Personal Statement

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This paper is for my Medical School Application. This is the prompt: (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. Some questions you may want to consider while drafting this essay are: Why have you selected the field of medicine? What motivates you to learn more about medicine? What do you want medical schools to know about you that hasn’t been disclosed in another section of the application? In addition, you may wish to include information such as: Special hardships, challenges or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits Commentary on significant fluctuations in your academic record which are not explained elsewhere in your application) I have written a rough draft, it is incomplete but i will add in a detailed story of which you can work with. Please ask me for any information that you think could provide you assistance in writing this. You do not need to just work on my rough draft, you can draft you own essay but use the material from my essay. I know I have asked for 24 hours, but if you have any questions or anything that would make it better, that time can be extended. Thank you

The first image I remember once I gained consciousness was my reflection in the mirror; I had a laceration in my ear and blood pouring down my face. I could not feel anything,my entire body was numb. Even though I was in serious danger, the only thing that came to my mind was that if I had been severely injured I could not become a physician.

My friend will never let me live down that night. He always emphasizes that when I regained consciousness my first words were, “I can’t move my neck, I can’t be a doctor.” As foolish as that sounds, it was my first thought, even before I even felt pain. After finally turning toward my friend, the look of fear and nausea on his face caused me to panic.

It was October 31st and my friends and I were in our costumes, ready to enjoy Halloween. As the night progressed, a friend of mine was approached by a man looking for a fight. After I thought he had successfully diffused the situation, I turned and faced the other direction. Unfortunately, I had actually put myself in the line of fire as the man smashed a large glass bottle over my head, unprovoked.

I was rushed to the ER where I first encountered a nurse who informed me that if the cut on my neck was a few centimeters lower I may not have lived. After waiting nervously, a man rushed in and introduced himself as a plastic surgeon. As he wiped the blood off of my neck and began to prepare for the procedure, he struck up a casual conversation with me. After I had told him about my interest in medicine, he informed me, “I am going to debride the wound edges of your ear and then begin to suture both your ear and neck to achieve appropriate anatomy.” He then positioned a mirror so that I would be able to watch the procedure. At that moment, my fear had escaped and was replaced by intrigue and excitement. I no longer felt like a patient, but rather as though I had gone back to 11th grade when I was a volunteer shadowing a surgeon.

My initial interest in medicine began working at my father’s office. For such a small town in upstate New York, my father’s office was always packed. Even though I had worked there for many years, when I reminisce of those times, only one memory comes to mind: Shirley, my father’s previous employee, running into my father’s room giving him an enormous hug. Afterwards I asked her why she was so happy to see my father. She told me that a couple of months ago she had gone to the hospital because she had not been feeling well. However her initial cough and shortness of breath got much worse in the ER and she was put onto a ventilator and admitted. Shortly her lungs improved but she became completely paralyzed. As this persisted, many of the doctors and her family was thinking of ways to make her comfortable, losing all hope that she would get out of her current vegetable state. However, after my father heard of what had happened, he took her case. He refused to let the family lose hope and constantly reassured them. Eventually my father found the problem, and took her off her current treatment and treated her for steroid myopathy. Within weeks she began to regain activity in her limbs. She later was taken off the ventilator and is now completely healthy and is able to walk and live a happy life. She thanks my dad for not giving up and for giving her more time to live, when even her family had thought her time was up. From this experience, I really was able to see the effect medicine had first hand and it solidified my interest in medicine.

Wanting to enter a profession in which I could both help and interact with people led me to my first position in the medical field. Volunteering at a hospital in high school was very educational, but there was something important missing from the experience-I had only viewed the physician operate after the patients were put under anesthesia, never having the chance to interact with them. As I entered college I found a position at the NYU School of Medicine Center for AIDS Research. The clinical aspect of my job was to assay the blood samples of patients for the progression or regression of HIV andAIDS. However, I only worked with the blood that was delivered to our lab from the nurses, so once again I was unable to interact with patients. As time went on and I gained more experience, I was able to move on to more complex research. My last project involved methods to detect the cause of T cell anergy and AIDS pathogenesis. I am highly aware of the tremendous amount of people that this research may help in the future, and have a great interest in research, however this role had been very technical and I have a strong desire for an area of medicine that is more relationship based.

My experience in the ER, however, had finally completed the picture because it allowed me to fully comprehend the significance of the doctor-patient interaction in medicine. My physician’s ability to converse with me as a person calmed me down and made me feel comfortable before he proceeded. After being able to view the many dimensions of the medical field, I became certain of my decision to become a physician.

Having seen the effectiveness of my physician’s interaction with me in the ER, I decided to implement a similar tactic of interaction with my students at the Youth Employment Services (Y.E.S.) program. This program was set up to aid at-risk young adults with Axis I diagnosis in preparation for their GED exam. I was able to quickly set myself apart from the other volunteers by personally connecting with each of my students before proceeding to teach them the material. I found that they became more responsive after establishing trust in me rather than if I tried to introduce new material without creating a comfortable atmosphere.

I realize now how important it was that the doctor was able to allay my fear by connecting with me and how that made for a more positive treatment. I know my experience at the Y.E.S. program is very different from what I will encounter as a physician, but hopefully I will have the opportunity to transfer my experiences with these students to my patients in the future. I am thankful to this day not only because my physician did an amazing job suturing my wounds and probably saving my life, but also because through that experience I finally understood the emotions and gratidtude Shirley had felt as she enthusiastically hugged my father. I know I want to help people and perform life altering procedures, allowing people to live better lives. I just hope that one day I will be able to bring the same joy to my patients as my father had done for Shirley.