Comments on: Highs and Lows: Bipolar in Medical School

By: BD2MS3

BD2MS3 — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:23:12 +0000

thank you for hope, it saved my life

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:36:02 +0000

You’re a very talented writer – I hope you keep writing. I’ll be entering med school next year, like you, with bipolar disorder. I worry about the stress of the profession, but I guess I’ll see what happens. Glad you made it through, and good luck to you!

By: Mary Jo Cannon MD

Mary Jo Cannon MD — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:46:24 +0000

As a professor of clinical medicine and a nurse/physician teaching in an off shore university of health sciences (both BSN nursing and medicine) I am thrilled to see your profoundly inspiring article. Thank you for the courage to act and speak and I am grateful you have the gift for journalism that has led to such a great article! I am also grateful to your publishers. I wish you well and plan to use your words to guide, educate and inspire my own students! Mary Jo Cannon

By: Jessie

Jessie — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:12:07 +0000

Thanks for the article. I started applying to med school in recovery from a bipolar depression. Next year I’ll join the ranks of bipolar med students. I don’t plan to hide it. Openness is the only was to fight stigma.

By: Highs and Lows: Bipolar in Medical School | Tolerance Lost

Highs and Lows: Bipolar in Medical School | Tolerance Lost — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:48:29 +0000

[...] jeremy says: July 6, 2009 at 10:15 am [...]

By: Gabrielle

Gabrielle — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:10:45 +0000

Thank you so much! I am on some of the same meds you are on, recently recovered from a suicide attempt. My family practice doctor, after seeing my prescribed depression meds told me all I needed was to “stop stressing”. I went off the meds, joined a yoga class, ate more healthy foods, and started exercising again. Three weeks after I got of the meds, I tried killing myself. Fast forward eight months, I am stable and proud to have an acceptance to med school. I have so many fears of being found out, of having to many bad days to handle–but I’ve learned to trust in my psych (and got a new family practice doc!!) and trust in taking the medications.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:13:49 +0000

So encouraging to read. I was diagnosed 3 years ago. I am an undergraduate student; the diagnosis delayed my studies and I decided to do an Bachelor of Education degree in order to become an elementary school teacher. I figured it would be a fun routine job where I could be creative.

I am a strong student and have always wanted to apply to medical school. How does the diagnosis factor in with the interview process for medical school?

By: Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:05:53 +0000

Thank you for this article. After many good and bad years and a recent suicide attempt, I’ve been diagnosed with a condition somewhere between rapid cycle manic depression type 1 and schizoaffective disorder. I was informed that my symptoms address both. I’m in my final year of college and considering medical school. The mental problems have been dissuading me for some time.

Again, thank you.

By: WiggleBigToe

WiggleBigToe — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:13:53 +0000

Thank you! I’m in my 3rd year of a PhD program and will be applying to medical school in a year. I was just diagnosed and its comforting to know that they are people like me who have achieved their dreams in a medical career even with BP. Not very eloquent sentiments, but true.

By: betrayed

betrayed — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:09:42 +0000

Well my “drugs” caused me so much anxiety, and akathisia, and finally tardive dyskinesia rapid eye blinking blindness that my cowokers noticed and I was found out, I was banned from the workplace and fired, never having committed a crime or harming anyone.

I could not stop marching from side to side as my coworkers talked to me, could not read from the tardive dyskinsia attacks on my eyes.

Eventually, the drugs lead to permanent disability, and if you are lucky enough like to me to get your sight back after weaning yourself off, your shrinks will tell you to go back on those blindness drugs and then go volunteer in a soup kitchen. And I am not a biplor person who is suicidal either.

I hope you achieve your dreams, I hope your decision to take drugs is your own and never mandated on you, and I beg you to never disclose because in actuality, I lost all my “friends” who ever found out about my condition. And out of the dozens of doctors, therapists, and more than a dozen drugs I took, none of them helped me achieve my dreams, they hindered them. What a disappointment.
They didn’t shed a tear for me when I went blind from drugs, they were not sorry they just said,”Well we didn’t do this to everyone”
and then got mad at me for weaning myself off and geting my sight back like I deserve to have my sight.