Advice

[randompremed457]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi,

Thank you!

 

[hydroflaskhomie]

Ooh interesting! I would structure it as: my sister had a dope physician who stood by her side as her illness remained inexplainable throughout multiple specialist referrals and many years. After many trials, including exploring alternative and nontraditional medicinal routes, my sister was finally able to recover fully and now lives her life with no pain. Seeing the hard work and open mind that our family physician applied to her case inspired me to be a physician who also works tirelessly for my patients.

AKA steer away from the fact that alt medicine was the final cure and moreso mention it but focus on how the family physician's open mind helped her eliminate her pain.

Make sure the majority of your personal statement is about YOU, not just about observing others receiving/practicing medicine. This can be a great component as the "seed" of your interest in medicine but limit how much space you give to it. Happy to share more thoughts via DM.

 

[randompremed457]

Ooh interesting! I would structure it as: my sister had a dope physician who stood by her side as her illness remained inexplainable throughout multiple specialist referrals and many years. After many trials, including exploring alternative and nontraditional medicinal routes, my sister was finally able to recover fully and now lives her life with no pain. Seeing the hard work and open mind that our family physician applied to her case inspired me to be a physician who also works tirelessly for my patients.

AKA steer away from the fact that alt medicine was the final cure and moreso mention it but focus on how the family physician's open mind helped her eliminate her pain.

Make sure the majority of your personal statement is about YOU, not just about observing others receiving/practicing medicine. This can be a great component as the "seed" of your interest in medicine but limit how much space you give to it. Happy to share more thoughts via DM.

Thank you so much for the input, this really helps! I truly appreciate it!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

You will get a lot of advice so here's my suggestion. Make sure you don't make it about your sister... You have to be in the PS.

 

[LizzyM]

Do you want to help strangers who are in pain? Why? Why did you respond with that answer? And why did you respond to the next question the way you did? Keep going until you get to the nub of why YOU want to be a doctor. If seeing your sister in pain made you want to help strangers (not your sister) who are in pain, then she belongs in your PS. If the answer to the question why do you want to help strangers in pain does not come back to anything about your sister, then she doesn't need to be in your PS.

 

[jhmmd]

Hi,

I’m currently in the process of writing my personal statement. A large part of my reason to go into medicine was that my sister had intense chronic pain that for a long period of time, she was diagnosed differently by multiple doctors and treatments were never effective. Our family physician didn’t give up on her case and eventually referred us to an alternative medicine practitioner (who practiced something similar to OMT) who was able to eliminate her pain. We never really understood the cause of the pain and were told that it was a spinal misalignment.

I wanted to talk about the experience of watching her as a long term patient and how it changed her personality. But I’m not sure if I can use this story because I’ve heard there’s a stigma against alternative medicine.

Could anyone provide some insight into this for me?

Thank you!

If YOU have a good reason for why MEDICINE, then by all means go for this.
But you will need to explain why naturopathic medicine is not your cup of tea.

 

[LindaAccepted]

I echo the "Keep your PS focused on you and your reasons for going into medicine" advice. I'd also add that it's one thing to discuss this experience as an influence upon you or a launchpad for your exploring medicine as a career, but I would not make it the sole example in your PS of your motivation and exploration of medicine.