Medical Should I turn down acceptance because of past trauma from undergrad at same institution?

[TheBoneDoctah]

Hi! I’m a Premed student who is in the 2021 cycle. I was accepted into an MD school, the one I attended undergrad at, and I’m so incredibly grateful for that. Although I don’t like the location since I’ve been there for about 80% of my life and my stats are quite a bit higher than the average, I really like the faculty there and their emphasis on community outreach.
My problem is, I don’t know if I can attend this school. I was never a huge fan of attending the school just for the fact that I desperately wanted to get to go somewhere new and start to grow in someplace where I wasn’t comfortable. When I first applied to this school last year though, I had felt okay with the idea of attending bevause of the other positives outweighing any drawbacks and that I’d still be able to become a good doctor even if the location wasn’t ideal.

Now comes the main issue (apologies in advance to getting too personal): there have been a lot of traumas that have happened to me during my time at this school including getting sexually assaulted by someone I thought was my friend and being in an abusive relationship. Although I was able to come out of the issue a much stronger and confident person, I realized throughout this year that something that had subconsciously helping me get through it all was believing that through all my hard work, I’d be able to move on to somewhere new where I didn’t have to walk around campus being reminded of these occurrences. It wasn’t until I recently came back onto campus (since we weren’t in campus for a long time and I had graduated) that I realized how much those memories lingered there and how claustrophobic it made me feel. I wish I had known in hindsight that I should’ve never applied to this school but my brain was in another mindset at that point and didn’t know what I knew now.

I feel terrible for even considering rejecting my acceptance now and I go back and forth on the daily. The thought of being at that school for 4-5 more years terrifies me and I’ve only been able to keep away the dread from continual work towards my other goals. This year, the experiences I’ve gotten have been very life changing and in terms of application, I’m going to have 2-3000 more hours of meaningful experience that has made me mature significantly as a person. That said, I know rejecting an acceptance to med school is a red flag to schools so I don’t know if it’s even worth it and I don’t want to be one of those people that spits in the face of the opportunities that they’re given.
Sorry for the very long post but I just need help and advice on where to move forward because I am truly lost right now. Thanks a bunch <3

Have you gotten any other acceptances? If you are serious about being a doctor, I would absolutely not reject your one acceptance. Although I have not been through what you have, I think finding a way to deal with your feelings and what you went through with counseling, etc would be your best option here. Also, that horrible person that did that to you will not be attending there (I am assuming).

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[GoSpursGo]

I’m so sorry that this happened to you, and cannot imagine having to wrestle with this. I wish I could do something to help with this, or to tell you that you should or should not attend this school. All I can do is advise you in terms of what rejecting your acceptance would mean, and ultimately you are going to have to weigh the decision based on your own values and being honest with yourself about how attending those school would affect you.

First of all and most obviously, if you reject this acceptance there is a real chance that you will not be accepted anywhere next year, or will wind up at a “worse” school. Nobody can quantify those chances—20%? 50%? You seem confident that your experiences this year have made you a more competitive applicant, but as you have seen this year nothing is ever guaranteed. Furthermore, even if your best case scenario comes though and you get into a better school next year, that is a year of your life you’ve spent reapplying where you could instead have been 1/4 through Med school. Ultimately in raw dollars and cents it’s one fewer year of earning potential, and with compounded interest that you would have made from investments it’s literally hundreds of thousands of dollars you’re forgoing by choosing to reapply.

As I said, you have to decide for yourself how much you are really willing to risk to get away from this school, and whether you could find a way to move past the trauma if you were to stay. Best of luck.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

No I haven’t, which I think is part of what haunts me because of how poor my strategy was of where I applied ans how I did it. Yeah They just both live in the same area and I have run into them a few times which makes it tough. But you’re right, thank you, I appreciate your input man

I appreciate the kind words and this advice, thank you. I think that’s where I really have pause. I was planning on deferring no matter where I got in because I’ve always wanted to have certain experiences before I started medical school, but then this cycle has shown me how little is guaranteed in terms of what I put in vs what the medical school decision is, so even if I did reapply with my new experiences, that would potentially make 0 difference (or difference towards the worse) in the outcome.

I truly want to become a doctor which is why at the end of the day I start leaning towards biting the bullet and attending. But I think there’s a real part of me that’s scared that even after medical school I still won’t be able to get to be somewhere new or that during my time there, the despair will keep setting in which will end up holding me back in what I can achieve (I know I need to become stronger and not let that happen).

thank you very much for the input and I’ll definitely keep considering that because there definitely are so many drawbacks (probably more than positives) in rejecting my acceptance.

Don’t let this person dictate your future.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I'm definitely not sure that I can provide better supportive words than what was written. I don't know your campus well enough to know whether you would be lingering in spaces that would traumatize you. I will say that you shouldn't decline an acceptance if you don't have another in-hand. You will also only really be "on campus" in your preclinical coursework and ultimately won't be stepping so much on campus as you progress through your curriculum. And the pandemic may minimize this even further.

I do not want to make it sound like I am trivializing the issue either. I know of many med student friends who were victimized during their time in medical school, and that was extremely trying. There are others who are assaulted in clinic rotations and even further on in their training. To that end, I would always suggest making sure you seek appropriate professional help, but you cannot completely run away from the things that trigger you. You have to learn to manage them and not let them dominate you.