Framing Personal Statement - Possible 'Controversial' Topic

[ethereal_fae]

Hello all! I am planning on applying next cycle, and am starting to think about how I want to frame my personal statement. My desire to become a doctor strongly stems from my experiences in healthcare growing up as a low SES immigrant from South America. I'll try to make this condensed - my mom had a multitude of health issues growing up (cancer; organ failure; multiple chronic conditions; etc.) and so I spent quite a lot of time in the hospital with her. Our experiences were not always positive. We come from a rural area of a South American country and my parents are not highly educated (mother is high school drop out, father went to trade school) and learning how to navigate the American healthcare system was a challenge, especially with not knowing much English at first. We didn't always have health insurance, or good health insurance, and so getting my mom the help she needed was at times difficult. In addition, with my parents' education level it was often hard to understand exactly what was going on with my mother's health, or to comprehend what the doctors were saying. Finally, my mother often felt that the doctors didn't take what she said seriously when explaining her concerns, and she would sometimes have to voice the same complaint multiple times before they listened. We lived in an area of America where there wasn't a large Latino population, and we never once saw a Latino doctor. To this day, I still accompany my mother to her appointments to be an advocate for her, and to help her understand (translating and simplifying) what the doctors are telling her.

This experience, and there's a lot more to it, is my main motivator for pursuing medicine. This is reflected in my app, as I have extensive experience volunteering with healthcare centers that provide medical care to low SES populations, particularly Spanish-speaking, and other organizations that promote health in Latino communities. However, what is the best way to frame this? There is a lot of health disparities in Latino communities, and I want to become a doctor that works in that community. But I don't want my personal statement to come across as negative towards doctors or the healthcare system. I don't necessarily blame any of the individual doctors that worked with my mom who she felt wouldn't listen to her - I am sure that they were good doctors. I think a lot got lost due to cultural and language differences. This is a larger problem that extends far beyond individual doctors. So, how is the best way to approach this topic to explain where my passion comes from without making it seem like I'm "dissing" the American healthcare system or have a negative viewpoint on doctors. Any advice would be greatly appreciated - thank you!

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[LizzyM]

We know that the dearth of Latinx physicians is detrimental to the health broadly defined of immigrants from Spanish speaking countries and there is an active push to attract talented people like yourself to medicine.

Fact: there are many health disparities in the Latino community.
Fact: you are a low SES immigrant from a Spanish speaking country.
Fact: you observed the difficulties your mother had understanding her doctors and did not always feel that they understood her (note this is framed as how she felt -- not casting blame of the doctors but describing how your mother felt as an immigrant woman seeking care).
Fact: you want to be a physician precisely to serve the Latino community and to make it possible for more immigrants to receive care from a physician who shares their language and culture.

None of this disses doctors, at least not as I see it.

 

[ethereal_fae]

We know that the dearth of Latinx physicians is detrimental to the health broadly defined of immigrants from Spanish speaking countries and there is an active push to attract talented people like yourself to medicine.

Fact: there are many health disparities in the Latino community.
Fact: you are a low SES immigrant from a Spanish speaking country.
Fact: you observed the difficulties your mother had understanding her doctors and did not always feel that they understood her (note this is framed as how she felt -- not casting blame of the doctors but describing how your mother felt as an immigrant woman seeking care).
Fact: you want to be a physician precisely to serve the Latino community and to make it possible for more immigrants to receive care from a physician who shares their language and culture.

None of this disses doctors, at least not as I see it.

Thank you very much for your response! I will definitely take care to frame my mother's experiences as being her perspective, without casting blame.

 

[Deltasidearm]

Adding onto above, it may be helpful to focus on a positive experience juxtaposed with the negative background (only if one even exists). In my opinion, a single good experience within the background you divulged that showed you what medicine could be and inspired you to medicine is a stronger story than simply talking about all of the bad experiences with medicine and how that makes you want to do better. That narrative more easily lets you talk about your bad experiences of medicine and its impact on you while still letting you focus on what's good about/the potential of medicine that ultimately makes you want to be a physician.

My PS story was similar to yours in that there were strong negative interactions within medicine that motivated me to be better than what was received. That was the advice I got from a resident friend when I applied and it turned into a much better PS than what I had initially wrote. Just remember that this is a story and in this story heroes are welcome but villains, in general, need to be toned down and blame diffused so that the overall theme isn't negative.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Looks good, just try to find a common thread/thesis to link everything together