Reading through sample personal statements, I feel like I don't have these exciting, interesting stories to share. I have volunteer experiences and shadowing and all of that and I have stories to tell, but I think they just sound cliche and unoriginal. Ex: comforting a patient in the hospital helped me realize the importance of forming a relationship with patients that are hurting...etc
Is this ok? Will a generic PS hurt my application or just not help it?
Let me tell you the secret of secrets, all the pre-meds are doing the same things as you. Some are just better at polishing it up and presenting it on a silver platter. The problem is that your take on the experience is dull, disinterested, superficial (as in not deeply thought out). At the very least, what you have written here gives that impression.
Instead of: "comforting a patient in the hospital helped me realize the importance of forming a relationship with patients that are hurting"
Try: "Holding Jane's hand and keeping her mind off of the metastases in her spine taught me that morphine is not the only source of pain relief. Listening to patients and lending them company can provide them with a sense of control over their illness and improve their experience of illness, even when drugs and procedures fail in that arena."
It's saying the same dang thing... erhh well maybe not. One of those might actually require you having been in a hospital or hospice center, knowing a little bit about medications, caring for a patient in a lot of pain, and understanding a bit about the nature of illness and how it is combination of physical disease as well as patient perception and psychology.
But it's hard realizing these things when your experiences are just run of the mill stories. I wouldn't expect all those dull volunteering and shadowing experiences to give you such an insights into medicine, one that might shape the way you approach your patients as a physician. Only something exciting can teach you that. I hear it can be found in Africa -- on the barren stretches of Lake Victoria, within the straw huts of emaciated villagers.
