Medicine Personal Statement UG Draft1

admission essay to a medical college

Please write and submit a personal statement (essay) that will help us to know you better as a person. Your essay will help us become acquainted with you in ways that your transcripts or course grades and examinations results cannot. You may write about an experience that provides us with deep insight into the type of person you are or strive to be. Your story could involve a personal experience, a situation in which your character was tested, a humorous anecdote, or a significant academic situation. You may also include your most significant accomplishments to date and what inspired you to want to pursue a medical career.(500 words)

The five-year-old thoughts never fade; imagine my horror when the chubby man with his oiled moustache and round spectacles was nowhere to be found around the house! Instead, on his bed now lay a strange figure; protruding cheekbones, drooping eyes and feeble limbs. Subsequently, you could find an emotional seventh-grader digging every corner of the net to find a cure for the grandfather that built his childhood. A majestic and complex machine such as the human body had lost to itself. Dozens of trips around the country, medical tests, operations, and medications later, he succumbed in that same bed to pancreatic cancer. This episode taught me helplessness and the limitations of medicine, but also pointed to discoveries waiting to be made.

Last year, I found myself spending the summer amidst the evergreen Chittagong hill tracts. The chirping of the indigenous Houbaropsis bengalensis and the constant clash of the monsoon showers against our ancestral mud house's tin roof every morning never failed to supercharge me for the day to come. I would accompany my aunt, a GP by profession, as she volunteered at the lesser funded orphanages, nursing and old age homes in the district. I was to perform and later document the results of the regular checkups: from blood pressure and sugar to body temperatures.

Yet the real experience is what followed- I carefully watched her as she patiently listened to the patient's woes, calmly asked a few questions, looked out for recent abnormalities, suggested tests when required and ultimately traced symptoms back to their diseases. These episodes were elegant works of art I could watch on repeat! From her I learnt the values of compassion, selflessness and sympathy that a doctor embodies.

The journey from being a shy introvert to lifting the National Debate Trophy has been full of humility and indispensible experiences. From brilliant coaches to university graduates and professors from diverse socio-economic, cultural and geographical backgrounds, each conversation and argument moulded my perspective, honed my communication skills and enabled me to better understand the complex issues that plague today's status quo. Innumerable tournaments have given me the confidence to take lead when need be and think critically in demanding situations. But above all, debate has taught me to listen and empathize- each person, whether a fellow debater or a patient in need, has their own unique story and perspective.

Yet, it was only when I came down bedridden with chicken pox that my fascination diseases and pathogens followed. The doctor told me that my body would make sure I'd never have the disease again. Intrigued by the beautiful mechanism of immunisation, biology classes were never dull.

"But then why aren't we immune to cold?"

"Because rhinoviruses can easily mutate and fool our body."

"So even common cold can be fatal for an AIDS patient?"

The discussions went further than the classroom. It was perhaps this fascination for disease mechanisms that inspired my senior year paper on sepsis, a sort of blood infection claiming over 200,000 annual clinical deaths, yet to have its own permanent cure.

With potentially millions of microbes still unknown to humanity, the future of medicine may experience new diseases and epidemics- and this is the future I wish to serve. The noble field of medicine is the perfect blend of sciences and humanities. I want to utilize the social skills I've nurtured and channel my aptitude towards applied sciences into a career alleviating the pain of patients. The feeling of relief, reassurance and remedy upon successful diagnosis and treatment is what I believe the best part about being a doctor; and I wish to experience it firsthand.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This statement might seem very disjointed, I want to be able to relate paragraphs to each other. It's alot over the word limit and I want to be able to improve on that too. Thanks in advance for any input! Side Note: This is for admission to a medical college that accepts students directly from high school for a six-year course.

Pradipta, the idea behind the personal statement is to help establish the foundation and development of your interest in medical science. The first paragraph of this essay does not do that. It is a throwaway paragraph because it does not help move the essay forward, provide important information, nor deal directly with you. That paragraph is all about your grandfather. At the age of 5 there is no way that you could have made a conscious decision to become a medical doctor. That is an exaggeration that weakened the essay presentation. That is why I believe you can remove it without affecting the 2 most important paragraphs of this essay.

To strengthen the presentation, start with the debate story. Build it up in such a way that can connect with the exposure that you got from your aunt. Since your debate experience taught you about empathy and humility, these are traits that you can relate to the performance of your aunt's duties as a doctor, which could show a direct development of a health practitioner's personality within you. Create a transition paragraph that will relate the debate experience and learning with what you learned when you assisted your aunt. Then create a final transition paragraph to describe your experience with Chickenpox as the ultimate reason why you decided to become a doctor. By combining those 3 aspects, you should be able to create a very strong closing presentation for your essay, coming in under the word count.