were for me.
So now that my husband is at a secure place in his career and I can take the lead of where our family heads next, I have started back in school with the aim of going to medical school and becoming either an MD or DO. I am currently applying for a Health Scholar Program at a local group of hospitals that combines volunteer work with shadowing on a flexible schedule- perfect for a homeschooling mom of 3 kids. I have to write an essay speaking to why I am interested in becoming a doctor. I figured this would be similar to a personal statement when applying for med school and am treating it as a practice run of sorts. So my question is-- Can I use my perspective as a patient for so many years, and the desire to have the opportunity to make a difference in a patient’s life as a reason for wanting to become a doctor? Is admitting I have a chronic condition going to hurt my odds when applying to medical schools even if it is under control?
Apologies for the length, thanks for any feedback you can provide.
-Carleen
I feel I should add that even since high school looking at military academies or Rice, I was shooting to be a doctor. I spent an entire summer when I was 9 reading pretty hefty books all about the nervous system and different diseases. Even at the state school I attended I was first there as a premed Biology major and only switched to Nutrition to be an RD because a majority of the classes had an online option that worked better for me once I had our first son. But truly my desire was still to be a doctor, I just didn’t think I had it in me at the time- a result of both the depression and brain fog caused by my disease and being a first time mom and feeling a little lost in general.
Just wanted to clarify, choosing to become a doctor isn’t purely because of my experience with my disease but now my desire has been ignited because of it.
You can absolutely talk about it, especially if it is a major driver of you wanting to go into medicine. I would focus on the part where you understand what it’s like to have a chronic disease both with and without the information, how you think it’s important to educate and feel you would make an impact in not only treating the patient but also teaching the patient. Most medical fields would eat that up. I included an example of my own experience with poor and good communication as a patient (though not to the extent/impact as yours) and it seemed to go well in at least a couple of interviews. Your ability to also balance the needs of the family ahead of your own and still being able to pursue your dreams is a good topic to discuss as well…
Thanks for the info and advice. I definitely see how wording it the way you did does a better job of clarifying my intention!
Now, when you mentioned talking about how I’m able to meet the needs of my family above my own while still being able to pursue my dreams, how should I go about that without making it seem like my family responsibilities will have a negative impact on med school. This is another area that I’m stuck on how to talk about it in a way that shows the difficulty of balancing it all but being able to handle it without making it sound like it would get in the way of med school. Especially being a female, I worry that I should stay away from talking about my family responsibilities.
In a perfect world, you would eventually find the right balance between personal time, family time, and school time. Unfortunately it’s not a perfect world. I don’t think you need to address the “what ifs” in your personal statement. It could theoretically be broached during an interview, so you should at least think about how you would handle a situation in which you had to weigh your priorities and how you would attack it.
The personal statement is for you to say why YOU want to be a physician and why it just makes sense for YOU to become one. Don’t use it to second guess yourself or provide people with questions of your intentions/abilities. It’s a job interview, sell yourself. Just go into it with the mindset that you and your family can do what it takes to be successful, because it truly is a family venture. Once you’re in, a “good” school will do everything in its power to help you academically if life gets in the way. (good meaning caring, not good as in quality of education).
My class only has one female with kids. When she started, her son was 3 months old or so, and she made it through year 1 just fine. She had baby #2 over the summer, and a (female) dean actually persuaded her to take a year sabbatical even though she was so gung ho that she could make it all work. Very supportive school, and it’s okay for you to grill the interviewer on questions about family care and other things that are important to you.