You don't have to be profound. Feel free to be boring (at least, at times. Don't be boring all the time or you will seem like an unfeeling robot that no one likes). The personal statement is unlikely to be the thing that decides on where you are ranked. However, it can leave people with favorable impressions of you (even before you meet them) and it can be the way they remember their interview with you, as every interviewer will have a copy of your application when you speak with them and most (but certainly not all) will have read it.
Good advice for a personal statement:
You want to say that you are interested in pathology and why.
You want to say something about your career goals.
For my personal statement, I basically stated how I became interested in pathology, talked about a couple of great influences in my life, talked about my experience in the field and how it made me enjoy it more, etc, and also talked about my goals for residency training and possible future career. Pathology has everything as a profession because blah blah blah.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Crepitus is right though, be specific. They will take things out of your statement during interviews and say, "I like what you said there;" or, "Why did you say that," or "talk more about x." And definitely don't be weird. Don't do things like write a personal statement in the third person or compare your burgeoning career to the blossoming of the cherry trees. And don't be controversial. Don't badmouth other fields (like, don't say, "I can't stand clinical medicine because..." or "I did not like taking care of patients...") People don't like that. Be positive. Say why you do like things.
We should start a thread on "Bad ideas for a personal statement."
Things like:
-Don't describe your own nude body and how it inspires you.
-Don't include personal vendettas (I showed that high school chem teacher who said the best I could hope for was to CLEAN the labs).
-Don't swear.
-Don't quote a political figure.
-Don't talk about controversial topics (abortions, gun control, the confederate flag).
-Avoid talking about religion and how Jesus Christ has a plan for you.
-Don't include an anecdote about you being stupid.
-Don't talk about bad doctors you have met that you hate.
-Don't mention money.
-Don't make any jokes about ethnicities.
I posted the following awhile back on what a good LOR would include. Some of this would also apply to personal statements:
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Any good LOR will do several things:
1) Attest to your intelligence, intellectual curiosity, academic strengths, etc
2) Attest to your ability to work as a member of a team (What kind of a person you are to work with, friendly, helpful, rude, always late)
3) Attest to your motivation and interest in the field you are applying to (Pathologists, obviously, know what the field is like and are best equipped to evaluate this, but others may be able to contribute something useful. A surgeon, for example, may talk about your interest in pathology and how you were a great help in learning about these issues in regards to your patients).
4) Talk about what kind of a resident you would be (likelihood of completing assigned tasks, ability to work under pressure, working long hours, working under supervision, accepting and encorporating criticism)
5) Talk about what you are like as a person (People like to work with people they like. No one likes a brown nose, no one likes a snob)
6) Have some insight into your future career plans and how your qualifications stack up with these ideas (Do you like research, plan on academics, are you a budding teacher)
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