sagar0092
Sep 14, 2013
Undergraduate / I want to help people; MED school Personal statement [3]
Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space. For additional assistance, click "help" on the tool bar at the top of the screen.
I want to help people but more importantly help them in a way that changes their lives as well as affect the most people possible. The service industry can have a significant impact on a person for days or weeks as the "great place I stayed at" or the "place I'll never stay at again" but medicine is something that is remembered forever, "Dr. Patel is a man that influenced me and gave me the tools to change my habits and gave me a will to live and get better." I want to be remembered as someone who made an impact on as many people as I possibly can.
My father had leukemia but no one ever caught it, so it went undetected until he passed. Had just one person caught the symptoms, things could have ended up differently. I want to bring medicine back to the informal art it once was with a trusting relationship between doctors and patients. I want to catch the things that other people miss. My father always had high aspirations for me to become something great. Since then I have dedicated my life to being the best that I can in what I do in and out of the classroom. I may have wavered at times in my youth but since I have found and set my goals and I haven't let anything stand in the way, most of all myself. My goals keep me focused and nothing can distract me, not peer pressure or events that are out of my control, I stay prepared for any situation. I want to make the most of my life to make the biggest differences I am capable of and I believe medicine is the best path to do so. For a lot of people it's about money, respect, or competition but its about those who cannot help themselves and rely on a complete stranger with their lives, and it's our responsibility to help to the best of our abilities. One slip up can have a huge impact on someone, and it is a responsibility to be taken seriously. I believed all are entitled to the same level of care when it comes to life or death, we are equal in all ways except those dictated by society in socio-economic backgrounds.
There are a lot of well-qualified people that could be destined for medical school, many of them more intelligent than I may be, but they could lack something which I have; common-sense and relatability. One of my favorite days of the week is when I get to volunteer at the hospital as a personal touch volunteer and I get to interact with patients of very different backgrounds. Every time I go in I learn something new about them and in turn they learn about me as we build a relationship of trust. I am able to put myself into their shoes and understand where they are coming from. I can talk to people without talking down to them or making them feel uncomfortable. Being a tutor makes me understand that students don't always understand the technical aspects of what their professors are teaching, I try to take everything and break it down into layman's terms and go through each step explaining what it means and why it's necessary, I think this is one quality that sets me apart from other candidates. Many people can diagnose when given a text-book set of symptoms but having good communication with a patient can go a long way in understanding their symptoms and diagnosing them correctly. It will also give them more faith in your judgement and allow them to trust your decisions, especially if they are told exactly what is going on and why. I've had many bad experiences with physicians who don't give me more than 5 minutes to explain what I feel is wrong. They made me feel like I was wasting their time and I should be ready to explain every symptom on queue. A lot of people have questions about other secondary issues after their main concern has been discussed, my afterthoughts got left behind in the screening room after the doctor left and I couldn't help but regret the things I wasn't able to tell the doctor during the appointment.
The other attribute I have to share is being well-rounded. I may not know everything about everything but I do know a little bit about most things. I can pay bills, landscape, plumb, repair air conditioners, tutor students, cook diverse cuisines, garden and have a passion in all forms of football (college and high school). I have an uncle who is an excellent pediatrician but if you ask him how to change the oil in a car, cook a meal, or set up a network router he wouldn't know where to start. I think my diverse knowledge base can be a great attribute as a physician. Knowing that certain types of lightbulbs, fluorescent or CFL, contain mercury and noticing a patient with a cut on his hand from a broken lightbulb could help identify mercury poisoning when pooled with their other symptoms. Last winterbreak I decided to set out on an endeavor which I knew would be particularly tough. My grandfather, a high school principle in India, was visiting for a couple of weeks and I decided I wanted to learn how to read and write in Gujurati, a language I had always spoken but never learned to read. Learning a new language after the critical time for language in childhood development is difficult and becomes exceedingly so with age, especially in a language with a whole new alphabet. As I slowly began to learn consanants and then added vowel marks I began to realize that the written language of Gujurati is much more difficult and intricate than the informal dialect I had spoken my whole life. By this time I had realized I was basically starting from scratch and most of my older knowledge would not be as helpful as I had anticipated. The more I read the more questions I had about the meaning of certain phrases and words, but eventually I persevered. After 6 months of practice I am now able to read the news or short stories and understand most of what they are saying. The toughest part was losing the help of my parents when I went back to college and I had no help when reinforcing what I had learned.
In addition to those two attributes I still enjoy hanging out with my friends, watching as much football as my schedule allows, and practicing gujurati all while maintaining my grades, working on an independent research project, volunteering at the hospital, and working as a tutor.
Use the space provided to explain why you want to go to medical school. The available space for your response is 5300 characters, or approximately one full page. You will receive an error message if you exceed the available space. For additional assistance, click "help" on the tool bar at the top of the screen.
I want to help people but more importantly help them in a way that changes their lives as well as affect the most people possible. The service industry can have a significant impact on a person for days or weeks as the "great place I stayed at" or the "place I'll never stay at again" but medicine is something that is remembered forever, "Dr. Patel is a man that influenced me and gave me the tools to change my habits and gave me a will to live and get better." I want to be remembered as someone who made an impact on as many people as I possibly can.
My father had leukemia but no one ever caught it, so it went undetected until he passed. Had just one person caught the symptoms, things could have ended up differently. I want to bring medicine back to the informal art it once was with a trusting relationship between doctors and patients. I want to catch the things that other people miss. My father always had high aspirations for me to become something great. Since then I have dedicated my life to being the best that I can in what I do in and out of the classroom. I may have wavered at times in my youth but since I have found and set my goals and I haven't let anything stand in the way, most of all myself. My goals keep me focused and nothing can distract me, not peer pressure or events that are out of my control, I stay prepared for any situation. I want to make the most of my life to make the biggest differences I am capable of and I believe medicine is the best path to do so. For a lot of people it's about money, respect, or competition but its about those who cannot help themselves and rely on a complete stranger with their lives, and it's our responsibility to help to the best of our abilities. One slip up can have a huge impact on someone, and it is a responsibility to be taken seriously. I believed all are entitled to the same level of care when it comes to life or death, we are equal in all ways except those dictated by society in socio-economic backgrounds.
There are a lot of well-qualified people that could be destined for medical school, many of them more intelligent than I may be, but they could lack something which I have; common-sense and relatability. One of my favorite days of the week is when I get to volunteer at the hospital as a personal touch volunteer and I get to interact with patients of very different backgrounds. Every time I go in I learn something new about them and in turn they learn about me as we build a relationship of trust. I am able to put myself into their shoes and understand where they are coming from. I can talk to people without talking down to them or making them feel uncomfortable. Being a tutor makes me understand that students don't always understand the technical aspects of what their professors are teaching, I try to take everything and break it down into layman's terms and go through each step explaining what it means and why it's necessary, I think this is one quality that sets me apart from other candidates. Many people can diagnose when given a text-book set of symptoms but having good communication with a patient can go a long way in understanding their symptoms and diagnosing them correctly. It will also give them more faith in your judgement and allow them to trust your decisions, especially if they are told exactly what is going on and why. I've had many bad experiences with physicians who don't give me more than 5 minutes to explain what I feel is wrong. They made me feel like I was wasting their time and I should be ready to explain every symptom on queue. A lot of people have questions about other secondary issues after their main concern has been discussed, my afterthoughts got left behind in the screening room after the doctor left and I couldn't help but regret the things I wasn't able to tell the doctor during the appointment.
The other attribute I have to share is being well-rounded. I may not know everything about everything but I do know a little bit about most things. I can pay bills, landscape, plumb, repair air conditioners, tutor students, cook diverse cuisines, garden and have a passion in all forms of football (college and high school). I have an uncle who is an excellent pediatrician but if you ask him how to change the oil in a car, cook a meal, or set up a network router he wouldn't know where to start. I think my diverse knowledge base can be a great attribute as a physician. Knowing that certain types of lightbulbs, fluorescent or CFL, contain mercury and noticing a patient with a cut on his hand from a broken lightbulb could help identify mercury poisoning when pooled with their other symptoms. Last winterbreak I decided to set out on an endeavor which I knew would be particularly tough. My grandfather, a high school principle in India, was visiting for a couple of weeks and I decided I wanted to learn how to read and write in Gujurati, a language I had always spoken but never learned to read. Learning a new language after the critical time for language in childhood development is difficult and becomes exceedingly so with age, especially in a language with a whole new alphabet. As I slowly began to learn consanants and then added vowel marks I began to realize that the written language of Gujurati is much more difficult and intricate than the informal dialect I had spoken my whole life. By this time I had realized I was basically starting from scratch and most of my older knowledge would not be as helpful as I had anticipated. The more I read the more questions I had about the meaning of certain phrases and words, but eventually I persevered. After 6 months of practice I am now able to read the news or short stories and understand most of what they are saying. The toughest part was losing the help of my parents when I went back to college and I had no help when reinforcing what I had learned.
In addition to those two attributes I still enjoy hanging out with my friends, watching as much football as my schedule allows, and practicing gujurati all while maintaining my grades, working on an independent research project, volunteering at the hospital, and working as a tutor.
