Personal statement theme advice?

[that_sad_fish]

Hi all, I'm currently working on my PS, and am having trouble creating a coherent theme from a couple things that I feel I want to focus on.

Assuming the cliche of "wanting to be a doctor since I was young", I was diagnosed with epilepsy as I started high school. This eventually led to a lot of other setbacks, such as limitations in transportation (no public transportation where I live) and the work I could do. This also affected my mental health in a significantly over the years. I have a few seizures every year (not that many?), to this day, so these limitations continue. I spent about a year virtual scribing, and when I could drive for a short period, I went and got certified as an MA. While I was job hunting and preparing for the MCAT, I had a seizure while driving and totaled my car. This same time, I was planning to do a DIY post-bacc at my state university (signed up for classes and everything), but had to withdraw last-minute since the school is an hour away smack-dab in middle of downtown.

During this time I had also begun volunteering weekly at a free clinic in a largely underserved and diverse/immigrant city also about an hour away. Since it's once a week, I've been able to work something out with my parents and am able to go. Working here has been an immensely valuable clinical experience. I absolutely love going there, and it is always the highlight of my week, despite those days frequently being understaffed and hectic. I was planning to do some MA work there, but I ended up having a seizure there as well and became limited in my clinical duties.

One of the main reasons I love volunteering at this clinic so much is the patients. As it's so diverse, it's heartwarming to see the community coming together, with a lot of cross-cultural communication within such an important setting. The patients are underserved due to financial constraints and linguistic/cultural barriers. Through our care we're able to connect these patients with the care they deserve, while also teaching us all more about culturally sensitive care. It's a wholesome environment all in all. I always feel welcome and create long-term relationships with patients. The experience has and continues to help me with my mental health. Due to patients often neglecting their health over a long period of time, their cases tend to be more complicated overall compared to your typical primary care clinic in a more privileged area.

This is kind of a general overview (as general as I can get--I tend to ramble) of the topics that I wanted to focus on. I was also considering including bits about my family being blue-collar(?) immigrants, and how my mom studied as a physician overseas, but was never able to practice here (for multiple reasons). I would be the first physician in my family. During high school, I also did an internship at the pharmacogenomic dept. of a biotech company. Since this is a relatively new development in medicine, I did some research with the resources I had access to and wrote an amateur paper about how the field could be applied as a part of more effective treatment of seizure disorders.

Does it sound like I'm making too many excuses based on my condition? Thank you for bearing with me; I appreciate any and all advice.

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[tmjjj]

The PS was my favorite part of the application process so I’d love to help you sort through all your thoughts when it comes to “why doctor”… I also did journalism for four years and was a journalism major before switching to PreMed so I love the creative writing aspect of the PS! first you seem to have a lot of reasons why… I would reflect and maybe only touch on a few of your BIG reasons why doctor. I had a similar theme in mine of having person experiences in medicine that initially “exposed” me to the medical world. I’d say the best way to format your PS would be a timeline approach. Your diagnosis> the “spark” that made you interested in medicine> and then you can specify with reasonings (like you mentioned). Don’t forget when writing to insert yourself in the narrative (this was super hard for me because I feel like I was a “witness” in a lot of my story and not so much an a player) so make sure to flesh that out and really make yourself the star of the essay! Once you have an outline you can go in and flesh it out and edit from there. Sorry idk if this was helpful at all or not!

 

[tmjjj]

Also the supporting aspects of what you have done like research and the internship are great but unless it’s super vital to answering the “why doctor” question, then it will still be in your experiences portion of the application so you don’t need to necessarily mention it in the PS. It’ll still get presented somewhere in your application packet!

 

[that_sad_fish]

@tmjjj That definitely helps! I also enjoy writing, I just have trouble trimming the fat, so having some sort of structure helps a ton. I can more comfortably get going with an outline/rough draft now. I just kinda laid everything out in the original post so it could maybe help whoever is responding lol. That helps a lot though, thank you!!

Also do you think there are any holes in my narrative, or is this enough to work with for a complete PS? Of course, I'd be citing more specific experiences in the actual essay.

 

[tmjjj]

@tmjjj That definitely helps! I also enjoy writing, I just have trouble trimming the fat, so having some sort of structure helps a ton. I can more comfortably get going with an outline/rough draft now. I just kinda laid everything out in the original post so it could maybe help whoever is responding lol. That helps a lot though, thank you!!

Also do you think there are any holes in my narrative, or is this enough to work with for a complete PS? Of course, I'd be citing more specific experiences in the actual essay.

I think you have a ton to work with, so I don’t think you have any holes. I’d just make sure you address: why doctor and why YOU would be a good fit as a doctor. My best advice is to save every draft separately. I had probably 3 different versions of my story and ended up pulling from all of them to make the best final version possible. (In the end I think I had like 8 total drafts before my final best version)!

 

[chilly_md]

Remember, the PS has a character limit of 5300. You will want to make it clear to the reader why you want to be in medicine and become a physician without meandering. It would be difficult to include all the different things you mentioned in your first post, and many of them are not relevant.

I am sorry to hear about the seizures. It may be best to not include that detail when discussing the car accident. That whole situation does not add to the PS, but may be asked about it in an interview or you may have to explain in the supplemental essays if there are many W's on your transcript from that semester.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Also it is okay to have more when you start. Some schools will ask you for a second autobiography statement, which should not overlap in content with your PS but act as one.