HOW TO CREATE YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT - some tips

• Why are you interested in the field of your choice?
  
• What are you looking for in a residency program?
  
• How the field aligns with your professional goals?
  

Your statement should be aimed at the specialty in which you are applying. For instance, many primary care fields place a huge emphasis on your community service involvement whereas more competitive specialties such as dermatology and orthopedic surgery look for research endeavors and publications. You should try to get advice from someone who has just gone through the application process, particularly if they have gone through your desired specialty.

General "Do's"

1. Try to unite your essay with a central theme. If possible paint multiple pictures of your professional development around this theme, and link it to your field of choice. This allows the statement to flow logically.
   
2. Unless you pursued another degree or participated in some significant research or community service project during your preclinical years, most of the content of your statement should address your clinical development during medical school. Most residency programs express minimal concern for your preclinical performance, presuming that you suffered no academic failures or setbacks. If your institution has grades, your transcript will speak for your preclinical performance. The only information that you should address during your preclinical years of medical school should be related to evidence of outstanding achievement, volunteerism or extra-curricular activities. You should be able to relate the latter to your current interest to pursue the field of your choice.
   
3. Use interesting or unique background experiences to complement your personal statement. This will be your "anti-clone" factor that distinguishes you from every other individual applying in your field. You will need to ensure that these personal factors, triumphs, obstacles, or experiences are clearly relevant to the progression of your essay.
   
4. Utilize the following advice, which applies to all admissions essays:

• Begin your statement with an attention-grabbing first paragraph.
• Provide specific narratives or examples in order to demonstrate any personal attributes you cultivated or lessons you learned. Avoid making statements such as "I am determined and hardworking" without backing them up with solid evidence.
• Keep your sentences concise and direct. Many of the physician application reviewers are busy people who cannot decipher advanced literary writing techniques.
• Link your conclusion back to your introduction.
  

General "Don'ts"

1. Your statement should not be an expanded version of your CV. The ERAS application allows more than ample space for you to discuss your paid work and volunteer experiences, research endeavors and publications, language fluency, hobbies and interests, and other awards and accomplishments. Only mention relevant endeavors or poignant experiences.
2. You should avoid including any information in your essay that you could not discuss at some length at interview or that may be contradicted by other written evidence. Though this may seem facetious, some applicants will exaggerate their role in particular research projects or community service activities, but be unable to discuss them thoroughly in interviews. This can prove to be extremely detrimental to your candidacy. Also, some applicants have written things in these statements that directly contradict information written by their recommenders. Because waiving your rights to viewing letters of recommendation is the norm, you often will not know what your letter writers will say about you. Thus, only truthful information should appear in your statement.
3. Your essay should avoid the following common indicators of poorly written or edited documents:
   

• Lack of flow
• Spelling and grammatical errors
• Clichés
• Redundant or extraneous words

SUMMARY

Some sample personal statements

Personal Statement #1

As someone who has always been very goal-oriented, I am looking forward to beginning my residency. My life to date has prepared me to deal with many obstacles and also has shown me the determination, resilience, strength, and caring that are a part of my character. As I look toward my future in medicine, I believe these characteristics will enable me to succeed and be a valuable asset to the profession. My experiences have been very rewarding because I have identified with patients and admired their courage in the face of an uncertain prognosis. I anticipate that working in internal medicine will be equally rewarding and look forward with enthusiasm.

Personal Statement #2

[From Drexel University School of Medicine]
After enjoying every clinical rotation during my third year I thought it would be difficult to choose a specialty, but ultimately it was an easy decision. By the end of my third year, I suspected that Emergency Medicine was right for me. This belief was confirmed on the first day of my fourth-year Emergency Medicine elective and continued through my Pediatric Emergency Medicine elective. The variety of clinical encounters, procedures, and degrees of illness makes Emergency Medicine extremely appealing to me. Being the first physician to assess the patient's needs, provide treatment, and recommend a next step for continued treatment is both challenging and gratifying. Each new patient presents something different and each will provide a learning opportunity at all phases of my career.

My past experiences have helped me develop qualities that are essential for the practice of Emergency Medicine. My hard work and motivation to learn have enabled me to develop a broad foundation of knowledge and clinical skills. My service on the Honor Court as president and as a representative, and my participation on faculty committees has fostered leadership, decision-making, and communication skills that will be valuable whether I am working with students, house officers, faculty members, or consultants. My many years of varsity soccer have helped me to strengthen my mental and physical endurance, discipline and teamwork. Developing a tuberculosis screening clinic and working with people with HIV who were addicted to drugs heightened my sensitivity and my desire to work with patients from all backgrounds. My supportive wife, parents, and brothers, and interests outside of medicine, including running, soccer, tennis, and music, provide me with a necessary balance in my life. They have also helped me develop the strength and vision necessary to accomplish my goals within and outside of my medical career.

I would like to continue my education in an academic residency program which includes a varied patient population and ample opportunities to obtain the training and skills that a competent Emergency Medicine physician needs. I look forward to involvement in research opportunities so that I might contribute to the exciting and rapidly growing field of Emergency Medicine research. I will consider completing a fellowship after I have had some experience as a house officer. I intend to make teaching part of my career, as a way to continue my academic, clinical, and personal growth. My ultimate goal is to improve the practice and delivery of Emergency Medicine as a leader and teacher in the setting in which I practice.

Thank you for your consideration. I look ahead to the next phase of my training with great excitement and strong commitment.

Personal Statement #3

[From UCSF School of Medicine]
You can learn much about a person’s goals by knowing who he or she seeks to emulate. I have two such role models who share the quality of putting their beliefs into action. The first is Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and leader of the Children’s Defense Fund, who is a champion for children. She has impressed me by continuing, undaunted, to press for change in a social and political climate that is unfriendly to the concerns of children.

I met my second role model during one of the most influential clinical experiences I have had as a medical student—my junior pediatrics rotation at San Francisco General Hospital. Like Edelman, Dr. Sylvia Villarreal puts her beliefs into action. As the director of the outpatient clinic for highrisk kids, she dedicates herself to preventing her usually poor and often non-English speaking patients from falling through the cracks in a complicated medical care system. Some who work with needy populations become bitter and jaded, but a crucial lesson I learned from her is that maintaining respect and compassion for patients prevents this destructive attitude from sapping the energy such important work requires. During that rotation, I also learned a great deal from my patients, such as the 12-year old boy with Type I Diabetes, whose frustration with the limitations imposed by his illness was vented by secretly snacking on sweets. He taught me that being a good doctor entailed far more than knowing the pathophysiology of diabetic ketoacidosis; it requires an attention to the human dimension of patients and their families. In addition to a dosage schedule of insulin, he needed me to understand the emotional and psychological ramifications of his illness. This extra step of empathy is the difference between the physician as a highly skilled technician and the physician as a compassionate ally.

My decision to be a pediatrician is a coalescence of several driving forces. Perhaps most important is my desire to be an advocate, like Edelman and Villarreal, for those who may be unable to protect their own interests. All physicians can be advocates for their patients but in pediatrics the need is more compelling because children lack the political and social clout to argue their own case. Second, there is my love of teaching on a one-to-one basis. A significant part of being a pediatrician is educating children and their parents about the preventive measures needed to negotiate the pitfalls of childhood and adolescence. I look forward to the opportunity to intervene with children before their health has been damaged by environmental and social factors, such as lead poisoning and smoking.

During my study of public health, I developed a particular concern about the alarming rates of health problems such as violence, sexually-transmitted diseases and pregnancy among teens. I recognize that working with young people who are struggling to become adults, without becoming a statistic, is inherently challenging, but I also know of the immense personal satisfaction that can come from such work. Finally, I have a long-standing interest in health policy which will mesh well with pediatrics since there is such a need for comprehensive policies regarding children and adolescents. It was abundantly clear during my rotation at San Francisco General that there are enormous social and economic costs to neglecting our children. My training in public health and as a pediatrician will give me the experience and authority to draw public attention to these costs.

I see my career as one in which clinical medicine and public health policy are constantly intermingled, because my interest in both are fed by the same fundamental desire to improve the health status of underserved populations. I can intercede on an individual scale as a practicing pediatrician and on a broader scale as a physician involved in health policy. I am excited by the prospect of combining the roles of clinician, teacher, policy-maker and advocate. Marian Wright Edelman has said that “service is the rent we pay for living.” I hope to demonstrate my respect for her and others who have sought to improve the lives of children by incorporating those words into my life’s work.

Personal Statement #4

[From Drexel University School of Medicine]
Life experience has uniquely prepared me for a residency in emergency medicine. I was born in Baton Rouge Louisiana in 1957. My father was a plumber and my mother was a Mexican immigrant who left school in third grade. My parents had great hopes for me; my mom encouraged me to go to college and my father would read books about science, such as The Origin of the Species, with me. But there was a secret at home. My mother, my siblings and I were victims of domestic abuse. Although I dreamed of being a doctor, my aspirations were limited by my chaotic home environment and by my parents' impoverishment. And so at the age of eighteen, I married and left home.

.As the wife of a successful businessman I relished raising my two sons. Outwardly life was idyllic. My greatest desire was to go to college, but my husband was opposed. Against his wishes, I took two classes a semester for nine years. Eventually I finished my bachelors degree in interior design, a field he found acceptable. But I was still interested in science. When my children would go to the doctor, I would come home and read about their illnesses. Attracted by the excitement and variety of emergency medicine, I eventually started volunteering in a level one trauma center. I soon became a weekend night regular at the emergency department, helping and learning when I could. Finally in 1994, 1 left my children with their father and stepmother, and entered medical school. It was the most difficult choice I have ever made.

Emergency medicine has been a natural choice for me. It provides the intellectual challenge of diversity and change while requiring poise under pressure. In particular it demands concentration to deal with acute disease processes. Motherhood gives you nerves of steel. It has taught me to think quickly and remain focused under stressful conditions. It has also taught me patience and diligence, conditions of parenthood. As a working mom who was also studying pre-medicine, I developed tremendous mental and physical stamina. I learned to manage and execute multiple tasks, a skill that would be an asset in any busy emergency room. At the same time, because of my early life experiences, I do not shy away from the many complex social issues that confront the emergency physician. I will never forget the sacred trust I hold with my patients, especially those who feel powerless and who turn to the medica' professionals for help. To fulfill these social convictions, I have sought further training in recognizing and treating domestic abuse; I participated in two workshops offered by Physicians for Social Responsibility addressing this topic. In addition, I was awarded a National Medical Fellowships Substance Abuse Treatment and Research Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania as a third year medical student.

After residency, I would like to practice emergency medicine in an urban medical center. Ultimately my goal is to be the best clinician possible, while serving in an academic setting. There is an enthusiasm in the teaching environment that energizes me; I would like to pass that excitement along to those that follow me. In addition, teaching requires one to broaden their knowledge base and procedural skills. Most importantly, I would also like to educate students of medicine towards issues of domestic and substance abuse, especially as it impacts the in the emergency department setting. Completing four years of medical school has been the fulfillment of a dream for me. It is through emergency medicine that I feel that I can serve best. Thank you for your consideration.