Personal statement advice: is it okay to be critical of medical professionals?

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Honestly, that sounds like a terrible idea. What makes you think you can do a better job than those other physicians? Why do you think that they weren't providing adequate care? Do you even have enough knowledge of the field and those specific situations to make such a judgement call? I would scrap this and go the more traditional route.
 
Without divulging personal information, how do you feel that these physicians "missed the mark"? Was it mis-diagnosis, poor bedside manner, etc?
 
Most people who are certain that physicians are mismanaging their care or their loved ones' care are completely wrong.

Lay people in general have a terrible understanding of human disease and unrealistic expectations for medical care.
 
7.48Billion said:
In the seemingly unlikely chance that I end up prepared to apply this cycle I have begun considering personal statement topics. I recently met with a pre-med advisor and she mentioned the importance on focusing on the role of the physician in a positive light when describing motivations for becoming a physician. She suggested that instead of focusing on the patients, helping patients etc. we should focus on the impact of an individual physician on the patient. Ex: Patient sick, physician pools impressive clinical expertise to make a diagnosis, patient is better off, confirms desire to become a physician. She explicitly stated that it was NOT a good idea to be critical of medical professionals in our essays. I understand that this would probably be an ideal scenario, but personally, much of what i think makes my application somewhat unique is my experience with individuals who have not received adequate care from physicians. These experiences have opened my eyes to some of the places where I think medical professionals miss the mark and inspire me to address them specifically in my future medical practice. Of course, I will need to take care not to sound like I think I have it all figured out or that I am immune to the factors that may have caused these physicians to lose touch with these deficiencies, but my acute awareness of them make me hopeful that I will be able to keep them in mind long term. Do you think these are appropriate topics to discuss? Thank you.
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Damn near an auto reject at my school.
 
7.48Billion said:
It may be naive, but I will say that I think many physicians are concerned with "making the diagnosis" and kinda counting their job complete at that point. However, when you've got uneducated patients who are illiterate, uninformed, etc. the diagnosis is potentially the least of the barriers that must be addressed. Taking care to make sure these patients don't fall through the cracks, that they have the tools that they need to get healthy with their new diagnosis, etc. are the areas where i have seen physicians failing. The diagnosis doesn't cure the patient and if you aren't going the extra mile to make sure that the patient has the best opportunity to take advantage of that diagnosis, physicians aren't actually helping anything but their pride. This may take extra work but isn't necessary for every patient, and taking the time to identify patients who require this additional care is what will actually make a difference. If this sounds naive, so be it, but I think if your'e not working to make a difference then your'e completely replaceable and not getting as much out of the career as you otherwise could. I realize that I haven't been subjected to the abrasive forces forces (healthcare system, insurance, lack of time) which probably caused these physicians to go blind to these issues, but I think if you enter medicine already accepting that "doing your best with the healthcare system" is "good enough" then you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to do something that matters. The more I write, the more naive it sounds, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Insulting = obviously bad, naive = hopeful.
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Dont write your personal statement about it, but it's okay to want to have a passion about addressing where our healthcare system is failing patients.
 
7.48Billion said:
Personal statement advice: is it okay to be critical of medical professionals?
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NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!
NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!
NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!
NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!
NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!
NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! ​
 
7.48Billion said:
I have several examples in mind:
1) Patient waits weeks to get a primary care appointment - gets to appointment - doctor refuses to see the patient because they havent brought with them their own interpreter (physicians who accept medicaid are required to provide interpretation services) because it's too much work to figure out how to use a telephone interpreter.
2) Patient is terminally ill and waiting on an update from doctor and doctor forgets to call them back for weeks leaving them in agonizing uncertainty and without a loss of self worth. Patient finally gets ahold of the physician who says "oh! I'm sorry, i meant to call you..."
3) Patient has surgery with very specific care instructions post-op. No time taken to explain to this patient how to actually execute that care (Patient doesnt speak english, has no medical knowledge etc). Theyre given a prescription and all they have are the instructions on the bottle.
4) Physicians asking mentally ill patients to use family members as translators rather than provide their own, eliminating any possibility of having a completely transparent interaction with the patient.
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Although these are all fair points where our healthcare system fails at times and it can be incredibly frustrating to patients, family member, etc. However, I would say that pointing out examples of where physicians are inadequate in the personal statement is not a great move as a premed. I would try to think of a different topic for your personal statement. Save these examples to maintain your passion once in medical school and beyond as a practicing physician and try to fix these gaps in the system once you are in a better position to understand the circumstances from the physician point of view.
 
7.48Billion said:
It may be naive, but I will say that I think many physicians are concerned with "making the diagnosis" and kinda counting their job complete at that point. However, when you've got uneducated patients who are illiterate, uninformed, etc. the diagnosis is potentially the least of the barriers that must be addressed. Taking care to make sure these patients don't fall through the cracks, that they have the tools that they need to get healthy with their new diagnosis, etc. are the areas where i have seen physicians failing. The diagnosis doesn't cure the patient and if you aren't going the extra mile to make sure that the patient has the best opportunity to take advantage of that diagnosis, physicians aren't actually helping anything but their pride. This may take extra work but isn't necessary for every patient, and taking the time to identify patients who require this additional care is what will actually make a difference. If this sounds naive, so be it, but I think if your'e not working to make a difference then your'e completely replaceable and not getting as much out of the career as you otherwise could. I realize that I haven't been subjected to the abrasive forces forces (healthcare system, insurance, lack of time) which probably caused these physicians to go blind to these issues, but I think if you enter medicine already accepting that "doing your best with the healthcare system" is "good enough" then you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to do something that matters. The more I write, the more naive it sounds, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Insulting = obviously bad, naive = hopeful.
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I don't understand why you can't address this point without criticizing physicians for missing the mark. You're basically describing holistic care and every medical school acknowledges the importance of that. Talking about how the everyday doctor fails at this is probably not the best idea when the person reading your essay is likely a doctor too.
 
7.48Billion said:
I have several examples in mind:
1) Patient waits weeks to get a primary care appointment - gets to appointment - doctor refuses to see the patient because they havent brought with them their own interpreter (physicians who accept medicaid are required to provide interpretation services) because it's too much work to figure out how to use a telephone interpreter.
2) Patient is terminally ill and waiting on an update from doctor and doctor forgets to call them back for weeks leaving them in agonizing uncertainty and without a loss of self worth. Patient finally gets ahold of the physician who says "oh! I'm sorry, i meant to call you..."
3) Patient has surgery with very specific care instructions post-op. No time taken to explain to this patient how to actually execute that care (Patient doesnt speak english, has no medical knowledge etc). Theyre given a prescription and all they have are the instructions on the bottle.
4) Physicians asking mentally ill patients to use family members as translators rather than provide their own, eliminating any possibility of having a completely transparent interaction with the patient.
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I don't doubt that these things happen, however, I have never encountered the type of physicians you have described when I scribed and shadowed. All of them were more than decent human beings. I mean, the ortho I scribed for used to call me his "china man" but I ain't no snowflake and had plenty of laughs with him. He meant it in good faith.

Anyway, In my PS I talked about working with physicians who do the exact opposite of everything you just described here and how that influenced the type of physician I want to be - a physician who sees the person behind the patient and goes above and beyond their responsibilities to make patients feel comfortable.
 
7.48Billion said:
It may be naive, but I will say that I think many physicians are concerned with "making the diagnosis" and kinda counting their job complete at that point. However, when you've got uneducated patients who are illiterate, uninformed, etc. the diagnosis is potentially the least of the barriers that must be addressed. Taking care to make sure these patients don't fall through the cracks, that they have the tools that they need to get healthy with their new diagnosis, etc. are the areas where i have seen physicians failing. The diagnosis doesn't cure the patient and if you aren't going the extra mile to make sure that the patient has the best opportunity to take advantage of that diagnosis, physicians aren't actually helping anything but their pride. This may take extra work but isn't necessary for every patient, and taking the time to identify patients who require this additional care is what will actually make a difference. If this sounds naive, so be it, but I think if your'e not working to make a difference then your'e completely replaceable and not getting as much out of the career as you otherwise could. I realize that I haven't been subjected to the abrasive forces forces (healthcare system, insurance, lack of time) which probably caused these physicians to go blind to these issues, but I think if you enter medicine already accepting that "doing your best with the healthcare system" is "good enough" then you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to do something that matters. The more I write, the more naive it sounds, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Insulting = obviously bad, naive = hopeful.
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Keep negativity and criticism of healthcare workers out of these essays, however true or untrue they may be. It will not make you sound good.

There are ways to write about what you want to do, or who you want to be, or what inspires you, without contrasting your thoughts with these perceived shortcomings of others/the system.
 
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Kardio said:
Keep negativity and criticism of healthcare workers out of these essays, however true or untrue they may be. It will not make you sound good.

There are ways to write about what you want to do, or who you want to be, or what inspire someone you, without contrasting your thoughts against the perceived shortcomings of other/the system.
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Thats a good point. I think framing will be important here. "I want to be a physician who does this, this and that for patients" instead of "I want to be a physician who doesn't make the mistakes that I have seen other physicians make"
 
and 99 others said:
I don't understand why you can't address this point without criticizing physicians for missing the mark. You're basically describing holistic care and every medical school acknowledges the importance of that. Talking about how the everyday doctor fails at this is probably not the best idea when the person reading your essay is likely a doctor too.
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I think I misrepresented myself. My intention isn't necessarily to criticize individual physicians these shortcomings, instead, I am looking for ways to incorporate my experiences into my essay even if they were negative. If this seems risky, I will not include them, but I think those experiences are less common and valuable to me personally, whether or not they are valuable as a part of an application
 
longhaul3 said:
Most people who are certain that physicians are mismanaging their care or their loved ones' care are completely wrong.

Lay people in general have a terrible understanding of human disease and unrealistic expectations for medical care.
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I think you are correct in stating that many people have unrealistic expectations for medical care, but I'm not sure your tendency should be to so quickly assume that criticisms are unreasonable. I understand that at your time of posting I had not offered any of the examples I am referring to, but as a doctor I think it is probably more productive/beneficial to consider whether the complaint is legitimate before offering this defensive perspective.
 
7.48Billion said:
It may be naive, but I will say that I think many physicians are concerned with "making the diagnosis" and kinda counting their job complete at that point. However, when you've got uneducated patients who are illiterate, uninformed, etc. the diagnosis is potentially the least of the barriers that must be addressed. Taking care to make sure these patients don't fall through the cracks, that they have the tools that they need to get healthy with their new diagnosis, etc. are the areas where i have seen physicians failing. The diagnosis doesn't cure the patient and if you aren't going the extra mile to make sure that the patient has the best opportunity to take advantage of that diagnosis, physicians aren't actually helping anything but their pride. This may take extra work but isn't necessary for every patient, and taking the time to identify patients who require this additional care is what will actually make a difference. If this sounds naive, so be it, but I think if your'e not working to make a difference then your'e completely replaceable and not getting as much out of the career as you otherwise could. I realize that I haven't been subjected to the abrasive forces forces (healthcare system, insurance, lack of time) which probably caused these physicians to go blind to these issues, but I think if you enter medicine already accepting that "doing your best with the healthcare system" is "good enough" then you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to do something that matters. The more I write, the more naive it sounds, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Insulting = obviously bad, naive = hopeful.
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Don't assume your patients will be illiterate and uneducated.
 
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keolu hills said:
Don't assume your patients will be illiterate and uneducated. Time to get off the pedestal.
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A majority of them will not be - thats a good thing. But the differences are made with the patients who are hardest to treat
 
I think I was critical of some problems in healthcare and with physicians specifically, but I think people here have a point in that it's a tough way to start a "why I want to be a doctor" conversation. It didn't go so badly for me, but executed poorly, they're all probably right about it being a no-go. I had a lot of eyes on my PS, happy to send it over for some idea of what may be an "acceptable" amount of negativity.
 
7.48Billion said:
Thats a good point. I think framing will be important here. "I want to be a physician who does this, this and that for patients" instead of "I want to be a physician who doesn't make the mistakes that I have seen other physicians make"
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I think that you are getting warmer... more like, I want to eleviate suffering and I've seen patients suffer due to difficulties communicaing due to language barriers, limited access to services and so forth. Cognizant of how pateints suffer due to these difficulties you want to use your skills x, y and z to treat patients as they deserve to be treated.
 
Related question, would it be ok to criticize the healthcare system (like how different insurances are viewed differently by physicians and their practices, i.e. rejecting certain patients bc their insurances are not as good) in the personal statement? I realize that could be viewed as being critical of some physicians so maybe I should reword it
 
SleepingPillow said:
Related question, would it be ok to criticize the healthcare system (like how different insurances are viewed differently by physicians and their practices, i.e. rejecting certain patients bc their insurances are not as good) in the personal statement? I realize that could be viewed as being critical of some physicians so maybe I should reword it
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You have a little over 5000 characters in your personal statement to tell a story about why you want to be a doctor and why ADCOM's should believe that you're a good candidate to become one. You could write a full length graduate thesis on the structural issues present in our healthcare system and still leave a lot left unsaid, not to mention it wouldn't say anything about how becoming a doctor would put you in a position to actually do anything about those issues. I think that trying to broach that subject in any meaningful way as part of a ~5300 character essay that's supposed to be about you is borderline suicidal, but maybe that's just me
 
@Orangekiwi Hmm even if I am only touching on one aspect of the healthcare system? I definitely am not trying to break it down to pieces and examine multiple components. I picked one aspect that I had experience with growing up that grew my passion for becoming a doctor who would help people with poor access to quality insurance.
 
7.48Billion said:
I think you are correct in stating that many people have unrealistic expectations for medical care, but I'm not sure your tendency should be to so quickly assume that criticisms are unreasonable. I understand that at your time of posting I had not offered any of the examples I am referring to, but as a doctor I think it is probably more productive/beneficial to consider whether the complaint is legitimate before offering this defensive perspective.
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Criticism is not unreasonable. The problem when it comes from patients and their families is that it's misguided a huge majority of the time and is usually a manifestation of anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, etc. There is a huge asymmetry of information and education between a doctor and a patient or family; we study and train for a decade and then gain additional decades of experience, while they read what they see on Google and Facebook. Families and patients deserve to be listened to and treated with dignity; however, their criticism of medical decision-making is VERY seldom medically sound. Because of this information asymmetry, it's very unlikely that your criticisms of patient care (aside from glaring errors and poor interpersonal skills) would be well-founded. In the real world, most of the cases you brought up fall into the domain of social workers, nurses, clinic administrators, etc. It is not our job and not our immediate responsibility to micromanage the care of every patient.

I'm not talking about medical errors. They happen and will inevitably continue to happen, and there is no excusing or defending them. But if I sat down with an applicant to my medical school or my residency program's medical school, I would not be impressed with this train of thought. I think it's woefully naïve at best and may even suggest that the applicant isn't really sure what the role of a doctor is (which I understand based on reading these forums over the years is a main goal of the med school application). Keep it simple; don't bite the hand that feeds you.
 
SleepingPillow said:
@Orangekiwi Hmm even if I am only touching on one aspect of the healthcare system? I definitely am not trying to break it down to pieces and examine multiple components. I picked one aspect that I had experience with growing up that grew my passion for becoming a doctor who would help people with poor access to quality insurance.
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First of all, I wanna say that I think it's great that you're passionate about helping those without access to quality healthcare! That's an important task, and something I wish more people took seriously. My problem with using it in your personal statement is that I feel like it would take a lot of your personal statement to flesh out, and it opens the door to the question of why you want to be a doctor specifically- I would argue that going into public health work, or healthcare policy, or hospital/healthcare system administration, or nonprofit work with under-served populations would all be better ways for you to directly make an impact on that specific issue. I would avoid it in your personal statement not because I doubt that it's driven you to want to be a doctor, but because I think it would be hard to write in a way that wouldn't draw the focus away from you and your journey and onto an outside issue. I think that if you hold out on it for the personal statement it could actually maybe make an interesting diversity essay- talking about how seeing the issues involved in delivering healthcare to underserved populations and the role that our biases can play in providing that care has given you some unique insight that would be valuable for you to have and share with your classmates (if that's true and you can write it as such). Those are my thoughts, but hey in the end I'm just some dude on the internet
 
SleepingPillow said:
Related question, would it be ok to criticize the healthcare system (like how different insurances are viewed differently by physicians and their practices, i.e. rejecting certain patients bc their insurances are not as good) in the personal statement? I realize that could be viewed as being critical of some physicians so maybe I should reword it
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Are you saying that as a physician you will care for patients with crappy insurance because it is the right thing to do? Do you have any idea how the business of medicine works? Do you think that you'll get that choice as a provider? If you do take care of patients who have insurance that pays pennies on the dollar of what you bill, how will your practice remain afloat? When you lose money on every patient, you can't make it up in volume, as a wise physician once told me. Going on and on about how you want to help people who don't have good insurance will just expose you for the good-hearted but naive applicant that you are.
 
LizzyM said:
Are you saying that as a physician you will care for patients with crappy insurance because it is the right thing to do? Do you have any idea how the business of medicine works? Do you think that you'll get that choice as a provider? If you do take care of patients who have insurance that pays pennies on the dollar of what you bill, how will your practice remain afloat? When you lose money on every patient, you can't make it up in volume, as a wise physician once told me. Going on and on about how you want to help people who don't have good insurance will just expose you for the good-hearted but naive applicant that you are.
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One word. EMTALA.
 
Spin everything in a good light, you must.
 
SleepingPillow said:
Related question, would it be ok to criticize the healthcare system (like how different insurances are viewed differently by physicians and their practices, i.e. rejecting certain patients bc their insurances are not as good) in the personal statement? I realize that could be viewed as being critical of some physicians so maybe I should reword it
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The PS is to answer these questions:
Who am I?

Why Medicine?

It's NOT for an essay on the state of the current health care system.
 
Orangekiwi said:
You have a little over 5000 characters in your personal statement to tell a story about why you want to be a doctor and why ADCOM's should believe that you're a good candidate to become one. You could write a full length graduate thesis on the structural issues present in our healthcare system and still leave a lot left unsaid, not to mention it wouldn't say anything about how becoming a doctor would put you in a position to actually do anything about those issues. I think that trying to broach that subject in any meaningful way as part of a ~5300 character essay that's supposed to be about you is borderline suicidal, but maybe that's just me
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There aint nothing borderline about it. Remember, down not across
 
Goro said:
The PS is to answer these questions:
Who am I?

Why Medicine?

It's NOT for an essay on the state of the current health care system.
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I think closely related is a question many of us wet behind the ears pre meds have. Can we talk about the negative aspects of medicine at all? I would think adcoms would want students who know what they are getting into.. who have seen both the good and the bad and still decided medicine was a good fit for them. A warm fuzzy Air Bud personal statement just makes it seem like a pre med has no clue what they’re in for. Thoughts?


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Cmoney$$ said:
I think closely related is a question many of us wet behind the ears pre meds have. Can we talk about the negative aspects of medicine at all? I would think adcoms would want students who know what they are getting into.. who have seen both the good and the bad and still decided medicine was a good fit for them. A warm fuzzy Air Bud personal statement just makes it seem like a pre med has no clue what they’re in for. Thoughts?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN
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This often comes across as, "people currently doing the job are doing it wrong, doing it badly. I would be better, I would do it the way it should be done." I bet some of you think that you could do a better job than the current manager or head coach of your favorite major league team. It is easy to Monday-morning quarterback but when you see it from the other side, you realize that there are pressures and constraints on what you can do and you aren't going to be the savior of the sick and suffering unlike the poor bast*rds that are doing the job now.
 
LizzyM said:
This often comes across as, "people currently doing the job are doing it wrong, doing it badly. I would be better, I would do it the way it should be done." I bet some of you think that you could do a better job than the current manager or head coach of your favorite major league team. It is easy to Monday-morning quarterback but when you see it from the other side, you realize that there are pressures and constraints on what you can do and you aren't going to be the savior of the sick and suffering unlike the poor bast*rds that are doing the job now.
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I guess I mean more of phrasing it as ‘I’ve seen a lot of things through clinical experiences that make being a doctor really hard, and things that make it good, and knowing how hard it’s gonna be I still wanna do it?’ More so focused on the challenges doctors face than critiquing healthcare personnel


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I have seen 14 yr old pregnant girls in labor as a fellow and was the first doctor they had seen during their pregnancy. Is this my fault as a physician? Does anyone in America not realize smoking and fast food are bad for you? Or having a BMI of 55 is not healthy? Is this my fault? These are choices patients make. Trying to get them to change their habits is hard. KFC and McDonalds are not healthy meals. You need to understand why patients overeat or smoke. Anxiety, abuse as a child, or just because fatty meals taste good may be the cause of their bad habits. It's not a matter of education, but more of understanding why the patient has an unhealthy relationship with food or whatever. And save the comments about food costs or food deserts. As I'm fond of saying, If brussel sprouts were a penny apiece, would we have an outbreak of slimness across the country?
Pick another theme for your personal statement OP.
 
Cmoney$$ said:
I think closely related is a question many of us wet behind the ears pre meds have. Can we talk about the negative aspects of medicine at all? I would think adcoms would want students who know what they are getting into.. who have seen both the good and the bad and still decided medicine was a good fit for them. A warm fuzzy Air Bud personal statement just makes it seem like a pre med has no clue what they’re in for. Thoughts?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN
Click to expand...
Save that for interviews. As my learned colleague pointed out, the risk is that you provoke a thought of "WTF does this kid know???"
 
May not be completely appropriate comparison, but every time a patient trash talks the last set of doctors they had, it is a red flag. I’ll expect them to be trashing me to their next doctor.

The vast majority of the time, the patient is the problem.
 
n=1 but I’ve spent the past 7 years working with low income immigrant communities as an ESL teacher. In my essay I talked about how as a volunteer I would hear doctors and nurses complain about patients who didn’t speak English and challenges my students encountered when accessing medical care. While it was a small part of my essay it was applicable to the overall theme of expanding access to medical care and growing up in a low income community without doctors. The scenario I described ended up being a MMI scenario at the only program I applied to and was accepted to.

With that being said, I grappled with it with my advisor for a long time. I would follow the recommendations of gonnif and goro.
 
Criticism tends to come across as arrogant and uninformed. Unless you can demonstrate you have an understanding of what all parties in a conflict are going through, which you can't in a personal statement, you will seem like you can't empathize with people you initially assume to be in the wrong.

For example, it's easy for medical students to criticize how a lecture is given. But we don't know the material, we've never lectured for 100+ students, and we don't yet know what is truly relevant. The complaints come from an unwillingness to examine both sides of the situation, out of understandable frustration and exhaustion usually.

If you criticize medical professionals or the healthcare system, you will inevitably appear to be someone who can't imagine what it's like to be an incredibly busy doctor doing the best they can with what they have despite their shortcomings and weaknesses.

Let your role models show you who you want to be, not the people who have let you down or hurt you.

Adn don't fogert to proofraed.
 
There are two separate issues here -- (1) whether your critical appraisals actually have merit (quite possibly, yes) and (2) whether the PS is deemed an appropriate venue to treat them.

Regarding point (1), most of us know the system has some notable shortcomings, including:
  • care rationing
  • cost, quality, and access shortcomings, which could be secondary to:
    • language barriers
    • consolidation and vertical integration that reduces competition
    • poor cost transparency
    • reimbursement deficiencies (procedures vs. talking)
  • lack of standardization
  • reliance on intuition over evidence-based recommendations, though this is in decline
  • inertia/resistance to change
  • and so on.
Regarding point (2), I imagine that how amenable ADCOM's would be to a treatment of the former would depend, in part, on your background. Perhaps you have some experience in healthcare management, have conducted research on how to increase care coordination and continuity, and are passionate about drawing on that knowledge as a future doctor to positively influence care delivery--to help both patients and doctors realize their fullest potential?

Nevertheless, there's no denying that it is a gamble, depending on how open-minded one or more members of a given ADCOM are. It is a balancing act that could pay off, depending on your background and how your PS leverages it to advance your arguments.

Proviso: I'm just another premed who got in this cycle.
 
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