What was your personal statement?
Do you remember?
Think back to before you were admitted to medical school.
Remember how much you wanted this?
Remember all the hard work, all the studying, the extracurricular activities, maybe research, perhaps volunteerism.
Then you had to write and re-write and re-write your personal statement.
The perfectly crafted representation of over 20 years of your life that would resonate with admissions deans and convince them that you were intelligent, humanistic, well-rounded, and confident yet humble, perfectly suited for a career in medicine.
In a way that would make you stand out and above thousands of other applicants.
What did you write about?
I read a lot of these.
I’ll tell you, theirs are a lot of common themes.
They read a lot like the values reflected in the Hippocratic Oath including service to others, humanism, desire to relieve suffering. There is often an overcoming of a challenge, a meaningful life experience or patient experience, and a resolution with a concluding sentence.
Do you have any idea what was in yours? Are you the doctor you wanted to be? Is a career in medicine what you envisioned and dreamed about? Is there anything you can do to get a step closer to embodying those values today?