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Should you disclose a previous mental illness on your medicine application

Hope someone can help. I'm going to be writing my personal statement for medicine this year and was wondering whether it would be beneficial or detrimental to my application to mention that i used to have an eating disorder (i'm now fully recovered) . I had an eating disorder about a year ago and was hospitalized for about 7 months. My hospital admission was literally right before my GCSEs but I still managed to get good grades (grades high enough to apply for medicine) despite not being in school for most of the GCSE course. Do you think an experience like this would put me at an advantage as it shows that I am determined/committed and have personal experience of mental illness, the NHS and hospitalisation? Or do you think that the university would just be worried about me relapsing and therefore not accept me? If anyone has been in a similar situation then please let me know what you did. Many thanks.
Original post by caitlin1999
Hope someone can help. I'm going to be writing my personal statement for medicine this year and was wondering whether it would be beneficial or detrimental to my application to mention that i used to have an eating disorder (i'm now fully recovered) . I had an eating disorder about a year ago and was hospitalized for about 7 months. My hospital admission was literally right before my GCSEs but I still managed to get good grades (grades high enough to apply for medicine) despite not being in school for most of the GCSE course. Do you think an experience like this would put me at an advantage as it shows that I am determined/committed and have personal experience of mental illness, the NHS and hospitalisation? Or do you think that the university would just be worried about me relapsing and therefore not accept me? If anyone has been in a similar situation then please let me know what you did. Many thanks.


If it is part of your reason for wanting to go in to medicine, then yes. But I would avoid going in to too much detail and keep it relevant to your motivation to study medicine only.
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Ghotay
13
Eating disorders are surprisingly common amongst medical students. I don't think it will put you at a disadvantage, especially as it was years ago and you are fully recovered. However I agree with ForestCat - disclose it as appropriate on whatever forms you have to fill in, keep it professional and factual, and then only mention it otherwise if it was a significant factor in you wanting to study medicine. You could certainly put it across that way in your PS if you wanted to - talking about your stay in hospital and how you felt about those looking after you. That would be fine. But only if you want to. I wouldn't go with yhe 'still got decent grades despite mental illness' angle. While it is impressive, it's not the sort of thing that sounds good in an interview, and just invites questions you don't really want

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