Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Mental health

Hello, I suffer from many different mental illnesses and just want to know if anyone else has been in a similar situation as me and been successful?

Thanks

Reply 1

Lostx

Thanks for the reply.

I have paranoid schizophrenia, depression, social anxiety, anorexia nervosa, BPD and OCD. Do you think I would be able to manage as a med student and doctor? I know it is hard to tell without you knowing me in real life, but I would appreciate it if you could help me by giving a general idea about whether medicine is for me.

Reply 2

junior.doctor

In all honesty, your treating team are probably going to be the best people to advise you on this. You do have several conditions, and it would be easy to assume that maybe medicine would be a struggle. But it’s not that straightforward.

Everyone applying for medicine needs to be cleared by occupational health, which includes disclosing medical conditions. Occupational health will then only sin additional information from your treating team (with your permission). The role of occupational health is not to be punitive but to make sure that you are fit to withstand the demanding course and career, and to make sure that you have the right support in place. Occasionally this will mean advising that someone is not fit. Occupational health will be looking for someone to be stable, which can include taking medication. You don’t have to be ‘fixed’, but you need to be in a place where your team feel you’re well and stable enough to do the course. This is why it would be a really good idea to talk to your treating team, because it will be them writing reports for you for occupational health, so they’ll be best placed to tell you what they’d advise and how they might fill out reports.

I would never say that condition X automatically means you can’t do medicine. Because for every condition there will be a wide spectrum from mild and stable to severely affected and unwell. Having several conditions means you might struggle more, but unfortunately we’re not going to be able to tell you definitively.

What do you think? Do you think you could cope with significant stress, long hours, sleep deprivation (once qualified), working under pressure? (You don’t need to tell me, these are more questions for you to think about). But it will really depend on how your conditions affect you and to what extent, and what you personally might find different. People with eg OCD will not all find the same things difficult / easy - one person might find cleanliness and bodily fluids difficult, someone else might not have a problem with that.

Reply 3

Lostx

Hi junior.doctor,Thank you. Another thing I need to ask is that I broke the law when unwell. I am really worried that this may prevent me from being a doctor. I was told by the voices to travel by train far away with no one knowing and to bring a knife with me for protection. Please let me know if this will hold me back.

Reply 4

junior.doctor

I think unfortunately once again this is not something we're going to be able to give you much useful advice on. Presumably you're talking about something that you've been charged with, that will appear on a DBS check? Medicine offers are always conditional on several things aside from grades - satisfactory occupational health clearance, satisfactory DBS... It doesn't mean that these necessarily have to be perfect, and there will be other people out there whose DBS checks aren't completely clear, but who have been allowed to study medicine. A significant conviction on a DBS would require them to review whether you would be fit to study / practise in light of that. But unfortunately there is no set list of exactly what is ok and what is not - it's usually a case by case basis - which is why only a med school admissions department could give you real advice.

I will be honest with you - your situation is very complicated (I noticed your other post where you mentioned your grades, which also unfortunately wouldn't be sufficient for direct entry to a 5 year undergrad course). Having just one of the various things you've mentioned would already make it more challenging, but all of the things put together, will make it infinitely moreso. Not necessarily impossible - although possibly, but only a medical school themselves could tell you that for definite. But it's going to need a lot of discussions with potential medical schools about the various aspects of your specific situation. Which is going to require you to be very motivated and organised, and it depends how much you're up for a fight.

There are some 6-year courses with a foundation year - some of these are for people with the right grades but wrong subjects (eg AAA in humanities), and some are for people with the right subjects, but lower grades, who meet certain widening participation criteria. You should research some of the foundation year courses and see if you meet any of the entry criteria, and if you do, then broach admissions tutors for some specific guidance about the other aspects of your circumstances. If you don't meet any of the criteria, then your options probably are going to be resitting A-levels, or doing graduate entry medicine. And if you wanted to do either of those with the intention of applying to medicine, it would be good to broach potential medical schools in advance to run through your situation, because it would make no sense to go through a resit / a first degree, only to THEN find you're not eligible. Obviously graduate entry is much more competitive - but your medical history / conviction record wouldn't be taken into account at the competition-for-place stage, so it wouldn't prejudice you, but if you were offered a place, you would then need to go through the various checks and discussions.

In summary - it's really not going to be easy, and it depends whether you're up for trying to pursue it in view of that or not.

(edited 5 years ago)

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Articles for you

Support at university: students describe where to find help

What A-levels do you need to become a nurse?

Disabled Students’ Allowance - Eligibility

How to look after yourself and live independently at uni