How To Survive Med School with a Chronic Illness and/or Disability

First and perhaps most importantly, if you are a medical student who has an illness or a disability: please know that you are not alone. Oftentimes, the word “disability” is a scary one in this field; it is surrounded by a strong stigma, and people have difficulty envisioning that a doctor can also be a patient. As students, we may not realize that there are, in fact, successful physicians who have both visible and invisible illnesses or disabilities. There are even medical students in our own classes who have a disability. I hope that by speaking out about my experience, I am able to convey these sometimes hidden realities – and I hope these tidbits of what I have learned along the way will help make your journey a little bit smoother!

1. Establish your support network early.

The reality is that no one gets through medical school alone. As someone with an illness or disability, it is especially imperative to make sure that you know where to turn for support far in advance of any issues.

Part of this includes social support: Speak as openly as you can with your friends about the challenges that you each might expect to face in medical school. While my biggest concern might be ensuring that I can schedule my studying around my illness flare-ups or medical procedures, my friend might be a parent or caregiver who is worried about family obligations. We all will have our own burdens and hurdles. Knowing those challenges in advance will allow you both to check-in on each other and pull each other through the tough times.

This point also includes administrative support. If you think you may need any accommodations during medical school, speak with your school’s disability support office as soon as you can. Talk to your school’s medical student services, with your learning community advisor, or with any equivalent that exists for student support at your medical school. You do not need to disclose all of the details of your condition to anyone if you are uncomfortable doing so, but these meetings can be a critical opportunity to devise strategies to maximize your success and to make connections with those who can help if you find that you are struggling down the road. The AAMC has some resources that may help support these conversations. Being proactive is essential!

2. Clearly define boundaries between working and not working.

This is a key piece of advice that I would give to any student, but especially to those who have extra considerations like a disability. Please know that you are a medical student, but you are not only a medical student. You are also a wonderful human being who has people who love you, who has hobbies, and who has basic needs (like eating and sleeping!). It is essential to keep up with all of these in medical school, and just as importantly, to keep them separate from your medical school identity.

Whenever possible, try to break your schedule down so that you have very designated times in which you will study. For example, one day I might set aside two hours in the morning to listen to lectures, and three hours in the evening to review the week’s material. However, in between those study periods, my medical school brain is “off.” I avoid thinking about the mountain of work that I still have to do, or trying to study material in any form. I spend that time focusing on my health and on the other things that I want or need to do to maintain balance in my life.

This separation is crucial for avoiding stress/burn-out and for conserving your energy. I have found that if I do not set aside specific blocks of time to be in “medical school mode,” the studying can fairly easily consume my entire life. Whenever that happened, I would notice my stress levels increase significantly. I felt that I was constantly spinning in circles and diving deeper and deeper into my studies while missing out on the other major parts of my life. Importantly, with an illness that makes my energy supply a little less abundant than my peers, I found that the worrying and stress from an unclear division of “on” and “off” times depleted much of my coveted energy. By making sure that you have some protected intervals where you do not need to think about medical school, even if it is just in the form of small breaks within a tough day of exam preparations, you are allowing your brain and body necessary time to recover so that you can ultimately perform at your best.

3. Avoid comparing yourself to your peers and worrying about what they are doing.

This is another tip that I think applies to all medical students. At my medical school, most of our lectures are not mandatory. This was a wonderful benefit for me as it allowed me to stay home on days when I was not feeling well and to watch lectures from bed. It also allowed me to be self-paced in my studying, so long as I was all caught up and prepared for our exams as they arose every few weeks.

However, I also found that this type of scheduling sometimes resulted in me being in a very different place in my studies as compared to my peers. . I would often hear chatter about a lecture that I had not yet watched, or I would hear students worrying about being two lectures behind – leading me to wince with the knowledge that I was more like six or seven lectures behind (oops!). It was hard not to feel that I should be going faster or doing “better,” even when I was working at the pace that I had found was best for my situation.

I have learned that everyone studies in different ways and at different paces. Some may choose to quickly watch all of the lectures once, then watch them again later to really solidify the information. Others will go more slowly, fully studying one lecture before moving to the next. Especially as a student with an illness or disability, your pace might be a little bit different, perhaps even scheduled around your flare-ups or medical appointments. If you are like me, you may find that you are “ahead” at some intervals but “behind” at others. Try to just focus on being the best student you can be and learning the material as fully as you can, and don’t worry if your path is slightly different than your peers. As long as you’ve mastered the content by the time it is needed in class or in the clinic – you are rocking it!

4. Learn to overcome the doubt that your disability makes you un-able.

I noticed, early on, that students with disabilities are often asked to defend their potential to be successful in this field, even after being accepted to medical school.  I’ve been asked many times, “How will you make it through the 80-hour weeks of residency?” or “How will you stand through rounds?”

At first, these questions rattled me a little bit. Yet when I thought about it further, I realized that none of us, as medical students, know that we can make it. How can we? We have never been in a situation like residency before. We must all simply trust that with hard work, a solid academic record leading up to medical school, and proper support, we will be able to make it.

Unfortunately, my experience has been that disabled or disadvantaged students are frequently asked to justify their abilities anyway. These requests are not usually overtly intended to undermine the capability of the student – but as a young adult being asked to speculate on your entire plan for success to a physician you respect or admire, it can be hard to maintain confidence in your abilities. Try to avoid allowing yourself to be flustered by these seeds of doubt that often stem from unconscious preconceptions about what a typical physician looks like. You may have a disadvantage, but you are not any less capable of becoming a fantastic physician than any of your peers.

5. In Fact, know that your illness gives you unique strengths.

Oftentimes, when we think of disability, we tend to only focus on the negatives. We envision the limitations we must overcome or the obstacles we must learn to navigate. And these difficulties can certainly exist – for example, my chronic illness sometimes causes weakness down my left side, and I may need to be a little more careful than other students in making sure that there is a chair/stool around or a place to rest on those days.

Yet the main thing I have realized is that as someone who has gone through – and sometimes been battered by – the medical system, I am so much more aware of my patients’ experiences than many of my peers. As a patient myself, I have been on the other side of that medical bed. I have been lost to follow-up, buried in medical bills, left wondering what medical jargon meant and if it would ever lead to a diagnosis. My illness has ingrained in me an empowering sense of empathy and a deep passion to fight for my patients, to be an advocate for them even if no one else believes them or when our medical interventions fall short. So yes, my disability may bring a few challenges – but I can also confidently declare that it is one of my greatest assets.

In sum, please know that you are not a burden on the medical field. Instead, you are a necessary and integral part of it. You will understand things in unique ways that will provide patients with hope, with empathy, and with unparalleled support as they fight their battle. This field needs you.