Starting my essay for Physician's Assistant Program

I have to write a 500 word maximum personal statement as to why I want to become a Physician's Assistant.

I wanted to run this idea by people to see what the general consensus is.

When I was younger I attended a cancer survivors day, and remember one particularly moving and motivating speech by a patient who was told he had months to live. 10 years later, here he was delivering a speech cancer free. He spoke about how before his encounter with cancer he took life for granted. He then went on to speak about how he became appreciative and observant of things he never before had such as the leaves changing colors, the beauty of the world, and every moment was precious.

I was thinking about starting to paper off with a quote from him, then explaining how it moved me and motivated me to go into the medical field.

Is this a good idea? I think it could potentially be very captivating as well as creative. Thanks for the input and thoughts.

Generally essays follow this trend. I'm quite intrigued by the fact that you remember his speech well enough to pull quotes. Be careful about the choice of quote though as it sets up the entire piece. What I've seen in many cases is that the quote and opening paragraph are whats strongest in the essay. I agree completely that you should take this course of action. Of course, I would however like to make one small suggestion because of the very tight word limit. You may want to keep your motivation story simple and limited to maybe the first two paragraphs. This would allow you space for reflection.

Good luck!

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I am going to keep it brief. I am going to give the quote and follow it up with from that point on I knew I wanted to make a difference in people's lives. I will then talk about my work/internship/life experiences that have lead me down this road. Then I am going to conclude with why _________ University is the perfect fit for me.

If you use a comma, making this a compound sentence, use the word "I" again:
When I was younger I attended a cancer survivors day, and I remember one particularly moving and motivating speech by a patient who was had been told he had only months to live. 10 Ten years later, here he was delivering a speech cancer free. He spoke about how before his encounter with cancer he took had taken life for granted.

The last sentence of this is very inspirational!

He then went on to speak about how he became appreciative and observant of things he never before had such as the leaves changing colors, the beauty of the world, and every moment was precious. - unclear

Good start! Please read my essay, too. Thanks