Residency Personal Statement Samples -MDpersonalstatements.com

Residency Personal Statement Tip #4 – Learn to Capitalize

admin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 05:52:50 +0000

Residency Personal Statement Tip # 4 : Learn to Capitalize Properly

A resident (or intern) will spend a lot of time writing notes and signing progress notes, operative notes, or other notes all day long. If you cannot write properly, it will make you look sloppy, unintelligent, and messy. One mistake or annoyance we see in reading personal statements all day long is that people have not learned that only proper nouns need to be capitalized. Here are some simple things to keep in mind on what to capitalize and what NOT to capitalize.

If you are going to capitalize the name of your specialty in the essay like “Internal Medicine”, then just make it consistent thru the ENTIRE essay. Don’t use “internal medicine” one place, “Internal Medicine” in another and “Internal medicine” in yet another part of the essay. Do the same thing thru the essay. Some residency personal statements contain their specialty in capitals, others without. This is a bit of a grey area.

Names of diseases only need to be capitalized if they are named after a person, like “Sjogren’s syndrome”, “Kawasaki’s Disease”

Things like “Congestive Heart Failure, “Myocardial Infarction”, “Asthma” do NOT need to be capitalized!

The name of your training institution like “Smith University School of Medicine” should be capitalized, as should things like “California” or the names of cities like “New York”

Also, NEVER capitalize entire words, like “INTERNAL MEDICINE” “BEST MEDICAL SCHOOL IN MY COUNTRY”, “SCORED THE BEST OUT OF TEN MILLION APPLICANTS IN MY COUNTRY” It looks ridiculous.

Improper spelling, grammar, and capitalization, will appear sloppy and unprofessional. It is a huge turn off for you to use bad “manners” in your residency personal statement.

Residency Personal Statement Tip #3

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:30:58 +0000

Residency Personal Statement Tip # 3 : Avoid the “Growing Up in the Boonies” Introduction

Sometimes residency applicants like to start off their residency personal statements by explaining where they were born, which is fine. However, if you do so, make it interesting, explaining how you then learned or gained something from that experience that is now bringing you to residency training in the US.Residency directors and program directors do not want to hear about the poor village you grew up in, just for the sake of you mentioning it. There are doctors around the world born in poor areas of the world, so don’t think that you are the only one!

“It is still clear and afresh, when I was 12 years old; I hail from a place where you find green pasture everywhere, the community is solely based on agriculture. One evening one of my neighbors had a serous stomach ache, and the nearest hospital is about15km away and fastest means of transportation for poor is Bullock Cart. Since his financial situations were barely enough to make his end meet. He being so poor and with his current financial situation he cannot see a doctor or go to a hospital until he managed to borrow some money. By the time he reached the hospital, they mentioned the condition is serious and he was immediately admitted into ICU and his recovery took a little longer than a normal one and he expressed deep concern about need of having a local hospital in the neighborhood.” ” - from a real essay

“My passion for medicine started early in my school days as I come from Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India far-off from Indian subcontinent which has only one main hospital with very few facilities and specialists team. So for any major medical illness and life threatening ailment we have to rush to mainland for treatment which is 2 hours travel by flight or 3 days by ship. Having seen too many lives just missed by not having proper medical facility, I determined to become a doctor and serve the people around me as much as I can.” – from a real essay

Because these readers grew up far from medical treatment as children, they wanted to become physicians. This is very boring and cliche for readers. Remember, this essay is about becoming a resident here in the US, not about the WHY you became a doctor. These types of introductions are incredibly common and quite uninteresting.

Residency Personal Statement Tip #2

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:08:05 +0000

Residency Personal Statement Tip # 2 : Don’t Discuss Irrelevant Achievements.

Sometimes applicants have a tendency to discuss things that are completely irrelevant to the practice of medicine. Talking about winning your high school tennis title, or the chess club championship is not interesting for residency directors to be reading about. If you are going to talk about an achievement outside of medicine (which is fine), you need to then explain why you are mentioning it and how it makes you a better, stronger applicant. For example “I honed my skills in strategy, and logic by participating and winning our school’s Robotics Challenge as an undergraduate. This experience helped me by forcing me to thoroughly plan and build projects not unlike planning the steps to a surgical procedure. This ability to take complex problems and break them down into logical steps will help me as a future surgeon.” DON’T mention something just to brag or “show off.”

“During my second year, there was an All India Medical Schools meet in which I won the Silver Medal in Ping Pong. I was the only student in that year to win a medal of all the medical schools from my state. I remember the welcome party which was arranged for me and the words which my Principal said to me, “we are proud to have a student like you in my medical school”. In the subsequent years I won several medals in various sports and games and won the title “sports achiever of the year” for two consecutive years. This boosted up my confidence that I can handle my studies along with other curricular activities” – from a real essay

Again, How does Ping Pong relate to this applicant’s suitability to becoming a resident? Is your future residency director looking for a Ping Pong Playa?!

Personal Statement Rule #1

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:39:54 +0000

Tip # 1 : Don’t Talk About the Value You Place On Education.

Everyone in medicine obviously values education a great deal. You don’t need to emphasize this or think you’re the only one in the world who values a good education. It really doesn’t matter now if your parents were tough on you or if they pushed you to excel. That is irrelevant now that you are about to be a resident.

“I have always placed a high value on education. As the youngest of three sisters growing up in a part of the country where girl children are still not very well received, I knew early on that I would have to work hard to prove myself and carve out a professional niche for myself in society. I have been very ambitious through out my life and it has always been one of my primary goals to make my family proud. Always a very successful student, I was particularly interested in logical subjects like science and math. Whenever I earned good grades my parents eyes would always light up with a sense of joy and pride and seeing this would further inspire me to strive harder in life.” – from a real essay

“From my childhood my parents took special interest in my studies as any responsible parents do. But I always found myself in a better position when compared to my peers in the school regarding the knowledge related to science. My parents, especially my mother used to read and listen to different science articles, understand them and explained me and my siblings and encouraged to question and I developed the thought process from the very childhood. I participated in many science exhibitions as a spectator in my school age followed by my own science projects. I also passed many National Science Talent Exams which was out of my regular school curriculum.” – from a real essay

Again, not only does this writer compare himself to other children (irrelevant), but he also talks about how the parents read them scientific articles. How is this supposed to be relevant NOW? Do yourself a favor and do not bore the reader!

Dermatology Residency Personal Statement #1

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:19:17 +0000

I hid behind my mother and asked myself, “Do I dare look again?” In all of my six years, I had never seen such an unusual looking person. In front of me stood a lady with white hair and ghostly pale skin flecked with scattered brown spots. Why did she look like that? If she was truly my mom’s sister, why wasn’t she brown like everyone else in the family? Years later, I learned that my aunt had vitiligo affecting her entire body. Unfortunately, I learned that prejudice is a common reaction to physical afflictions, and I regretted that as a small child I had been so frightened of her based solely on her appearance.
Soon after meeting my aunt, my mother was diagnosed with psoriasis and I myself with contact dermatitis. Skin disease quickly became a common theme in my life, and my interest in dermatology began to grow. I also remember my mother soaking the thickened, cracked skin that covered her elbows, knees, and soles in a tub of tar for relief. Carrying these memories with me, I embraced every opportunity to focus on skin conditions as a medical student. Once I began clinical clerkships, I continued to find “dermatology” patients during each rotation: babies with severe eczema in pediatrics, a patient with metastatic melanoma in surgery, a woman with pulmonary sarcoidosis who presented with cutaneous granulomas in internal medicine, and in family medicine, numerous patients with skin conditions that often bewildered their primary care providers. The more patients I saw with skin disease, the more I wanted to see and learn.
During my third year of medical school, I spent every Thursday afternoon in the dermatology clinic at a local county hospital and completed several dermatology rotations, soaking up all the information I could. One of the most memorable cases I saw was during my pediatric dermatology rotation at Major Childrens’ Hospital. One little girl, “Christina,” came in for a giant congential melanocytic nevus covering at least half of her upper body. Her parents expressed a desire for treatment because, although they had accepted Christina as she was, other children at school were teasing her about her condition.
.This experience illustrated that discrimination based on skin conditions transverses all ethnicities and all ages. Christina’s case further illustrated that skin disease also affects an individual’s mental well-being. Such discrimination based on a seemingly harmless skin conditions severely limits an individual’s quality of life and may result in significant psychological debilitation for patients and their families. An individual’s skin affects the first impression he or she makes[implied from above]As I realized how severely these conditions impacted daily life, my understanding of the important role of skin disease and the impact of effective treatment continued to deepen.
“Mr. Davis,” a patient with severe, widespread psoriasis involving 80-90% of his body, served as real-life example of what an impact treatment can make. When I first saw Mr. Davis, recalling my own mother’s battle to control her limited psoriasis, I knew he must be miserable. He had failed every topical agent available, so the decision was made to begin him on a TNF-alpha antagonist. Not only did Mr. Davis’s skin lesions clear, but he felt his quality of life had improved considerably within months of starting this new medication. Unlike hypertension or diabetes, the clinical manifestations of dermatologic conditions arevisible for the world to see. To so clearly see the results of treatment in the patient’s skin quality—not masked in a lab value, as they might be for many internal conditions—is not only gratifying to the health care provider, but also aids in restoring the patient’s self esteem.
Soon after seeing Mr. Davis, I began collaborating with other dermatology students and staff to research treatments of psoriasis. We conducted a retrospective chart review examining the sustained efficacy of adalimumab in the treatment of psoriasis and found that patients had good response to this drugIt is exciting to think that information we provided may contribute to the FDA approval of this drug for psoriasis. Through this research and cases such as Mr. Davis’s, I have found that one of my favorite aspects of the field is the response to treatment.
Another appealing aspect of dermatology is the highly academic nature of the field, which demands that residents and faculty continually educate themselves and others. As president of a student-run melanoma awareness group, Check Your Skin, I traveled to local middle schools to educate students about skin protection and skin cancer detection. The workshops required an enormous amount of initiative and flexibility to design presentations that captivated the attention of the children while delivering our message. Through this experience, I began to develop my teaching skills, essential for the highly academic field of dermatology. I have further demonstrated my desire to learn and teach through the several articles I have completed, which both further my understanding of these skin conditions and contribute to the collective knowledge-base of the field.
I have always known that skin disease played an important role in my life. Up until medical school, my role was as a patient, a family member, and a supporter of those affected. But as a medical student, my role in dermatology became more active: I was able to educate others about skin disease as well as begin to diagnose and treat their conditions as part of a larger team. Throughout my medical school career I have worked with patients affected with a wide variety of diseases, cutaneous and otherwise, but I will never forget that first encounter with my aunt and how afraid of her I was simply because of her skin disease. Dermatologic conditions significantly impact patients’ quality of life – whether it is the embarrassment caused by disfiguring acne, a decline in social status as experienced by my aunt, or the taunting and teasing experienced by young Christina; dermatology is more than skin deep. I have seen that dermatologic conditions extend over multiple medical specialties, making knowledge of these conditions invaluable to any physician. I possess the desire and skills to excel in dermatology, and I delight at the prospect of joining the field that diagnoses and treats these conditions and ultimately helps restore a sense of self-confidence in our patients.

Successful Family Medicine Residency Personal Statement #7

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:15:16 +0000

I cherished every moment of medical school, from studying basic science to attending clinical rotations. During this time, I came across a wide variety of patients from different stages and aspects of life. Finding that managing health care for different age groups is challenging and intellectually appealing I knew I would enjoy family medicine. I was amazed to utilize a broad knowledge base- to make patients better.

During internship rotations for one year, I gained more hands on experience and the chance of working with patients of all ages from diverse socioeconomic and cultural settings. While attending outpatient clinics and emergencies in different specialties I developed a good rapport with patients, sharpening my clinical and communication skills. I noticed that understanding family dynamics is essential in performing a complete assessment and treating patient conditions.

After internship with a view to explore other specialties I worked as a house officer in anesthesia, where I would meet a wide variety of patients during pre and postoperative assessments. Though I enjoyed this specialty I always missed continuity care for patients. But while working in anesthesia I learned many l procedures and learned to give comfort, confidence, and hope to anxious patients before and during surgery.

After completing my position in anesthesia I joined a family practice office where I managed patients under the guidance of senior family practitioner. This time confirmed my belief that family practice is unique among other specialties in that patients are viewed in the context of family. This is the specialty where the doctor patient relationship is being developed, nurtured, valued and maintained, forming the cornerstone of excellent patient management.

It was a great honor to complete a clinical observership at the Large Comprehensive Cancer Center in Famous University and work with a team of doctors and nurses fighting the battle against cancer. During this time, I became accustomed to the American health system and its ethics; while improving my communication and interpersonal skills, I also felt an obligation to give back to the community, so I worked as a research volunteer in Breast Cancer. This experience enhanced my analytical skills and helped me to understand the basics of research. While seeing elderly patients of cancer with their multiple physical and emotional problems I have developed deep interest in geriatric medicine and have become interested in pursuing this in the future.

During my life and clinical training, I have had the opportunity to interact with many types of personalities and that have helped me to develop an understanding and helping nature, unselfish attitude and learned the importance of teamwork. I strongly believe that my these assets will help to be successful resident in family medicine. My upcoming observership at CIty Hospital will provide me more insight patient management in medicine .

For my training program, I wish for a friendly and supportive environment where the faculty, residents, and staff work together as a collaborative team. I hope my program encourages me to continue to developing into a family physician with proficiency and humanity. I look forward to clinical practice, education, and research in family medicine. Without any requirements for geographic location, I look forward to traveling to wherever my future education leads me. My short-term goal is to work hard during my residency and mature as a physician; in the long run, I am looking to provide my services to a diverse population.

Sample Pathology Residency Personal Statements #3

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:01:41 +0000

“Doctor, is it benign or malignant?” I asked while lying on the examining table waiting restlessly for the result of my breast ultrasound. The radiologist gazed into those ambiguous echoes on the monitor for a couple of minutes, and eventually she said: “Well, to me, it looks like a benign lesion”. “But…” she continued, “We have to rely on the pathologic diagnosis”. Fortunately, a core biopsy demonstrated a fibroadenoma, and I was flooded with ultimate relief when I heard the biopsy result. This is the unique beauty of pathology as a medical specialty; it is the most powerful weapon to reach an accurate diagnosis, and it gives you a conclusion. As Sir William Osler put it, the pathologist is the doctor’s doctor. I believe that it is this unique feature of definitiveness that attracts me most to pathology. Making diagnoses is an intricate task that involves collecting, integrating and interpreting data obtained from a diverse range of sources. The intellectual challenges involved in deciphering these mysteries and the emotional euphoria of assisting patients with definite answers also immensely intrigue me.

Research interest is another important reason that I chose pathology. During my fifth year of medical school in China, I participated in a project to study the protective mechanism of a traditional medicine in a guinea pig asthma model which ignited my avid interest in research. Hence, after completing medical school, I came to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in molecular biology and pharmacology at the University of Big State Health Science Center. The 5-year Ph.D. training for me was both enlightening and rewarding. My work demonstrates that in addition to thiazolidinediones , rexinoids represent a second class of insulin sensitizing agents with potential application in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. These findings were published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Cell Death & Differentiation, and presented at several national/international conferences. I was honored with an achievement award and earned a top prize in the University graduate students poster competition. During this time and later postdoctoral work in the field of endometrial cancer, I have been closely collaborating with some outstanding pathologists, and I am always awed by their extensive knowledge, meticulous eye, analytical mind, and a strong sense of responsibility. It has made me realize that further residency training in pathology will afford me a more varied and balanced career. It will give me a unique platform to bridge basic research and clinical medicine, while applying the latest scientific discoveries to improving human health.

Making me a goof fit for pathology are not only my passion and solid research background, but my personal character as well. I have an inquisitive nature, an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and the discipline to maintain independent study. I have come to realize that constant study is not a tedious burden, but a luxurious pleasure. Also, I am a team player who loves working with others. All these mesh well with the field of pathology.

I am looking for a residency program that will provide rigorous and comprehensive pathologic training. I will devote my passion, energy, and medical expertise and research skills to serving my patients, to learning from my colleagues, and to educating medical students and young physicians. After residency, I plan to finish a fellowship in either oncologic pathology or ob/gyn pathology. I am currently completing an observationship in the Department of Pathology at the University of Large State Medical School at Metropolis, and this hands-on experience has me further convinced that the field of pathology is for me.

Sample Radiology Residency Personal Statement #2

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:56:48 +0000

Throughout my years in medical school, I have noticed some interesting parallels between chess, my childhood passion, and the practice of medicine. Chess is beautifully artistic, yet remarkably precise in its strategic demands. This balance is also an integral part of practicing medicine that a career in radiology can provide. Having to use my mind’s eye to craft an intricate game plan is also similar to approaching a radiographic study: systematic, but with a keen sense of curiosity. The actual “practice” of each may be different, but these similarities have contributed to my desire to pursue a career in radiology. By becoming a radiologist, I hope to become a valuable resource and positively influence the healthcare of all of my future patients.
One interesting aspect of radiology is its dichotomous nature. It is exquisitely technical, yet also one of the most abstract fields in medicine. I have always enjoyed activities that integrate the use of inventive thinking with careful execution. For instance, as a gross anatomy instructor, I was responsible for working with my peers to prepare each lesson in an engaging fashion while ensuring that we conveyed the main teaching points effectively. As a radiologist, I look forward to having similar academic challenges and opportunities for exchanging ideas and support with future colleagues. However, I am also drawn to the creativity of medical imaging, contrasting its concrete nature. Though the tangible features of each study are directly visible, I feel that I am able to maintain an open mindset to glean the most information possible. For me, being a radiologist is like being an imaginative interpreter, translating what patients cannot say in their own words, and discerning what they may not even know exists. It is this synergy of practicality and artistry that makes radiology a perfect specialty choice for me.
The extraordinary ability of radiologists to touch the lives of an array of patients is another characteristic that I look forward to having in my career. I find it very compelling that the knowledge I will gain can be used to help a wide variety of people. Though I may not meet the little girl who broke her leg falling from the jungle gym or the elderly man whose life journey will succumb to cancer, it is the ability nonetheless to have an impact in the healthcare of so many different individuals that I find very appealing.
Radiology is also a highly specialized field, yet it requires diligence and a desire for knowledge in many different areas of medicine. My research experience has allowed me to cultivate these crucial characteristics. Though focused in cardiac imaging, it was interesting for me to note the concomitant pathology that was present in our patients, and it enhanced my ability to correlate medical conditions with radiological findings. Each study I processed also required patience and enthusiasm, which I believe helped to reinforce my strong work ethic while developing my intellectual inquisitiveness. These are assets that I believe will be invaluable to me as I continue forward in my career.
I eagerly anticipate the prospect of being a member of a field that continues to redefine how we diagnose and treat a wide variety of diseases. In my opinion, the ultimate horizon for a radiologist is to be the modern-age “doctor’s doctor.” Through a career in radiology, I intend to intertwine my academic curiosity with my desire to provide people with a medical service that they can depend on in their most desperate health situations. To me, that’s what it truly means to practice medicine.

Welcome to MDpersonalstatements!

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:55:53 +0000

Welcome to the newest and most comprehensive residency personal statement site available for medical students. Writing your residency personals statement can be one of the most stressful and difficult parts of your entire med school period. The residency personal statement is a key part of your application and we are here to help!

MDpersonalstatements.com is dedicated to helping provide you the best and most complete information about writing your residency personal statement. No matter if this is for internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, or any other specialty! We can give you tips and tricks to help you avoid common mistakes and pitfalls. Visit us often for more example personal statements in our residency personal statement library.

Family Medicine Residency Personal Statement Sample #6

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:54:43 +0000

I began my medical career in internal medicine in China where I worked as a junior physician after graduation for three years. During the three-year hospital experience I worked with a variety of patients with a wide range of conditions and gained tremendous clinical experience involved in every aspect of managing patients. However, I saw an increasing need for nutrition education in the management of my patients with diabetes and hyperlipidemia, but felt frustrated by the lack of nutrition education in medical school. I developed a desire to pursue advanced training in applied nutrition as I believed this would give me a significant strength as a physician.

When I volunteered to counsel senior citizens at County Hospital Center in Large State on topics such as weight control, diabetes management and lipid profiles improvement, I developed a passionate interest in family medicine. The fact that people suffer from long-term chronic diseases despite the fact that most are preventable makes me believe that a successful therapeutic approach should include integrating healthy lifestyle choices with proven evidence-based treatment strategies. I surprisingly found that family medicine, a specialty has not developed in China, actually best fit my medical philosophy.

The aspect of family medicine that has attracted me most is its emphasis disease prevention, health promotion, primary management of common diseases, and long term relationships with patients at all ages. My interest in family medicine grew stronger in an incredible opportunity of following Dr. Paul, being a family physician for more than 40 years. I admired the long-term relationship he has built up with his patients; many of them were first seen by him as a young adult now already retired. I loved the practice with a wide variety of cases not limited by patients’ sex, age or organ system. I found that no speciality can provide me with the excitement of dealing with emergencies, treating all common diseases as well as take the responsibility of educating patients and improving their lifestyle. On the other side, I like to approach my work systemically and methodically to create a custom treatment plan for each individual. Moreover, with increasing number of immigrants to the US, I believe being a family physician together with my cultural background will allow me to provide valuable care to a minority population and help them access the healthcare system. I feel this is the best way that I can make my contribution to society and serve people.

While working with Dr. Ben for my Ph.D at the University of on an NIH funded geriatric research project, I served as his medical consultant. One important aspect of my role was to ensure the medical safety of subjects participating in exercise training, and answer questions regarding medications which subjects may take. This was a great opportunity of working closely with the elderly patients and also has helped me become familiar with preventative benefits of exercise. My academic and research experiences at U.S have not only provided me with rich and diverse knowledge, but also an ability to think critically and to problem solve independently which further improve my clinical skills such as in diagnostics and patients care.

My three year internal medicine training will be very helpful for a residency in family practice. By applying my prior experience and knowledge in the hospital and clinics, I can immediately be a productive member of the medical team. I will bring my enthusiasm, dedication and professionalism into my residency training in family medicine. In future, I plan to pursue a fellowship in geriatrics upon completing residency. I am eager to become a best family physician I can, to teach in a academic setting and to be in the cutting edge geriatric research.