Boring Path to Medicine - Personal Statement Framing Advice?

[wellbutrin]

So basically, I kind of stumbled upon medicine as a career field. I’ve always loved science, and of course, have always wanted whatever my career choice was to be centered around helping people. I liked chemistry and psychology, so my dad mentioned psychiatry to me and it seemed like a perfect career choice. Learned you had to go to medical school for that—cool. Once I got to college and hopped into all the pre-med classes, they fit. I took some more classes about public health and healthcare disparities specifically and the healthcare profession, and my love for medicine grew. My goal now is to be a primary care physician for the underserved, and for the past two years I’ve worked as a medical assistant in a clinic that does just that. Literally, that was my path to medicine—it fell in my lap and it just kind of grew from there in a normal way with classes and learning, no huge epiphanies or huge stories or anything. Is that okay to write about/anyone have any tips for how to possibly frame this/red flags that I should leave out? I’ve been working for a month, framing and reframing and I feel kind of stuck. A fresh unbiased perspective would be greatly appreciated!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[chaim123]

So basically, I kind of stumbled upon medicine as a career field. I’ve always loved science, and of course, have always wanted whatever my career choice was to be centered around helping people. I liked chemistry and psychology, so my dad mentioned psychiatry to me and it seemed like a perfect career choice. Learned you had to go to medical school for that—cool. Once I got to college and hopped into all the pre-med classes, they fit. I took some more classes about public health and healthcare disparities specifically and the healthcare profession, and my love for medicine grew. My goal now is to be a primary care physician for the underserved, and for the past two years I’ve worked as a medical assistant in a clinic that does just that. Literally, that was my path to medicine—it fell in my lap and it just kind of grew from there in a normal way with classes and learning, no huge epiphanies or huge stories or anything. Is that okay to write about/anyone have any tips for how to possibly frame this/red flags that I should leave out? I’ve been working for a month, framing and reframing and I feel kind of stuck. A fresh unbiased perspective would be greatly appreciated!

The personal statement has to answer the question "Why medicine". However, often we decide to use our experiences to show committees why we are well fit for medicine and what our passions are, as opposed to quite literally describing the path we took as you described above. Your personal statement should be much more of a story combined with a thesis paper - proving to committees why you are passionate and a good fit for medicine.

 

[deleted972488]

You don’t need to have a “huge story” or “epiphany.” In fact those things might just make you seem naive.

You just need to explain why you want to pursue this career path and have experiences to back it up. This part you have written in the OP is perfectly fine content for the personal statement. Just expand a little more about particular experiences and lessons learned from those experiences.

I took some more classes about public health and healthcare disparities specifically and the healthcare profession, and my love for medicine grew. My goal now is to be a primary care physician for the underserved, and for the past two years I’ve worked as a medical assistant in a clinic that does just that.

 

[LizzyM]

You've got good bones with that story. Now put some flesh on it with a few anecdotes about patients who have inspired you, scientific advances that have sparked your imagination, the desire you feel to decrease healthcare disparities, etc ... you get the idea.

 

[SmellUL8r]

The ideas are all there. You don't need to do this huge epiphany or career change story like some of the samples you can find online-- trust me I looked at those too when I was trying to figure out my approach. Make it true to you. And honestly you say that you want to do PC for the underserved and your experiences give evidence to support that so roll with that and give examples of what you've learned being an MA and how it has pushed you even more towards medicine. Your experiences will make your PS more genuine and the evidence you are able to provide through those experiences will back up the statements you make, just like another poster said above. It really is like a thesis.

Try and stay away from starting it with "Ever since I was young I wanted to be a doctor." Or "I didn't want to be a doctor/medicine wasn't on my radar until my dad told me about psych." You don't necessarily have to talk about how psych sparked your interest in your PS, you could leave that kind of idea to use in your experiences section of your app as well to add some depth to your story. I think it's more effective to focus on a hobby or something you really like to do an liken it to medicine and then dive into how they're similar and use your experiences as back up/evidence to those statements. It creates a metaphor and I think it can work. Other people might disagree because it can get cheesy fast but if you spend time working out the kinks it could be really interesting and keep your PS from being a resume dump where you just repeat what you say in your experiences section. Use the high character count of the PS to elaborate on things you don't have space for in your experiences section as well! It'll show how multifaceted you are.

Depth in your app and showing who you are through the narrative and "brand" you create for yourself draws adcoms in.

 

[fortheangels]

advice my PI (who is on an MD adcom) gave me was to either start with the evidence of why i wanted to be a doctor and then sum it up, or start with why and then give the evidence - these are most often what works the best. don't try to get too flowery or crazy with it -- yes, if that works, it can be incredible, but it more likely fails, and because that's subjective it's dangerous.

i was in the same boat where i felt like i had a much more measured journey towards this point, and so i spent a lot of time editing a draft that tried to do too much only to completely scrap it and write a brand new one following his guidance (that I ended up using) on the day my PI wanted to review it -- but it had taken all that introspection/reflection to be able to write that new one. you'll get it! keep reflecting!

 

[Rachapkis]

An error that many people make is thinking that they need to tell an dramatic, life-altering tale to make their essay work. That is not necessary, and, in fact, is a risky strategy. If not done well, a dramatic tale an seem contrived; even if done well, it can shift the reader's focus from why the applicant would be a good medical student/doctor to the story itself. In the essay, you want to convey that (i) you have a genuine interest in helping patients, (ii) you possess the traits and have the experiences necessary to succeed as a medical student/doctor; (iii) you are a good fit for the school you are applying to. If presented in the right way, your path to medicine could make for an excellent essay.

 

[deleted936470]

with the personal statement, you are trying to fit in, not stand out