I am having trouble with the wording of the medical questions on the application, regarding whether or not I will need a Statement of Physician form. The only area that I remotely could answer yes to is in the section regarding mental health issues. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child when I was around 9 to 10 years old, roughly in about 2005, and I took adderall for only about 2 months, and have never once used it again, or been treated in any way for ADHD, for about 17 years. Do I need to list this? I asked my parents about it, and my mom barely even remembers anything about it other than that my teacher kept pushing for me to be on medication, and made my mom feel like she had to beg our doctor to put me on it. I then responded terribly to it and would barely eat or sleep, and I was only on it for about 2 months before I was taken off of it and never used it again. I am now 26 years old, and have had no ADHD treatment or diagnosis in at least 17 years, and I am not even completely sure that I had a “formal diagnosis” back then. Would this even still be on my medical record today? I do not have a primary care doctor currently, as mine retired last year and I rarely have health problems. I am not even sure if there would still be a record of this. I would have to try to potentially find an urgent care in the next 9 days that would fill the statement of physician form out for me, just for this one instance alone and nothing else. Can I just skip the Statement of Physician form? My main concern is that I will later need the separate Certificate of Health filled out, my medical record will show this from my childhood, the physician will put this on the Certificate of Health, and I will get flagged for lying by not stating this and getting a Statement of Physician during the application, thus saying goodbye to the JET program and any future hopes of it. Has anyone had a similar situation? The application states to list a mental health issue if you have ever had one, but would that really include such a long time ago as a child?
3 comments
They don’t check your medical records like that, so if you’re not currently being treated for it then I don’t see why you need to include it. Even if you did include it, an ADHD diagnosis won’t disqualify you anyways. Hell, I was accepted without diagnosis but during the year I waited because of covid I got diagnosed, added it to my jet record, and was still allowed to continue. You’ll be ok.
The medical records JET receives are literally the information you give them, signed by a doctor. They do not have the resources or means to request the complete medical history of every applicant, to play a game of “gotcha”.
Obviously it’s in everyone’s best interest to be upfront (this will help with your placement, especially since accessing medical services can be more challenging here), but in your case it is more of a grey area.
The main concerns are: will you be able to perform your job and be able to survive in Japan (the amount of help your receive varies greatly).
If it hasn’t been treated in nearly 20 years and was only ever medicated for two months, you’re likely fine.
Yooooooooo! We’re in the same boat! This thread gave me some confidence. I posted about the same issue.