"I wish I could go back in time and be more vocal."

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When I was applying to medical school last year, I made the conscious decision to talk about my experiences living with a chronic illness and how that brought me to want to work within the medical system. In one of my first interviews on the East Coast, I had an interviewer tell me that my chronic illness would impair my ability to practice as a physician and that I was going down the wrong career path.

He said this in spite of the fact that, in front of him, sat my application detailing how I had completed college and worked in the medical field for two years at that point. He said this despite the fact that there have been many physicians who have successfully worked with chronic disease, including me. I told him that I was just as able as any other applicant to be a physician; he shrugged and moved on to his next question. I left that interview in a bit of a haze - angry, frustrated, and speechless.

I withdrew my application - I didn’t want to be associated with an institution that supported ableist ideas, even implicitly. I now wish that I would have told him that his ableism hurts the trust his patients have in him, affects the treatments he prescribes, and contributes to health inequity. I wish I could go back in time and be more vocal to advocate for myself and those like me.