Personal statement is more of describing my life experiences leading to premed

[AxiomaticTruth]

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[cookiemonsters]

Which way do you think most PS are? Narrative life story style, or highlight one-two events that show why you'd be a good doctor?

People do both. As long as your PS is entertaining to read, well-written, and vaguely answers 'why medicine?' I think you are fine. Also, the example you gave "the moment when the elderly patient with diabetes thanked me for *random medical act*" is in basically EVERY PS, maybe strive for a little more originality.

 

[AxiomaticTruth]

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[deleted508066]

Thanks for the reassurances. Also, I thought that the fact I wrote I literally gave her opiates, as a mere volunteer, was an obvious hyperbole (it never happened btw). I was deliberately making fun of the lack of originality of many of these "life changing experiences as a volunteer."

lol i was wondering about that... Either OP was joking or he is one bad-ass volunteer.

 

[Narmerguy]

I've noticed that a lot of example personal statements focus on one or two main experiences, usually volunteer/clinically related ones, and how those experiences influenced them in their quest to become a doctor. However, my personal statement is more of a "how did I get to this point" kind of essay, describing the various experiences I had throughout my life that nudged me towards a career in medicine, such as living in impoverished areas, working with immigrant minorities, scientific research, clinical volunteering, etc. I of course kept the actual activities/work experiences to a minimum since it's already in my work/activites section on the amcas, so I focused on the intangibles. Is this alright?

The main problem I can see with my personal statement is that it reads more like a narrative than say the "highlights" of my medical application. Also, I did not have space to expound upon the details of things like volunteering, instead saying more general stuff like "my experiences in the emergency department have assured me that medicine is right for me because blah blah blah," rather than saying something much more specific like "the moment when the elderly patient with diabetes thanked me for delivering 100cc of opiates to help her heroin addiction blah blah blah."

Which way do you think most PS are? Narrative life story style, or highlight one-two events that show why you'd be a good doctor?

That's hard to say, but I suppose the better question is: which way most successful PS are. Personally, I think the statement should fit in with your personality, your application and how you're trying to "sell" yourself. I don't think my PS would be that effective for people with different experiences and a different style. I actually don't think that's a very big deal.

I would echo the poster above--don't try to hit solid gold with this statement. Your job isn't to bring them to tears or convince them unequivocally that you will make an amazing doctor. Your job is to make them want to interview you, to make them believe that you can be personable and a pleasant person to be around, to show them that you've thought about this whole medicine thing and that you have some kind of understanding of what it means to be a doctor and why you want to be one.