Personal Statement

[shwtime11]

Any advice on how to tackle this monster??? I'm starting my ERAS application and I want to start putting down some ideas for my personal statement. I've heard focus more on yourself and why you are unique, and I've heard you should explain why you want to do ENT, and I've heard a mix of both. Any thoughts from any residents or practicing ENT's out there? It's hard for a 4th year medical student with 6 weeks of ENT under his belt to completely sum up his future life in ENT in one page.


Thanks for any advice.

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[Leforte]

When I was filling out the application, I was told to remember that the person reading it is:
a) doing it at night right before bed, trying to push through a pile of 50+ before heading off to sleep
b) reading it right before you walk in the door prior to your interview or
c) reading it while they are interviewing you

What I find interesting is what makes the person unique and how can they contribute to the program? What are your hobbies and interests? What did you do during any time off?

When you do match, and are scrubbed for the long H&N cases, these topics are what usually come up - and what makes each resident unique, IMHO.

Or you could just do what the other 1/2 does and tell us how you had your tonsils out when you were 5 and knew then you wanted to be an ENT, or that your love the complex anatomy, or that you want to be a head and neck surgeon - and, of course, everyone is going into academics (although only 15% really do).

 

[resxn]

I simply have to say that when I reviewed these I remembered far better the ones that just talked about interesting stuff. I honestly couldn't have cared less "why" someone wanted to be an ENT. We all feel the same things--the anatomy is awesome, we have cool gadgets, we like the mix of medicine and surgery, the lifestyle is nice, there's a mix of multiple different surgical techniques involved, blah blah blah.

I still remember one guy who told a story about swimming in a qualifying meet for the Olympic try-outs. I wanted to interview that guy.

I still remember a girl who wrote about shaking hands with Boris Yeltsin in Moscow on a medical student tour. I wanted to talk to her.

I still remember an applicant who got run down by a car while serving a mission for his church. Great story.

I wrote in my statement what it was like playing in the same golf tournament in college as Phil Mickelson.

I can't remember a single solitary statement that talked about why they went into medicine or wanted to go into ENT. Not one.

I wouldn't recommend being weird. I wouldn't recomment being crazy off-the-wall. But if you have an interesting, stand-out story, I'd use that. I would then tie it somehow into going into ENT even if very tangentially. I think I said something about how I loved to learn by watching Mickelson like I love to learn while on ENT rotations. Something stupid like that, but it worked. Lots of comments and positive feedback.

 

[TheThroat]

The problem with having a truly unique PS's is that most of us haven't done anything really fascinating with our lives.

Wrote mine from the standpoint of my pager awakening me (as a resident) and going through the physiology of hearing and correlating it to different little stories about me.

 

[Sonnet]

I centered my essay around the myth of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It's one of the most famous instances in literature of a glossectomy. I used it to screen for personality match at the same time my interviewers were screening me. At one program, an attending expressed particular enthusiasm and appreciation for the allusion. I matched there.

 

[TheThroat]

I centered my essay around the myth of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It's one of the most famous instances in literature of a glossectomy. I used it to screen for personality match at the same time my interviewers were screening me. At one program, an attending expressed particular enthusiasm and appreciation for the allusion. I matched there.

Very nice.

That would be a PS worth reading, even though I rarely read the PS's of the interviewees, mainly bc/ we got the applications on the day of the interviews, right before we actually met.