One of the most nerve-wracking parts of applying to medical school is crafting your personal statement. Schools use MCAT scores and GPAs as a quick and easy way to eliminate applicants. The personal statement is your chance to say, "Please don't toss me in the recycling bin yet."
I really can't remember how many times I revised this essay. By the time I was done with it, I felt a combination of satisfied with it and sick of it. I'm posting this here as there are very few examples of personal statements for medical school applicants to read. My take on it was to emphasize the "personal" and to explain why medical school at this juncture in my life as opposed to when I was younger. All in less than 4500 characters.
Personal
Statement
January
days aren't supposed to be bright and beautiful, but this one was. The azure
sky was a crisp backdrop to the dormant trees. The tall oaks reached
heavenward, surrounding the lawn like a fortress wall. Their bare branches
reminded me that despite the warm sunlight on my skin, it was the dead of
winter.
The
metallic blue coffin in front of me held my father's body. His diagnosis of
cancer had come less than three months earlier, on Halloween. As a 14-year-old,
I thought it was impossible for a disease to take my dad.
Just
the month prior, I sat at the foot of his hospital bed. "You know," I
told him, "I've heard about people who got rid of their cancer. They
visualized their bodies destroying all of their cancer cells, and it
worked." Dad just smiled. His once thick, black hair was now thinning. His
eyes were tired, his face swollen.
It
was odd for me to be there, at the foot of his bed. I wanted to cuddle close to
him, rest against his shoulder, talk to him, just as I normally did, but
everything about the hospital room told me to stay away. The leads and lines
connected him to massive machines. The wires and tubing looked too delicate to
touch. Long before cancer took my father's life, the hospital had taken him out
of my reach.
As
I headed off to college, I knew that a career in medicine was not for me. Three
years after Dad's death, doctors and hospitals still meant shattered dreams. I
chose a degree in the social sciences. I learned how the most primitive and
intimate relationships we form early in life profoundly shape who we become. I
sought to understand the human connections which influence how individuals
respond to the human condition. Nothing was more fascinating.
The
mother-child dyad had been a particularly intriguing area of study for me. I
got married while I was a college student, and started a family. Once I became
a mother, theory was tossed aside. Motherhood transformed me through the new
roles that I took on. Even after my daughter was born, I found myself endlessly
reading about the physical and emotional processes of childbearing.
Assisting
a woman through her journey into motherhood was a way for me to integrate my
personal experiences and my education. I became a childbirth educator and a
doula (birth assistant). Preparing couples for birth and parenting, and
attending births, reframed my view of hospitals. It became a place where I
belonged, a place where my skills helped others navigate challenging and
transformative events. Most significantly, I was able to serve as a bridge that
helped patients stay connected to their loved ones despite the wires and
tubing.
Working
as a doula was the first time in my life that I felt the call to become a
physician, and I felt torn. I had two small children at that time and a desire
to have more. The lifestyle of a medical student seemed at odds with the
lifestyle of a baby-wearing, breastfeeding-on-demand, young mother. The thought
of working my way through the science courses was daunting. Medicine simply
wasn't a priority.
Though
I enjoyed my work as a childbirth educator and a doula, I wanted to do more.
Becoming a midwife felt like the logical next step. The training was
challenging both didactically and physically, yet it still allowed me to enjoy
a balance between family and career. Working as a midwife has been immensely
enjoyable. I still feel privileged to be at each birth I attend--rendering
meaningful service to the families that I care for. That desire to become a
physician, however, hasn't left me. I still have that drive to do more and
become more, and that drive has grown.
In
October 2010, I sat down next to a 68-year-old woman at a professional
conference. Some might call it fate, others might consider it a coincidence,
but our conversation is something that my mind has returned to over and over
again. The stranger who I sat by was at the tail-end of an FNP program. She
asked me about my clinical background, and I shared that I was a midwife.
"You're
a midwife?" It was more of an exclamation than a question. "I've
always wanted to be a midwife! I want to start a midwifery program once I'm
finished with my family practice classes."
"Do
you mean to tell me that the dreams don't just fizzle out and disappear with
time?" I laughed. "I've
dreamed of becoming a doctor for the last ten years. If I don't do it now, does
that mean I'll find myself applying to med school in my 60s?"
"Of
course you will, and you already know that," she said in all seriousness.
"If there is something you truly want, it will never go away."
Less
than two weeks after that conversation, my big sister died unexpectedly. Sara
was the one who stood next to me at Dad's funeral. She was the one who held my
hand during the service. And she was the one who told me that we (especially
me) were going to be all right.
At
her funeral, I thought of Sara, Dad, and Mother (who passed away 10 years ago).
I felt that two paths were set before me--one of feeling lost and another that
told me to seize the day. Every day, Sara's passing reminds me that life is
simply too short to stop moving forward.
