new diagnosed ASD, trying to get through med school intact

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The timing was pretty bad for the diagnosis. I wished it would have happened in childhood, but that would have been in the early 90s...so it probably wouldn't have happened (even though my dad-who worked with autistic people in a group home-would sometimes tease me back then by saying that I seemed autistic to him in some ways. It's funny because 23 years later, I come to find out that he was absolutely correct). At least I could have had a couple decades to work on everything.

Yes these next few years, I really will be pressured to be perfect...not by all, but by enough to constantly keep me on my toes. Here is a thread from a med student board ranting about grading during clinical years:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads ... es.150061/

That's always been my go-to behavior there, rather than being caught staring at something else.


The downside was, once I started working in a male-dominated industry, everyone always thought I was only attending meetings because I was the secretary, or my peers would constantly ask me for my notes, etc because they couldn't be bothered to take their own.
I still do the note-taking thing around people I know less well, but, for those I worked with all the time, I stopped and just went back to staring, they were used to my oddities by then.

As MsDorkness said, there's nothing wrong with appearing studious, preoccupied with your notes.

Medical school is serious business. You'll be respected if you seem like you're going about your business in a thorough manner. That's the approach I would use from now on:

Looking like a serious doctor.

There was a show, in the 1960s, called "Ben Casey." Ben Casey was a neurologist. He was not socially adept. He didn't make eye contact. He was obsessed with medicine and with ethics. He didn't care about social pleasantries. You could watch a tape of that show on YouTube.

think I found the solution to a majority of my problems
right here

awesome...

I think the "serious doctor thing" would work well, too.

Hey..thick framed nerd glasses will definitely fit with that theme. Now I just have to work on getting smarter!

Ever watch "Ben Casey?"

As someone also in the medical field and also diagnosed while in school-I can relate to what you are going through. I found clinical education to be very challenging as well, much more challenging than the didactic portion. I was lucky to have a great support system at my school. Disability services was really great in helping me to better accept the diagnosis and learn about self-advocacy. I also worked with a counselor specializing in ASD and a speech therapist. This combination approach taught me so much about higher level interpersonal skills and how to present myself (facial expressions, intonation, gestures, etc.) in a way that allowed me to better relate to and understand others. That might be really helpful if you have access to a speech therapist and can find a way to work it into you schedule (that was tricky with clinicals but they were pretty flexible in scheduling with me).