Dear all:
Below is my PS for applying to Duke-NUS graduate medical school. The deadline is near so I need some urgent help in correcting grammar mistakes, advice on how to shorten it (there is no word limit, but i feel it's way too long, probably due to the fact that i am not a fresh graduate so i have a lot more to say), any awkward sentence etc. Please feel free to criticize! THank you in advance!
SEE BELOW
My motivation to study medicine came from a variety of sources over many years of my life. When I was in secondary school, I truly enjoyed learning biology especially the chapters about human body and systems. The curiosity in biology let me choose to study life sciences in National University of Singapore and I graduated with a Bachelor's degree with Honours in life sciences (concentration on biomedical science) in 2006. In the same year, I received a Teaching Award from Ministry of Education to pursue a Postgraduate Diploma in Education in the National Institute of Education to teach biology and chemistry in secondary level. After completing my studies in NIE in 2007, I have been teaching biology in NUS High School of Math and Science for two years and Shuqun Secondary School for two years till present. At the mean time, my dream of being a doctor has never left me. Due to various reasons I was not able to study medicine at undergraduate level. I once thought it was going to be a dream that would never come true. However, the founding of Duke NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore offered a second chance to people like me, and I am very excited about it. To me, studying medicine and becoming a doctor is an excellent platform to combine my knowledge, practical skills and personality. The prospect of life-long learning and exploring the human body and its diseases indefinitely is really exciting and attractive to me.
From 2000 to 2007, I volunteered in three hospitals in my hometown - Urumqi, Xinjiang, China. The first one was an ophthalmology hospital in which I helped patients with sight problems in walking, eating and other basic needs such as talking to them and reading newspapers or books to them. The second one was a children's hospital. My role involved helping the children with their daily needs as well as playing with them and keeping them happy (or at least positive). The third one was a general hospital with a variety of patients with diverse conditions and needs. Besides assisting patients in their basic needs, I also had the opportunity to help in some administrative work such as typing medical records into the computer for the nurses, and even following doctors and observe their daily work. I enjoyed the experience very much and found it very rewarding that I was able to care for other people and help them in their difficult times. I also learned a lot of skills which I would never learn in school such as some basic clinical care skills, administrative tasks and communication skills. The volunteer experience provided me with a better understanding of patients' emotional and physical needs as well as the importance of empathy and effective communication. Working in a hospital requires one to be able to communicate with people from very diverse backgrounds and needs, so it is critical to be able to communicate clearly with not only patients but also other staff members. The work experience in hospitals also provided me valuable perspective on the stress and challenges a physician faces everyday. Being a physician is not simply about helping people and saving lives. A good physician should also be a good team worker, a good leader, a good communicator, and a good friend. It is definitely rewarding to be able to have a significant impact on patients' lives, but a good physician will find it equally important to stay strong and face situations when they can't save a life.
In 2000, at the age of 17, when all my friends were busy preparing for the national exam to enter college, I started volunteering in hospitals. It was because I personally witnessed doctors' job from the perspective of a patient, and that experience reinforced my commitment to study medicine. On 8 Sep 2000, an ordinary afternoon on my way home, I experienced a bomb explosion. According to the government's explanation, military trucks were transporting some old weapons to another warehouse and the trucks were stopped in traffic jam when the bomb (or bombs) exploded due to unknown reasons. I was in a bus and soon realized it was an explosion. When I stood up I saw blooding coming off from my head and everything turned red. I heard people crying and shouting. After realizing the door could not be moved, I jumped out from the bus window and started running and soon lost my sight. I cried for help and luckily someone grabbed my hand and run with me until the help arrived and sent us to hospital. I spent 4 hours in darkness lying helplessly on the hospital corridor, unable to contact my parents because I cannot see anything. There were too many people who were injured and the doctors just could not handle so many people at the same time. I still remembered how happy I felt when a doctor finally came and talked to me, pulling open my swollen eyelids and telling me that I would not be blind. It was later found out that my lost of sight was due to injuries of my eyelids and glass residues on my cornea. All my injuries were external and mainly on my face, neck and arm. I spent two months in the hospital before I fully recovered. I experienced fear and a lot other emotional changes during that period of time. As I got better, I learned to face it positively with the encouragement of doctors and nurses who I sincerely appreciate. I started helping them with their administrative work and daily checking on patients. I talked to other patients and encourage them with my own experience. This was how I first started my volunteer work. Since then, I wanted to study medicine and become a doctor to contribute back to the society.
This incident happened 10 months before my National College Entrance Exam. After NCEE, I chose medicine as my major for all my choices of university. However, my first choice was too competitive with only 2 vacancies for medicine in my province and I did not get in. I did not get my second choice either because all the vacancies were fulfilled by first choice students. In the end I got into my third choice university which offered me Engineering. Being a third choice student, I was not able to choose medicine. During matriculation, I was informed that I was eligible to take part in a selection exam to study in Singapore under scholarship. I took part in it and was eventually selected to study in NUS. However, we were only allowed to study computing, science or engineering. In the end I chose life science because it is most closely related to medicine. It seemed to me that my dream of studying medicine had turned further away from me since then until I heard of the founding of Duke-NUS.
I have been working full-time as a secondary school teacher since Dec 2007. The subjects that I have taught include general biology, lower secondary science, molecular genetics, inheritance and population genetics etc. Besides teaching, I have also taken up CCA duties such as Student Leadership and Environment Club. My work experience has provided me with valuable attributes such as communicating with different people (students, colleagues, parents etc), actively keeping my content knowledge updated, exploring different strategies of teaching (using ICT, Self-Directed Learning, Collaborative Learning, alternative assessment etc) and being a good team-worker. I believe the experience will have a positive impact on my medical training.
In my fours years of teaching I have also learned to work and study well under pressure. While studying in NIE, I went through my pregnancy and childbirth. I spent my third trimester doing practicum in NUS High School and gave birth one week after completing my practicum. 3 weeks after giving birth to my daughter, I went back to NIE to complete the remaining two modules of the program. In Nov 2007, when my daughter was two months old, I successfully completed my training and received my PGDE with Credit. In 2009, I started my part-time Masters study in pharmaceutical science and technology because of my interest in pharmaceuticals. For two and half years, I took multiple roles as a full-time teacher, a part-time Masters student, and a full-time mom. It was challenging, tiring but fulfilling. I have learned to work and study under a lot of stress, prioritize tasks, meet deadlines and balance my work, study and life. I am glad that I went through it and the experience will certainly provide good grounding for the rigor of medical curriculum and practice.
I am a keen traveller and I enjoy going to different places to experience diverse cultures and scenes. I especially enjoy trekking and mountain climbing which I believe helps strengthening one's mind. I like singing since a very young age and have performed in numerous occasions such as school concert, charity concert and in music cafes in Singapore. Though not a professional singer, I really enjoyed working with other people with similar interest for a common goal such as putting up a concert. Singing is also a good way to de-stress myself. As a Chinese, I love Classical Chinese poetry. I began learning to recite them at the age of 3 and have lost track how many I can recite now. My favourite poems are mainly those written in the Tang and Song Dynasty. I began learning Japanese language as electives when I was in NUS. I took 5 Japanese modules, Japanese 1 - 4, and Business Japanese. It is quite a unique language with very rich culture and history which I enjoyed learning. After learning it for 3 years, I passed level 1 (most advanced) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is the most prominent standardized test offered by the Japanese government.
I believe I have many of the personal attributes necessary to become a doctor, such as being patient, caring, compassionate and being able to work well in a team. My passion in medicine makes me a self-motivated learner with an inquisitive mind. I feel that my many years of volunteer experience has given me a realistic appreciation of the challenges and requirements involved in a physician's job, but I also believe that my personal experience has given me the strong motivation and perseverance to go through medical training and become a good doctor to contribute to the medical field in the future.
Below is my PS for applying to Duke-NUS graduate medical school. The deadline is near so I need some urgent help in correcting grammar mistakes, advice on how to shorten it (there is no word limit, but i feel it's way too long, probably due to the fact that i am not a fresh graduate so i have a lot more to say), any awkward sentence etc. Please feel free to criticize! THank you in advance!
SEE BELOW
My motivation to study medicine came from a variety of sources over many years of my life. When I was in secondary school, I truly enjoyed learning biology especially the chapters about human body and systems. The curiosity in biology let me choose to study life sciences in National University of Singapore and I graduated with a Bachelor's degree with Honours in life sciences (concentration on biomedical science) in 2006. In the same year, I received a Teaching Award from Ministry of Education to pursue a Postgraduate Diploma in Education in the National Institute of Education to teach biology and chemistry in secondary level. After completing my studies in NIE in 2007, I have been teaching biology in NUS High School of Math and Science for two years and Shuqun Secondary School for two years till present. At the mean time, my dream of being a doctor has never left me. Due to various reasons I was not able to study medicine at undergraduate level. I once thought it was going to be a dream that would never come true. However, the founding of Duke NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore offered a second chance to people like me, and I am very excited about it. To me, studying medicine and becoming a doctor is an excellent platform to combine my knowledge, practical skills and personality. The prospect of life-long learning and exploring the human body and its diseases indefinitely is really exciting and attractive to me.
From 2000 to 2007, I volunteered in three hospitals in my hometown - Urumqi, Xinjiang, China. The first one was an ophthalmology hospital in which I helped patients with sight problems in walking, eating and other basic needs such as talking to them and reading newspapers or books to them. The second one was a children's hospital. My role involved helping the children with their daily needs as well as playing with them and keeping them happy (or at least positive). The third one was a general hospital with a variety of patients with diverse conditions and needs. Besides assisting patients in their basic needs, I also had the opportunity to help in some administrative work such as typing medical records into the computer for the nurses, and even following doctors and observe their daily work. I enjoyed the experience very much and found it very rewarding that I was able to care for other people and help them in their difficult times. I also learned a lot of skills which I would never learn in school such as some basic clinical care skills, administrative tasks and communication skills. The volunteer experience provided me with a better understanding of patients' emotional and physical needs as well as the importance of empathy and effective communication. Working in a hospital requires one to be able to communicate with people from very diverse backgrounds and needs, so it is critical to be able to communicate clearly with not only patients but also other staff members. The work experience in hospitals also provided me valuable perspective on the stress and challenges a physician faces everyday. Being a physician is not simply about helping people and saving lives. A good physician should also be a good team worker, a good leader, a good communicator, and a good friend. It is definitely rewarding to be able to have a significant impact on patients' lives, but a good physician will find it equally important to stay strong and face situations when they can't save a life.
In 2000, at the age of 17, when all my friends were busy preparing for the national exam to enter college, I started volunteering in hospitals. It was because I personally witnessed doctors' job from the perspective of a patient, and that experience reinforced my commitment to study medicine. On 8 Sep 2000, an ordinary afternoon on my way home, I experienced a bomb explosion. According to the government's explanation, military trucks were transporting some old weapons to another warehouse and the trucks were stopped in traffic jam when the bomb (or bombs) exploded due to unknown reasons. I was in a bus and soon realized it was an explosion. When I stood up I saw blooding coming off from my head and everything turned red. I heard people crying and shouting. After realizing the door could not be moved, I jumped out from the bus window and started running and soon lost my sight. I cried for help and luckily someone grabbed my hand and run with me until the help arrived and sent us to hospital. I spent 4 hours in darkness lying helplessly on the hospital corridor, unable to contact my parents because I cannot see anything. There were too many people who were injured and the doctors just could not handle so many people at the same time. I still remembered how happy I felt when a doctor finally came and talked to me, pulling open my swollen eyelids and telling me that I would not be blind. It was later found out that my lost of sight was due to injuries of my eyelids and glass residues on my cornea. All my injuries were external and mainly on my face, neck and arm. I spent two months in the hospital before I fully recovered. I experienced fear and a lot other emotional changes during that period of time. As I got better, I learned to face it positively with the encouragement of doctors and nurses who I sincerely appreciate. I started helping them with their administrative work and daily checking on patients. I talked to other patients and encourage them with my own experience. This was how I first started my volunteer work. Since then, I wanted to study medicine and become a doctor to contribute back to the society.
This incident happened 10 months before my National College Entrance Exam. After NCEE, I chose medicine as my major for all my choices of university. However, my first choice was too competitive with only 2 vacancies for medicine in my province and I did not get in. I did not get my second choice either because all the vacancies were fulfilled by first choice students. In the end I got into my third choice university which offered me Engineering. Being a third choice student, I was not able to choose medicine. During matriculation, I was informed that I was eligible to take part in a selection exam to study in Singapore under scholarship. I took part in it and was eventually selected to study in NUS. However, we were only allowed to study computing, science or engineering. In the end I chose life science because it is most closely related to medicine. It seemed to me that my dream of studying medicine had turned further away from me since then until I heard of the founding of Duke-NUS.
I have been working full-time as a secondary school teacher since Dec 2007. The subjects that I have taught include general biology, lower secondary science, molecular genetics, inheritance and population genetics etc. Besides teaching, I have also taken up CCA duties such as Student Leadership and Environment Club. My work experience has provided me with valuable attributes such as communicating with different people (students, colleagues, parents etc), actively keeping my content knowledge updated, exploring different strategies of teaching (using ICT, Self-Directed Learning, Collaborative Learning, alternative assessment etc) and being a good team-worker. I believe the experience will have a positive impact on my medical training.
In my fours years of teaching I have also learned to work and study well under pressure. While studying in NIE, I went through my pregnancy and childbirth. I spent my third trimester doing practicum in NUS High School and gave birth one week after completing my practicum. 3 weeks after giving birth to my daughter, I went back to NIE to complete the remaining two modules of the program. In Nov 2007, when my daughter was two months old, I successfully completed my training and received my PGDE with Credit. In 2009, I started my part-time Masters study in pharmaceutical science and technology because of my interest in pharmaceuticals. For two and half years, I took multiple roles as a full-time teacher, a part-time Masters student, and a full-time mom. It was challenging, tiring but fulfilling. I have learned to work and study under a lot of stress, prioritize tasks, meet deadlines and balance my work, study and life. I am glad that I went through it and the experience will certainly provide good grounding for the rigor of medical curriculum and practice.
I am a keen traveller and I enjoy going to different places to experience diverse cultures and scenes. I especially enjoy trekking and mountain climbing which I believe helps strengthening one's mind. I like singing since a very young age and have performed in numerous occasions such as school concert, charity concert and in music cafes in Singapore. Though not a professional singer, I really enjoyed working with other people with similar interest for a common goal such as putting up a concert. Singing is also a good way to de-stress myself. As a Chinese, I love Classical Chinese poetry. I began learning to recite them at the age of 3 and have lost track how many I can recite now. My favourite poems are mainly those written in the Tang and Song Dynasty. I began learning Japanese language as electives when I was in NUS. I took 5 Japanese modules, Japanese 1 - 4, and Business Japanese. It is quite a unique language with very rich culture and history which I enjoyed learning. After learning it for 3 years, I passed level 1 (most advanced) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is the most prominent standardized test offered by the Japanese government.
I believe I have many of the personal attributes necessary to become a doctor, such as being patient, caring, compassionate and being able to work well in a team. My passion in medicine makes me a self-motivated learner with an inquisitive mind. I feel that my many years of volunteer experience has given me a realistic appreciation of the challenges and requirements involved in a physician's job, but I also believe that my personal experience has given me the strong motivation and perseverance to go through medical training and become a good doctor to contribute to the medical field in the future.