Thesis: Your Personal Essay should address why you selected pharmacy as a career and how the Doctor of Pharmacy degree relates to your immediate and long-term professional goals. Describe how your personal, educational, and professional background will help you achieve your goals. The personal essay is an important part of your application for admission and provides you with an opportunity for you to clearly and effectively express your ideas.
What I have written, and I implore you to please comment ideas or suggestions!
Thank You
As a developing youth, I maintained an adamant bond between my late grandfather and he in turn allowed me to help him with his medications. However, due to medical complications he could no longer properly sequester his insulin to prepare his injections. It was during this time that I came to understand the importance of dosing because I accidentally overdrew his Humalog and placed him into mild hypoglycemic shock. In a panic, I retrieved the insulin vial and contacted the pharmacy skeptic of what action should be taken; and my saving grace was a pharmacist. The pharmacist provided instructions on how to administer glucagon, or an emergency medication in times of minute blood sugar, to revitalize my grandfather. This one act of empathy and quick wits saved a precious life and further altered my life course by solidifying my career path.
With my decision and goal fortified in my mind, I presumed attaining it would be nearly effortless. However, that was far from the truth when I reached college and another life changing event happened with the birth of my daughter, Annabell. It was the single most proud and disappointing moment in my life because I had not achieved any merit to allow Annabell to revere her father. I struggled immensely with balancing school and personal life while my grades plummeted; but I knew I needed to persevere for Annabell because I needed to answer the same question I will ask her. What do you want to be when you grow up? Asking her that question while I smile, knowing I achieved my dream, will be the most awe inspiring event in my life.
With the ability to reflect and discern on my previous action, I continued to learn and apply my knowledge to never repeat that mistake and jeopardize anyone on my behalf. In high school and college, I badgered professors and teaching assistants for answers to further my insight. This was the case, especially, during my physiology and pharmacology classes due to the specificity of bodily function and drug interactions, respectively, and now these principles and doctrines build on one another to compose the my current understanding of pharmacy.
Now employed, as a pharmacy technician, I conglomerate my knowledge and work under the supervision of a pharmacist to exercise proper communication of each medication dispensed. This undertaking hurdles me everywhere but has delineated an appropriate method of banter to maintain the patient's attention and comprehension of material. However, it is during this exchange that my humanity harrows when a patient completely neglects a physician's direction and imposes their own self-treatment to the diagnosed disease. This notion is confirmed, especially, with controlled medications when patients systematically attempt to place a refill days to weeks in advance without adequate reasoning for the depletion. This torment never ceases and is a constant reminder of my brother's past addiction. It was this addiction that nearly desolated my family's financial integrity due to consistent plundering of investments, assorted court costs, and reparations to varied loaning entities; but the worst component of the agony was the emotional burden it instilled in my family. However, it is through this past experience that I can empathize and support every patient that strives wholeheartedly to oust their dependence of unnecessary medication and progress to a positive future.
To conclude, I would like to share a quote by Paracelsus, father of toxicology, that promulgates a newfound philosophy in my conscious and it states "... all things are poisons and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison." This ideal is now ubiquitous in my mentality and parallels the embodiment of the pharmacist I aspire to become in the future. Applying my educational teachings to perceive physiology and pharmacology, my professional dogma of relaying correct and concise information via tenacious communication, and my personal background to empathize with each patient's plight, I wish to become a pharmacist. More importantly, as a pharmacist, I wish to inform a patient by counseling them on medication, develop a relationship with each person that enters the pharmacy, and to save a life!
