Starting to Draft the Personal Statement

The personal statement is the first part of your application where the medical schools can learn about you, it is your opening statement. Many schools use the GPA and MCAT as a screening tool to "trim down" the applicants and, to them, the personal statement is their start of the evaluation of you in earnest. As the first and largest written component of your application, it is your chance to show why you want to be a doctor and what type of doctor you want to be (other components are activities descriptions and secondaries). Moreover, many medical school interviews start with information laid out in your personal statement. 

When to start writing your personal statement?

I started writing my personal statement in March the year that I was applying. By starting early, you give yourself the opportunity to have more people read over your statement and give you feedback. It may feel daunting to start, I felt that I didn't know where to begin at first. However, you need to start writing in order to have anything to edit. 

What should I write about in my personal statement?

The personal statement should tell medical schools about who you are, your journey in medicine, and why you're going to make a good doctor. I find that the most successful personal statements illustrate these qualities through stories. 

For example, I wrote about how my first introduction into medicine was my cousin's cochlear implant. I then discussed that some of my most meaningful experiences included researching cochlear-vestibular implants in college and taking Deaf-culture classes. From the medical perspective, cochlear implants were revolutionary and seemed to be a no-brainer for patients. However, I learned that this is not a view shared entirely by the Deaf community. The Deaf community did not view Deafness as something that needed to be “fixed”, and many of the members did not prefer to have a cochlear implant. These experiences showed me that there is a depth to the humanity of practicing medicine. There is not one right answer for each “illness”. At the end of the day, doctor’s don’t treat disease, they treat patients who are unique from the illness they present with. 

Over the years, I have seen people build their personal statements around themes such as love of lifelong learning, their desire to treat a particular community, or the intersection of their research interest and clinical medicine among many things. The most important thing is to be able to tell your narrative and support it through life experiences. 

In summary, now (March) is a good time to start drafting your personal statement. Start by thinking about what you want to convey about yourself and gather the experiences/stories that illustrate that. Don’t be afraid to change things up as you go and scrap pieces of writing. I recommend keeping a file of scrapped writing so you can always revisit it later for the personal statement, activities description, or secondaries. In the upcoming posts, we will discuss mistakes to avoid, how/where to find proof-readers, and how to refine your initial drafts.