Writing Your Personal Statement

Whether you’re applying to medical school for the first time or you’re a seasoned applicant, you should give a good amount of time and energy to creating your personal statement. This can be seen as the medical school “elevator pitch”. You are granted 5,300 characters to make the very best first impression possible. While you might not necessarily get accepted into medical school for having the perfect essay, having a poorly put together personal statement is a sure-fire way to get denied acceptance.

As a rule of thumb, when writing your personal statement your goal should be to answer two very specific questions. Firstly, you want to explicitly answer why you want to be a physician. And secondly, you will want to address why you will be a great physician.

Many times, individuals, myself included, will get caught up in wanting to put together a sob-story as to why you want to get into medical school. After all, in writing a persuasive essay, we want to have an emotional element. We want to convey passion and purpose. Contrary to popular belief, however, you don’t have to throw a pity party to do this.

Ultimately, what the admissions committee wants is to have tangible evidence that you have what it takes to be a great physician. So how do you go about doing this? Here are some hints I would apply to writing your personal statement:

1. Have a catchy hook, that garners the attention of the reader. But don’t go overboard, this isn’t a Harry Potter book.
2. Show rather than tell. It’s one thing to talk about being a great leader. It’s another thing to provide a specific example of leadership, and moreover, how that will translate to you being a great physician.
3. Always tie back all your points to your thesis. In other words tie everything back to the two questions you are looking to answer. This is, after all, the entire purpose of writing your essay. This is a good way to keep yourself focused. If you find yourself rambling about things that you can’t tie back to your thesis, then you probably shouldn’t include it.
4. Short and sweet does the trick. When drafting my essay I was caught up in trying to shove as much detail as possible into my essay. It’s impossible, stop trying. You’re better off making succinct, matter-of-fact-statements that you can substantiate.
5. This is your story, make yourself the active character in your anecdotes. This can be tough if, say, most of your anecdotes come from shadowing a physician. How do you make yourself the active role in a passive capacity? Get creative. I’m not saying lie; I’m saying don’t talk about how the physician was an excellent communicator. Instead, say that you were able to pick up and learn stellar communication skills from your experience.
6. Last, but certainly not least, get your essay reviewed. I’m currently working for a great reviewing company and I use the aforementioned guide to edit student’s papers. If you’re interested, head on over to MotivateMd.com. Use the discount code Juan10 to get 10% off the total price!

Below is the personal statement that got me into medical school. It’s worth mentioning that this final version went through countless drafts. And even now, I feel like it’s not as perfect as I wanted it to be. You may never feel 100% about it. Just put your heart and soul into it and get good, sound guidance from an advisor. Enjoy.

My Personal Statement – Final Draft

“Why do you want to be a doctor?” is a loaded question. As such, it warrants a loaded answer. An answer that I can best address as the sum of three separate questions: Where have you been? Where are you now? And where are you going? After all, it is difficult to look into your future, without first looking at your past.

            I was born in Valencia, Venezuela; my father was a colonel in the National Guard. When I was three when he was killed in an attempted car theft. Shortly after, my family and I moved to the United States. My mom, a single mother of four, left for a strange place, not being able to speak English, with no professional skill, and somehow made ends meet. I spent the majority of my life without health insurance as a result of this, and was blissfully unaware of the stress this caused her in my youth.  I now consequently understand the importance of providing access to medical care, in underserved communities, from my own family’s experiences.  My parents are why I want to be a doctor, they have given me an invaluable asset: gratitude. I am the son of an accomplished man, who didn’t have the opportunity to see his children grow up, and of the most loving and selfless woman I have ever met. I have an incessant motivation to better the lives of people like them. While some may dread the process of compiling a competitive medical school application, I am infinitely grateful to even have this opportunity. Where and what I come from has conjured the engine that drives me to want to be a physician.

While at FIU, I chose to pursue Biomedical Engineering because I believed it was a major that would allow me flexibility in terms of potential career options. During my undergraduate career, I worked 20-30 hours a week and was extremely engaged on campus.  Unfortunately, this left me with a very limited amount of time to explore prospective careers. However, after completing my senior design project with Stryker, I realized that a career that involved such limited interpersonal interaction seemed dull.  At about this time I also had my first adult interactions with a healthcare environment.  Observing the team’s interactions, and the physicians leading role in treatment and diagnosis, intrigued me and made me cognizant of an alternative profession. After graduation, I worked two jobs as my family required extra financial support.  Most notably as a full-time medical assistant to a surgeon, thus allowing me to garner hands on medical experience. I was quickly mesmerized by physicians’ ability to form lasting relationships with patients, while profoundly impacting their health.  I woke up every morning excited to see what new cases would present each day. The only experience more captivating, has been my tenure as a graduate student at The Morsani College of Medicine.  While maintaining a 4.0 GPA, I worked part-time to afford an annual medical mission trip. I had many long days and nights. I had to sacrifice, a lot.  Nonetheless, my coursework during this time further instigated my interest in the mechanisms that underlie illness and disease, providing me with all the motivation to persevere. Which is a point I’d like to highlight. I’ve been through it; academically, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I intend to provide evidence that I can endure, even thrive under the hardships that medical school requires. I am currently the most apt I’ve ever been for the long road ahead, and I’m confident in my ability to excel moving forward.

A few months ago, as part of a mission trip to Panama, I met Dr. Powell, a Primary Care Physician at the Mananitas Health Center. I got to shadow and translate for him as he met with patients. One of the most memorable patient encounters was with a woman with a rare blood disease. Dr. Powell gave a lengthy explanation of the mechanism of the disease and its manifestation, he called it “Anemia de celulas falciformas.” Although, I am fluent in both English and Spanish, I did not have a direct translation for the diagnosis. However, given the description of the disease, which I explained to my classmates, we deduced that it must be sickle cell anemia. With a fraction of the resources that would be expected in any establishment in the United States, Dr. Powell was still able to accurately diagnose and improve the health outcomes of his patients. This experience further confirmed my desire to want to pursue medicine and taught me the value of a medical education. Even in resource scarce environments, patients can receive quality care thanks to extensive education and training.

I want to be a doctor because of what I have learned as a first generation American, and because I want to positively impact my communities’ health. I hope to one day establish a clinic focused on preventative medicine, where patients can access a variety of specialties and deal with medical issues before the onset of symptoms that would traditionally drive them to a healthcare facility. In this way, as a physician, I aim to improve my community’s overall health. I hope that this essay serves as a worthy indicator of what has driven me towards this goal.