Hey guys, I had a bit of a break and thought i'd just throw in my 2 cents here, hope it's helpful. Whenever I see these prompts I like to think put myself in the shoes of the admissions admin and think "why do they want this prompt." Remember that one of the biggest things for them is finding students who won't drop out in essence. It takes a tremendous amount of money to train a medical student and the school has a lot invested in you when you start, and a lot invested in you finishing and helping promote their name even later in the long run. Thus, attrition is one of the key factors they want to avoid. Variables like past performance, your actual exposure to the field, dedication, etc can be evaluated (imperfectly of course) by a variety of factors on the application but I think the essays offer an option to look at some unique and perhaps more abstract principles that are important.
So with that in mind I think to myself, why is the admission committee interested in me sharing how I deal with uncertainty, or what i've gleaned from seeing others deal with it etc? Personally, I think this is an interesting prompt because it addresses something that becomes, IMO, unique in the professional school setting and that is a huge increase in uncertainty, that for some can really be quite jarring. So, seeing what you've learned about uncertainty and how you've dealt with it through various experiences offers the potential to gain insight into how you might deal with the inevitable uncertainty that you'll face in a career in medicine. Just a couple examples, the material we are learning has a certain level of uncertainty to it, there will be things you learn that we just don't know the why or the mechanism to yet, or recommendations that are changing, it sounds like a small point but it can be unsettling I think coming from the curriculum of university sciences sometimes. You'll face uncertainty on your future specialty, where you will live, what the market will be like, how reimbursement will change, how the field will change etc. You'll face uncertainty with grades that are sometimes subjective and out of your control in 3rd year, and as you go into the clinics you will pretty much live in a state of constant uncertainty haha. When people ask what 3rd year is like I think the best response i've heard is: "imagine you are starting a new job, every couple weeks at least, for a year." There will be uncertainty on what the expectations are for you, they are not always well defined as we often get used to with classroom learning, etc. Basically, you'll encounter lots and lots of uncertainty of one form or another, I guarantee it! So dealing with it becomes important.
As a fun personal example: In clinic the other day we were consulting on a complicated patient and the best form of therapy was really unclear. It was a major grey area in the literature and there were some pretty serious risk vs benefit considerations at play. In my literature search I came across a couple of recent studies suggesting that the risks might be lower in our patient than previously thought, and that extrapolating some other evidence the benefits could probably outweigh the risks. After discussing with the team they felt that this was probably true and sure enough in our presentation to the patient we discussed moving forward with therapy. Now in our rounding discussions i'll admit that part of me was thinking "awesome, i found something and contributed something interesting" (p.s. really not trying make it sound like what I did was particularly awesome or anything, it all came from discussion with the whole team, and much of it came from the attending experience, it was just a small part of the bigger discussion). Now, the key came when the attending was presenting to the patient, when I heard the sentence come out citing the study I discussed all of a sudden my perspective changed, being their with the pts family, and the pt, their being there in the hospital in such a vulnerable state, and suddenly realizing that that piece played a role in their life, and suddenly I felt my heart rate elevate and the adeline start to rush! I thought to myself, holy smokes did I review the evidence well enough?? Did I make sure and really glean the right conclusions from those papers?? I took comfort in knowing that the team was being led by experts and if they felt this was the way to proceed we were safe in doing so but wow, that all of a sudden made the uncertainty in treatment and uncertainty in the literature REAL. It wasn't just a fun puzzle to solve anymore, or fun literature to read anymore, and when lives are on the line that uncertainty becomes palpable. For me, it was both instructive and stressful, it moved me to be more careful in reading, more complete, and continue sharpening my data analysis skills as well as greater appreciating the importance of having a healthcare team. In the end though it makes the experience more fun I think. It makes my research more meaningful, being able to contribute answers, even small ones to help relieve the uncertainty that we as clinicians deal with everyday.
Anyway, it sounds more dramatic in writing then it really was, but thought maybe an example could be instructive. There is also huge uncertainty from the side of the patient, just imagine how they feel when a specialist tells them they are uncertain of what is going on with them, or uncertain of how to proceed with treatment... that's pretty unsettling and yet the honesty of the physician in admitting the uncertainty I think when done well can be meaningful to the patient and help develop the patient-physician relationship.
As always it seems sorry about the novel, hopefully something in here was semi-instructive or of help! Good luck everyone!
