My name is Kelsey Crunk, and I am a freshman at Mississippi State University majoring in biology with a concentration in pre-dental studies. After graduation in 2020, I plan to attend dental school studying to become an oral surgeon. In elementary school, my pediatrician and child psychologist diagnosed me with attention deficit disorder. In order to survive, and ultimately thrive, in an academic setting, I relied on a support team, including my parents, coaches, teachers, and child psychologist. My confidence in telling you about attending dental school is a testament to that support team and my hard work.

I have known for a very long time that I wanted a career in dentistry. My grandfather is a dentist and I observed him working when I was a little girl. I enjoyed nothing more than visiting his office and watching him interact with his patients, showing them compassion, making them feel comfortable, as he provided treatment. His profession is performing dental procedures, but my grandfather is really a customer service representative. Patient comfort and care is the most important part of his job.

The part of dentistry I like the most is that it gives you a chance to serve others. This past January, my grandfather and I traveled to Nicaragua on a medical mission trip. We spent all week working with patients in a region where people do not have the means to access dental care. The conditions we worked in were almost primitive. The work was difficult and very rewarding. If anything, it has reinforced my career goals. That experience strengthened my desire to study and work hard so I can continue to serve on global mission trips. During my summer break, I will be working part time in a dental office and already have plans to do some local mission work with dentists in my hometown of Memphis, TN. Any spare time is spent outdoors enjoying water sports or playing tennis.

Essay: ADD Psychotherapy and Prescription Medication

I am an advocate for the medicinal treatment of attention deficit disorder in children. I would only be an advocate for medicine if it were a component of a complete treatment plan coordinated by parents, a psychologist and a pediatrician. It really takes a team to treat this disability and create a path for a child’s academic success. I am a living testament that solid treatment plans including medicine and psychotherapy can equip children to be successful in an academic setting. My parents were initially very skeptical about giving me prescription medication. The psychologist explained that each child performs baseline academic testing first. The psychologist would not recommend medication until an academic baseline test is completed. The baseline results allow for a very objective viewpoint of the benefits that medication can provide a child. This plan of testing gave my parents an analytical approach to medication. Testing allowed all of us to gauge performance and corresponding improvements that medicine can provide. It removed a lot of guessing about the medicine in general. Even with the explanation of the objective testing my parents were still skeptics until a discussion with the pediatrician. The pediatrician explained that she is the accountability partner for the psychologist and the pediatrician actually prescribes the medicine. My parents appreciated the checks and balances this provided. My academic results while under medication were dramatic. Marathon three hour homework sessions turned into thirty minutes. My teachers noticed that I was focused on them and not daydreaming in the classroom. My grades improved. Every three years I performed the same academic testing to see if my maturing body and mental growth, required adjustments to the dosages in medicine. I also had consistent visits with my psychologist to give me strategies and techniques for coping with attention deficit disorder. Usually my parents sat with me during these visits because the psychologist provided them with tools and suggestions on how to support me. Communicating my disability to my teachers served to increase my support team. As I reached high school, this support team grew to include my athletic coaches too. The combination of medicine and consistent psychotherapy along with my support team was a perfect combination to give me a path to success through school.