Help me decide on diversity topic!

[janinu_zozo]

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PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE!

I was wondering what you wise folk think would best be suited for a response to a diversity secondary prompt. For context, all of these experiences have been mentioned in my activities section, so these would just be expansions/reflections. I apologize for the excess text, but I feel like a lot of people don't really know what consultants do (I sure didn't), so I wanted to provide some context.

1. AI healthcare consulting: I have been working as a consultant (at a ‘Big 4’ consulting firm) serving the NIH. I work as a project manager in developing AI tools for research and clinical use (think automated histopathology scoring, extracting data from clinical notes, summarizing a patient’s medical record from thousands of pages, etc.). It’s been a fast-paced, professional environment where I have to work with people of all sorts of backgrounds (developers with no science background, principal investigators, business-oriented firm leadership, experts on digital information systems and data security, etc.). As a project manager, my workflow consists of conversing with clinicians and researchers to learn about what impedes their work, brainstorming potential tools that could alleviate those challenges, designing those tools with input from experts of various domains, identifying the best people to put together to build the tool, developing a timeline and approach proposal for senior NIH leadership, and then leading the team through the development of the project. Over the course of a project, I have to translate the client’s clinical/research needs into technical requirements for developers and make sure they stay aligned to timeline, deal with any roadblocks by identifying the right people to help or investigating the source of the issue, periodically present our progress on the tool to the researchers and implement their feedback, etc.

• I have spent a lot of time at the intersection of medicine, research, and artificial intelligence.
• I am good at working on interdisciplinary teams and can bridge communication gaps between people with very different backgrounds (ex: clinicians vs. tech developers) or beliefs
• I have experience approaching challenges in medicine/research and designing technological solutions
• I have an understanding of how technological innovation can expand access, reduce healthcare disparities, and enhance health outcomes.

2. Could also be advocacy/adversity: I am LGBT, served as the president of my university’s LGBT student group and organized a number of large events. I am also an artist, and participated in some advocacy through art for the LGBT community within my own very conservative/traditional ethnic group and spent years receiving death threats for it, but also received a lot of messages of gratitude and triggered a larger conversation within our country (which ended up on national TV!).

• Some reflection about being a minority within a minority? Challenging perspectives? Promoting inclusive culture?
• Being misunderstood and rejected by my own community made me feel a lot of things, but more than anything it’s made me pretty non-judgmental and open-minded towards pretty much anything.

3. Could also be advocacy (maybe?): I have done a lot of political work for my ethnic community. This includes volunteering for a grassroots political campaign in my home country for a few months (handing out fliers, talking with rural communities across the country to learn more about what they felt they need, working with international organizations on accusations of election fraud). I also co-founded an organization to increase involvement of diaspora youth in the country’s first mail-in elections (educational workshops, debates with youth candidates, speaker event with the election commissioner). I then co-founded a nonpartisan think tank to promote research and community service by diaspora youth in our home country. Nothing healthcare related really though.

• I don't think a whole lot of premeds have political involvement?
• Increasing involvement of underrepresented groups (rural, youth) in democratic processes
• Connecting with people of very different backgrounds than my own (yes, within my own ethnicity, but I’m talking about isolated communities that currently live the same life that their ancestors did 300+ years ago with very little access to the outside world and a unique set of challenges)

 

[Mr.Smile12]

What's the prompt?

 

[janinu_zozo]

I know there should not be much overlap between my primary app and my secondary app... but there's really nothing that I left out of that primary app. I could talk about quirky hobbies or something, but that's not really diversity.

 

[janinu_zozo]

What's the prompt?

No specific prompt, just working off what is described here: Write Your Secondary Essays First | Student Doctor Network | SDN

How will your unique background and perspective contribute to the diversity of our learning community?

How do your meaningful personal or professional activities affirm your own identity and the diversity of your peers and colleagues you are with?

 

[LelouchLamperouge]

Your perspective as an LGBTQ+ member can contribute to the diversity of a medical school's student body, as well as the patients that that school's mission aims to serve, is undoubtedly valuable. As far as the other two points, I feel like it would be a stretch to talk about them in a way that shows diversity. That's just my opinion though.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

No specific prompt, just working off what is described here: Write Your Secondary Essays First | Student Doctor Network | SDN

How will your unique background and perspective contribute to the diversity of our learning community?

How do your meaningful personal or professional activities affirm your own identity and the diversity of your peers and colleagues you are with?

Since we are still talking philosophy, here are suggestions:

What makes you a cool person to be around?

What makes you or your journey an inspiration to others?

1) Be prepared to talk about your previous career in very brief format (no more than 4 sentences) for admissions interviews. What did you do, what did you like about your job, why are you changing course to medicine?

To that end, you can approach "diversity of thought" in the way you problem-solved in consulting. I presume you were always thrown into various teams, had to meet insane deadline timelines, and get used to become an expert in a new topic very quickly.

2) Agreeing with LelouchLamperouge, but also affirming that intersectionality is a good start as long as you address the prompts. You will be pleasantly surprised how many medical students were previously or currently self-identify as changemakers. Becoming a Student Doctor has some examples to give you vocabulary and confidence.

 

[janinu_zozo]

Thank you both for your feedback.