Your Personal Statement:Your Strongest Weapon! - eigthroad

[ArchivalUser]

The personal statement is very often overlooked or left to professional writers. I really think this is a missed opportunity to convey a compelling story.

PD's are humans and have emotions too.

Try your very best to strike an emotion with the reader. Here is my advice:

1. Tell a very personal story that will be very unique to you and unforgettable e.g family struggles, issues with your country, hardship you faced while in med school. You can pick a medical condition prevalent in your region and tell a story of how you have seen people suffer and how it motivates you to be a doctor.

2. Be very emotional with your words. Show that you care about the profession and for people you want to provide your services to, talk about how passionate you are, you can use words like: I tear up, I cried, i felt very frustrated.

3. Share a short story: Try as much as you can to share a story that can make you instantly distinguishable from thousands of other applicants. An example will be a short story of how you solved a problem or challenge at some point in your medical career, how you offered a simple solution/improvised.


Remember this, a PD will forget scores, YOG or publications easily but will never forget that applicant that lost a parent to a rare cancer, was abused as a child or improvised a water filter that helped improved the lives of people in a rural area.

Scores and publications can make you look qualified but stories can connect you on a deeper level with a PD who may have shared some of your experienced.

Your ultimate goal is to get matched, once this happens, your scores become useless and your next challenge becomes the board exams.

It is your state licence that will hang on your office wall and not your USMLE score cards.

I hope this helps someone.

[ArchivalUser]

Thanks a lot @ eigthroad. It is an awesome help. Motivational too in the end lines. Really appreciated.

[ArchivalUser]

I've been debating on adding my personal story, but it just sounds so much like sympathy! This makes me think twice. Your post is kinda humorous though, but yet offers sound advice.

Thanks!

[ArchivalUser]

What you are saying is very controversal and a lot of people said one should not do that and it may hurt one's applications, especially taking about parents died of cancers or being abused as a child!

[ArchivalUser]

This is a complicated topic! There are nuanced ways to talk about a loved one passing away and inspiring you but you really have to beware of it coming off as manipulative, which is going to be entirely dependent on your writing skills. I would start writing next years PS immediately. Look for some tips on creative writing. The most popular tip in writing in general is "show, don't tell". Don't TELL your reader "this made me feel sad", they can infer this themselves, just state what happened. It will come off less like you are pleading for sympathy. You want THE READER to think "wow, that is sad", they don't need to literally read the words "I was sad".

Another tip: you need a hook in the first paragraph because if your first paragraph is generic and boring they will stop reading right there. Do something unique with that first paragraph, something that makes them want to figure out what will happen next. Do not start off "Hi my name is X, I am from X, I studied in X." Read the first paragraph of any classic novel to see the technique in action. You want to leave them wanting more, questioning what will come next.

Start now, your PS is arguably the most important piece of writing you will ever write, it's not something you just write up a few weeks before September. Write one, put it away for 2 weeks and read it with fresh eyes, edit, repeat till september.

[ArchivalUser]

I don't think a sad story telling people what you've suffered will do you any good. It's almost cliche and remember there're always people have been through worse than you. My PS is based on my personal experience but it's an exciting one. Several interviewers said it was quite unique and enjoyed reading it. Try find one of your precious moments in life and figure out how to connect it to your career passion.

[ArchivalUser]

I think at this point, people want to try something different. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result never really works out well.

If taking a different approach with your PS will help, then give it a go! Those are the components of your credentials you can still exercise power over.

You wouldn't have much to lose by going a different route.

Good Luck to all.