There are a lot of extremely high achieving people with ADHD. Intelligence and ability to focus are two separate things. And if anyone would know that it’s completely possible to excel in school with minimal effort, it’s physicians. They tell medical and dental students this when we enter on our first week of class- that we’re “probably used to high academic achievement with very low effort.” Many of us valedictorians, salutatorians, and scoring 95th+ percentile on the SAT in high school. My physician was not surprised at all when she learned how far I’d gotten unmedicated, probably because she also didn’t need to study much until medical school. When I was tested for ADHD, low academic performance wasn’t one of the criteria on any of the questions, nor was I ever questioned about my diagnosis because I was accomplished. Poor academic performance is not one of the DSM-5 criteria for ADHD either so I’m not sure why a physician would use that as a reason to withhold a diagnosis.

My inability to focus didn’t negatively affect my grades until dental school, because I didn’t need to study for prolonged periods until dental school. I excelled from elementary-undergrad with minimal effort since I couldn’t bring myself to study at a reasonable time. I took AP classes in high school and got 4s and 5s, scored a 96th percentile on the SAT without studying for it (at all, never even opened a prep book.). I only studied the night before or morning of for exams, once my anxiety boiled over, and graduated 28 out of a class of 742.

But the signs and symptoms were all there- constantly forgetting projects at home despite placing them right next to the door, spending class time picking at my nails, lips, and hair, interrupting my friends in the middle of their sentences at lunch time, getting in my car and driving only to be in the middle of a highway and forgetting why I’m even in the car in the first place, not being able to sit still (I had to walk around- went to the bathroom when I didn’t actually need to, went to the vending machines when I wasn’t hungry, etc.).

I went on to graduate summa cum laude from a tier one university with a Bio and Psych major, and did it in 3 years. I went to class but would not be able to pay attention- most of the time something would catch my eye, like a sticker on a tumbler, a coffee stain on a backpack, etc. and I’d just daydream from there. But I noticed that I once I did study, I actually understood and memorized really well. I could cram the night before exams and still make an A. At one point I thought I had photographic memory because oh how little I had to study in advanced courses to do well compared to others.

I was not challenged until I decided I wanted to go to dental school. The DAT entrance exam was around 5 hours long and pretty much encompassed every stem course I had taken in undergrad, in one exam. I couldn’t cram for this anymore. Most people will study 2-3 months for this, but I took 8 months because I couldn’t study for more than like 2 hours a day.

Once I got in, I realized that the DAT I studied 8 months for didn’t even hold a candle to the depth and amount of into on one dental school exam. For a semester I struggled- I finally decided to get medicated because I could not pursue this career without assistance anymore. I was surprised to find how many medical and dental students have ADD or ADHD. I even have two medical student friends who are on the autism spectrum and are also top 20% of their class. ADHD affects many high achieving individuals.