Just dealing with their situations makes them likely to be very successful, possibly more so than the students around them. Such an outlook could help you. Late this April, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission set guidelines to help employers establish reasonable accommodations for workers with mental illness. Until very recently, scientists with mental illnesses were seldom discussed. Kay Redfield Jamison of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine changed that with her pioneering work on the challenges and obstacles facing scientists with depression or bipolar disorder.
Treatment includes drug therapy that causes a constant manual tremor.
She can no longer hold pipettes or do benchwork requiring fine motor control. Her career as a bench worker is effectively over. With less than two years to go before completing her PhD, Esnayra had to create a new project, one that drew on her science background but did not involve bench research. She designed a thesis on the genetics of violence and the policy implications thereof. I'm applying my genetics training to the analysis of current research on human aggression.