Should I focus on my adversity in my Canadian med school applications?

[MedOneDay10]

I was diagnosed with Leukemia in my senior year of high school (2017) and spent the next year as an inpatient at the hospital. I was fortunate enough to still be able to graduate and attend university in the fall. However, I was still in recovery and so I took a reduced course load but would still often struggle with fatigue and occasional health complications. Although I don't regret my decision to start school so soon after treatment as I believe it greatly helped my recovery, it definitely was not good for my grades. In addition to this, I now have a 1.5 year gap where I participated in no extracurricular activities, which I believe negatively affects my application.

My time in the hospital was rather traumatic with high dose chemo, extended stays in the ICU, and a few "close calls". But negatives aside, I considered this to be an excellent opportunity to learn about the field of healthcare from the patient perspective and further drove my passion for medicine. I am now thrilled to say that I have been in remission for the past 5 years!

Although I don't expect my cancer diagnosis to be my golden ticket into med school, I do consider it to be something that is quite unique. In previous apps I have mostly wrote about the positives of the experience and what I learned, while also trying to garner a bit of sympathy if I'm being completely honest, but I'm just wondering if this is the best approach. I have also included my cancer diagnosis in the application section where you mention any extenuating circumstances that may have affected your application (reduced EC hours).

Do med schools even consider this as a positive experience and factor it into their decision? What might be the best way to portray this experience to med admissions?

I would really appreciate any feedback on this! I understand that we don't really know exactly what med admissions looks for, but I'm open to opinions!

P.S. I am not sensitive about this topic so feel free to ask away!

[bearded frog]

First of all, congrats on your recovery and I'm sorry you had to go through that. Not to take anything away from your experience, but a personal experience of being a patient or having a loved one have an experience as a patient, and now you want to be a doctor to just be like them or to do a better job than then is not an uncommon theme in medical school applications. Certainly if that's your story, own it, but understand it's probably not as unique in this population as you might think, so you should still write about what makes you unique and put your personal twist on your story.

I also wouldn't talk about the lack of experiences or poor grades in a personal statement type essay, other than "was able to succeed in undergrad in spite of my ordeals" etc. but it would definitely be appropriate for an extenuating circumstances prompt to talk about it.