Red flag to get inspired by a doctor's experimental treatment, ask about electrolytes?

[bbbcccppp]

I think it is on to instead of onto


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[bbbcccppp]

His condition deteriorated sounds better to me. More direct and more accurate. PD is a chronic long term illness more like a long road with bumps than a tornado


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[bbbcccppp]

Consider... time off midway through college to grieve and to reconsider my goals in life.

It is shorter and easier to read in my opinion. It leaves something to the readers imagination. I assume that your grief was deep and your reflections were global at that time. Not limited to career.


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[bbbcccppp]

Would you consider mentioning a specific patient case that your wife discussed after work. I would like to hear more specifics. Rather than general patients she had seen that day.


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[bbbcccppp]

Dying of his light.
It strikes me as being unedited and natural for you to say. A gringo like myself couldn't say that but I think you can.
With all due respect to the contrary opinion which I can also understand. It is somewhat grandiose to say that but I still like it.
I like your PS. I am thinking I would like to see see it a little less 'dry'


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[Prometheus123]

This is good. The dying of the light thing was WAY too much. The tone of your PS (and other application essays) should be conversational, just like you were explaining this to the adcom in person.

Haha, got it, thanks. Every time I make an improvement I throw in something terrible just to see if you're still paying attention.

 

[Prometheus123]

Thank you, bbbcccppp, for all these improvements!

I think it is on to instead of onto

Good catch, thanks.

Dying of his light.
It strikes me as being unedited and natural for you to say. A gringo like myself couldn't say that but I think you can.
With all due respect to the contrary opinion which I can also understand. It is somewhat grandiose to say that but I still like it.
I like your PS. I am thinking I would like to see see it a little less 'dry'

It is natural and unedited for me. In my case though, that's not necessarily a good thing! The unedited me is likely to be misunderstood. I'm all too gringo as well. I like it too though. I just really like that poem! I might settle with putting it in my signature for now. You're right though, I need to make my PS less dry and more personal. Hopefully it's more in that direction than before, but it should be more.

His condition deteriorated sounds better to me. More direct and more accurate. PD is a chronic long term illness more like a long road with bumps than a tornado

You're right, that's more accurate, and with these other new changes, I think it still has the emotional impact I'm trying to convey.

Consider... time off midway through college to grieve and to reconsider my goals in life.
It is shorter and easier to read in my opinion. It leaves something to the readers imagination. I assume that your grief was deep and your reflections were global at that time. Not limited to career.

True. Done.

Would you consider mentioning a specific patient case that your wife discussed after work. I would like to hear more specifics. Rather than general patients she had seen that day.

I took out something like that to simplify earlier, but it does sound like there's a sentence missing there. What about this? Is it specific enough to add anything?

 

[bbbcccppp]

I think you have come a long way with this PS!
Sorry to ask. But if he died then you might need to say deteriorated and he unfortunately passed away one night. That would be more specific and explain your grief


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[bbbcccppp]

When I read this I am curious to know why the patient was sedated and why your future wife brought up a particular event in her day. If she was not your wife then you could use the term future wife if you wish to add more definition


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[bbbcccppp]

Something about ... learn about the behavioral sciences... feels too clinical and detached when describing a loved one. It reminds me a little of the psychiatric label known as intellectualization.
You could say I had been inspired by a doctor who used....it would free up a few characters also if you need them




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[Prometheus123]

When I read this I am curious to know why the patient was sedated and why your future wife brought up a particular event in her day. If she was not your wife then you could use the term future wife if you wish to add more definition


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I have to say, with all due respect, I really disagree with bbbcccppp's advice here. I don't think you want to dig too much into talking about anybody besides you - including your wife or your wife's patients - particularly since you mentioned you're running out of space. You don't want to get bogged down in details that aren't relevant to your main idea/thesis, and I think bbbcccppp's suggestions are falling into that category.

Also "She told me about a patient they had to sedate that day. I told her how I had been inspired to learn about the behavioral sciences by a doctor who used an experimental medication to slow the progression of my grandfather's Parkinson’s." is again a weird jump with no clear transition.

But obviously neither of us is seeing the full context of your PS, so use your judgment.

I will think more about this and make a decision based on the full context. Thank you both so much for your input, it's immensely valuable to me.

 

[Prometheus123]

Something about ... learn about the behavioral sciences... feels too clinical and detached when describing a loved one. It reminds me a little of the psychiatric label known as intellectualization.
You could say I had been inspired by a doctor who used....it would free up a few characters also if you need them

Good insight. Yes, in the face of difficult emotions, I've always tended to intellectualize and sublimate them into learning how to solve the problem that caused the emotions in the first place. This usually serves me well in life, especially as I've balanced out a lot with age, but it's still my Achilles heel as a PS writer.

 

[Prometheus123]

I changed these to mean exactly, literally what I mean, including the search for meaning as in existentialist philosophy and psychology. Better?

I think you have come a long way with this PS!
Sorry to ask. But if he died then you might need to say deteriorated and he unfortunately passed away one night. That would be more specific and explain your grief


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Something about ... learn about the behavioral sciences... feels too clinical and detached when describing a loved one. It reminds me a little of the psychiatric label known as intellectualization.
You could say I had been inspired by a doctor who used....it would free up a few characters also if you need them




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I have to say, with all due respect, I really disagree with bbbcccppp's advice here. I don't think you want to dig too much into talking about anybody besides you - including your wife or your wife's patients - particularly since you mentioned you're running out of space. You don't want to get bogged down in details that aren't relevant to your main idea/thesis, and I think bbbcccppp's suggestions are falling into that category.

Also "She told me about a patient they had to sedate that day. I told her how I had been inspired to learn about the behavioral sciences by a doctor who used an experimental medication to slow the progression of my grandfather's Parkinson’s." is again a weird jump with no clear transition.

But obviously neither of us is seeing the full context of your PS, so use your judgment.

 

[cactusman]

I changed these to mean exactly, literally what I mean, including the search for meaning as in existentialist philosophy and psychology. Better?

"...I told her how I had been inspired by a doctor who used an experimental medication to slow the progression of my grandfather's Parkinson’s, whom I loved and respected. I went on to tell her that years later, my naïve view of the physician as a miraculous healer was called into question when he died despite the best efforts of his care team. I felt angry and powerless. Challenged by this realistic understanding, I took time off midway through college to grieve and to search for meaning."

"... my grandfather's Parkinson's, whom I loved and respected... "
Implies his Parkinson's disease was a person whom you admired. Definitely needs rewording. Maybe
"... to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease in my grandfather,whom I loved and respected ..."

On mobile so formatting is a pain and I can't copy the quote, but the second sentence there is turning into a run-on. Also, no one else has mentioned this so it might be just me, but I keep seeing "years later" and thinking that you mean years after the date, which doesn't make sense. You might want to throw in a few words to make it immediately clear that "years later" is relative to the experimental injections.

 

[Prometheus123]

"... my grandfather's Parkinson's, whom I loved and respected... "
Implies his Parkinson's disease was a person whom you admired. Definitely needs rewording. Maybe
"... to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease in my grandfather,whom I loved and respected ..."

On mobile so formatting is a pain and I can't copy the quote, but the second sentence there is turning into a run-on. Also, no one else has mentioned this so it might be just me, but I keep seeing "years later" and thinking that you mean years after the date, which doesn't make sense. You might want to throw in a few words to make it immediately clear that "years later" is relative the experimental injections.

Thank you. It's not just you I think. I will work on that. That first change you wrote makes it a lot clearer too, thank you.

 

[Prometheus123]

Something about ... learn about the behavioral sciences... feels too clinical and detached when describing a loved one. It reminds me a little of the psychiatric label known as intellectualization.
You could say I had been inspired by a doctor who used....it would free up a few characters also if you need them




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For some I just noticed that last change you mentioned. I can't believe I didn't see that. It's so much simpler and clearer now. Thank you.

 

[Prometheus123]

Something about ... learn about the behavioral sciences... feels too clinical and detached when describing a loved one. It reminds me a little of the psychiatric label known as intellectualization.
You could say I had been inspired by a doctor who used....it would free up a few characters also if you need them

"... my grandfather's Parkinson's, whom I loved and respected... "
Implies his Parkinson's disease was a person whom you admired. Definitely needs rewording. Maybe
"... to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease in my grandfather,whom I loved and respected ..."

On mobile so formatting is a pain and I can't copy the quote, but the second sentence there is turning into a run-on. Also, no one else has mentioned this so it might be just me, but I keep seeing "years later" and thinking that you mean years after the date, which doesn't make sense. You might want to throw in a few words to make it immediately clear that "years later" is relative to the experimental injections.

 

[Medic741]

Man it's great to see the community really helping someone out like this.

Your ps is headed in the right direction @Prometheus123. Good work!

I'd consider taking out the "who I love and respected" bit, the rest of it seems pretty solid.

 

[mistafab]

Nah prometheus is just a troll.

He basically just plagiarized the first paragraph of writing sample six from : https://premed.uga.edu/sites/default/files/u62/stanfordsamplestatements.pdf

It reads:

"...ensuing challenge to my naive view of medicine. My idealistic view of the physician as a miracle-worker was indeed threatened when the physician taking care of me was unable to remove the penny. A few years later, my view was challenged again as a doctor explained how he could not heal my congenital heart condition." And "...my experiences shook my naive conceptions of medicine and challenged me to reconsider my career goals. "

Prometheus is trolling, just using crowdsourcing to edit some sloppy plagiarized version for the lulz. I mean the version we are helping him write isn't even good. I can't even read these shoddy PS snippets without my eyes bleeding.

Distilled version with recent changes in bold:

"...I told her how I had been inspired by a doctor who used an experimental medication to slow the progression of Parkinson’s in my grandfather, whom I loved and respected. I went on to tell her that my naïve view of the physician as a miraculous healer was eventually called into question when my grandfather died despite the best efforts of his care team. I felt angry and powerless. Challenged by this realistic understanding, I took time off midway through college to grieve and to search for meaning."

 

[Prometheus123]

There's a big difference between plagiarism and using a few of the same words accidentally. I did read all 15 of the personal statements in that document a few months ago when I started this process. An SDN member used the word naive when talking about how my perspective changed due to my experiences, and that inspired me to write about that in a new draft. I must have accidentally reused a few keywords like challenge and miracle from my subconscious memory of the 15 sample PSs. However, I don't think that the author of that PS has a copyright on starting out as a naive kid or personal growth. And apart from those couple of keywords, my draft has nothing in common what what you posted. I will change those keywords since you brought it to my attention.

Furthermore, I did not write the phrase "reconsider my career goals". bbbcccppp suggested it to me in this thread. I temporarily adopted it in one of my posts here, but quickly changed it because I realized there was a way to say that that felt more true to me. Are you accusing bbbcccppp of plagiarism too? What would be his motivation for that?

The reality is that we all read these samples at some point or another, and sometimes certain words stick with us but we don't remember later where they came from. That's obviously what happened here. So before you go making wild accusations for apparently spiteful and bitter reasons, I suggest you get your facts straight. You, sir, are the troll.

EDIT: I sense that what's behind your behavior is fear. Fear that I or someone else is going to take your spot at medical school. Don't worry. It sounds like you have dramatically more research experience than I do, and you probably have a much higher GPA than I do. Your ECs are stronger too. I'm not a threat to you. You'll get in.

I realize the system we're in tries to pit us against each other. But the reality is that the challenges we will face as future healthcare workers are bigger than any of us, and we need to learn how to work together, not tear each other down.

Nah prometheus is just a troll.

He basically just plagiarized the first paragraph of writing sample six from : https://premed.uga.edu/sites/default/files/u62/stanfordsamplestatements.pdf

It reads:

"...ensuing challenge to my naive view of medicine. My idealistic view of the physician as a miracle-worker was indeed threatened when the physician taking care of me was unable to remove the penny. A few years later, my view was challenged again as a doctor explained how he could not heal my congenital heart condition." And "...my experiences shook my naive conceptions of medicine and challenged me to reconsider my career goals. "

Prometheus is trolling, just using crowdsourcing to edit some sloppy plagiarized version for the lulz. I mean the version we are helping him write isn't even good. I can't even read these shoddy PS snippets without my eyes bleeding.

 

[BombsAway]

step 1: delete everything you've written so far.
step 2: record yourself explaining to why you want to be a physician to your dog.
step 3: transcribe the recording and begin edits.
step 4: every time you type the word "inspired" or "fascinating" slap yourself in the face.

step 1a: don't take any of the advice you've gotten on here and submit anyway. You MCAT robots always land on your feet somewhere.

 

[Prometheus123]

Man it's great to see the community really helping someone out like this.

Your ps is headed in the right direction @Prometheus123. Good work!

I'd consider taking out the "who I love and respected" bit, the rest of it seems pretty solid.

Thank you, Medic741, for all your help with this behind the scenes! Yeah, I was really against saying the love and respect part explicitly for a while since it's clearly implied. But it is personal, which seems to be what people want.

 

[mistafab]

You must be trolling. I am a medical student man. What is with this psychoanalysis anyway? Not healthy dude. Who writes like this anyway?

I still think you are plagiarising. I would suggest you just write your PS so it comes from the heart without using another essay as your scaffold. I do not wish you to fail on your path to medical school. If you choose to go forward with this, best of luck.

EDIT: I sense that what's behind your behavior is fear. Fear that I or someone else is going to take your spot at medical school. Don't worry. It sounds like you have dramatically more research experience than I do, and you probably have a much higher GPA than I do. Your ECs are stronger too. I'm not a threat to you. You'll get in.

I realize the system we're in tries to pit us against each other. But the reality is that the challenges we will face as future healthcare workers are bigger than any of us, and we need to learn how to work together, not tear each other down.

 

[Goro]

You must be trolling. I am a medical student man. What is with this psychoanalysis anyway? Not healthy dude. Who writes like this anyway?

I still think you are plagiarising. I would suggest you just write your PS so it comes from the heart without using another essay as your scaffold. I do not wish you to fail on your path to medical school. If you choose to go forward with this, best of luck.

The problem is that OP is trying to write his app and get feedback, one sentence at a time.

Many SDNers are reluctant to get rid of certain memes because they think that said memes are works of genius.

The rest of the world thinks otherwise. So no, no trolling here, sadly.

On what I've seen, I believe that OP will get shut out this cycle, and be sadder and wiser for the next go-around.

 

[Prometheus123]

"... my grandfather's Parkinson's, whom I loved and respected... "
Implies his Parkinson's disease was a person whom you admired. Definitely needs rewording. Maybe
"... to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease in my grandfather,whom I loved and respected ..."

On mobile so formatting is a pain and I can't copy the quote, but the second sentence there is turning into a run-on. Also, no one else has mentioned this so it might be just me, but I keep seeing "years later" and thinking that you mean years after the date, which doesn't make sense. You might want to throw in a few words to make it immediately clear that "years later" is relative to the experimental injections.

I moved the "love and respected" clause to a new, more logical location so the second sentence isn't a run-on anymore. I'm not sure if I said this before, but I took out the "years later" entirely and replaced it with "eventually" in a different part of the sentence. Thank you!

 

[Prometheus123]

You must be trolling. I am a medical student man. What is with this psychoanalysis anyway? Not healthy dude. Who writes like this anyway?

I still think you are plagiarising. I would suggest you just write your PS so it comes from the heart without using another essay as your scaffold. I do not wish you to fail on your path to medical school. If you choose to go forward with this, best of luck.

Well, I hope to work with you one day.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It was an honest mistake. I'm keeping the experiences I've written about (since they're 100% my own and nothing like that person's) but I've removed the problematic keywords. The only resemblance I see now after reading both of them again is that both of us used to be naive about medicine, eventually got older and wiser, and are still continuing to do so, which is a universal experience.

 

[Prometheus123]

The problem is that OP is trying to write his app and get feedback, one sentence at a time.

Many SDNers are reluctant to get rid of certain memes because they think that said memes are works of genius.

The rest of the world thinks otherwise. So no, no trolling here, sadly.

On what I've seen, I believe that OP will get shut out this cycle, and be sadder and wiser for the next go-around.

Quite possible, but let's see. That may happen because of my relatively uncompetitive ECs and low cumulative GPA, but I no longer believe it will happen because of my PS or the way my ECs are written, which is the only thing under my control right now. In case you're under the impression that I haven't taken some advice I should have, just so you know I often realize how right one of you is about something I disagreed on after sleeping on it. I think I've taken virtually all of the advice I've received here in some form or another. I usually do exactly what someone suggests. When I occasionally don't, I at least change it somehow in response to that person's concern.

I'm sure the result is still far from perfect, but tbh, I like it a lot now. I think it's a much more authentic expression of me than what I started with by far.

And by the way, Goro, thank you for still making the effort to tell me absolutely not the last time I asked about a citation. FYI, there are currently 0 citations in my PS and activities.

 

[gyngyn]

This is a good moment to remember to maintain a civil discourse.

 

[Prometheus123]

This is a good moment to remember to maintain a civil discourse.

And gyngyn, thank you for being the first and one of the strongest-willed.