Personal statement question - reapplicant

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moorsinstitute

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I am a reapplicant trying to update/rewrite parts of my personal statement. In the last cycle (my first one), for a small part of my personal statement I talked about how living in a rural and medically disadvantaged area affected my medical care since I have a physical disability. I mentioned that I struggled to form a trusting relationship with the doctors there but I never talked about anything negative they have specifically said or done. I did talk about how different the treatments and devices I was given there were from what I had when I lived in a place with better medical care.
Now that I am reapplying, I am worried if that sounded like I was bashing the medical community and possibly offending the readers.
I am in the the process of rewriting my personal statement and am wondering if I should mention that life was harder when I lived in that medically disadvantaged area? This ties in a lot with why I want to become a doctor since I personally experienced the importance of a strong doctor-patient relationship.
Also, if I change my personal statement to not include any of the above mentioned details, will the admission committee still look at my application poorly since they can see my old application?

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Do not talk about negative experiences in your personal statement please. Focus on the positives and talk about how important it is for you to become a doc and practice in a rural setting. Schools who are rural friendly will love this.

Since you are reapplying, if you said something like, "I didn't like my doctor in the rural community." Do not change it to, "I liked my doctor in the rural community." Instead, I would just remove all the negative statements and talk about different, but better stories.

I had a friend who told me he changed nothing but his personal statement when reapplying one cycle and says he helped net him an acceptance.
 
Could easily alter the wording, instead of having a potential negative regarding your own poor medical care in a rural community say more along the lines of:

“Because my small rural community had limited access to medical care, I personally understand the impact this has on a patient and their families. I feel called to serve in such a community, providing care crucial to my future patient’s well being.”

This insinuates but does not blatantly state you had poor doctors and care. It’s OK (imho) to state negatives in your statement, but you have to do so EXTREMELY carefully - and they’re best avoided if possible.
 
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