Your Personal Statement: Your Very Own Move Trailer

Watch Video: Part One, Part Two

Some people say that their favorite part of going to the movies is watching the trailers.   In a time where attention spans seem to be getting shorter, the trailer serves as the quintessential format for our fast paced lifestyle: its quick, it’s to the point, and whether good, bad, or ugly, always elicits an emotion.  How many times have you leaned over to your friend after a trailer and said, ‘That looks awesome, we definitely have to see that’, or, ‘that looks terrible, I can’t believe they even made that movie’.

As one of the major components of your Residency Application, the personal statement (or PS) plays a similar role; only in this case, the ‘trailer’ is about YOU.  While other parts of your application define where you stand quantitatively, the PS describes you qualitatively.  Others can and will have similar qualifications with regard to USMLE scores, school transcript & clinical experience, but no one can claim what will always be unique to you: your experience.

Your first step is to figure out what to write about.  It’s important to realize that the personal statement is valuable real estate. Think of it as ocean front property for your application – giving residency program directors the best view of what makes you…you.

Common Mistakes:  Things to Avoid

Before we get to what TO DO, let’s go over some the common errors applicants make when they write their personal statement

One common mistake that applicants make is using their ps to write a summary of their entire application, or worse, a retelling of their entire life.  From birth.  Don’t laugh.  It happens.   You have less than one page to paint a picture, in words, about why they should choose you over another applicant with similar qualifications.  You cannot waste this space with information that can be found in other parts of your application.

Others make the mistake of using it as a pulpit from which to preach & brag about their accomplishments.   This is the application equivalent of ordering your own assassination.  The doctors that will be reading your application are well-respected in both in their specialty, research, and the field of medical education.  Many will be well-published, have been recognized for excellence in their profession, and one of them, guaranteed, will be so accomplished & respected in a hospital that he/she was entrusted with a specialty’s entire training program…The program director.   So unless you contributed to research that lead to the cure for cancer, you need to remain humble.  In fact, even if you discovered the cure for cancer (thanks ahead of time, by the way), you should STILL show humility.  Respect in the hospital is earned during your residency, not before it.  The last thing anyone at the hospital wants or needs is a new person coming in with a big head.  If you’ve ever seen the show, ‘House MD’, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  They likely already have their hands full with that problem.   Besides, you will realize very quickly that in the hospital actions speak louder than words.

Another way to shoot yourself in the foot is writing a ps that will make the readers want to shoot themselves.   You need to be very careful about using anything depressing.  I’ve seen only a handful of personal statements that were able to pull off the, ‘my relative died or had a disease and it lead me to medicine’ personal statement.   It’s a tricky to navigate away from something depressing and turn it into something inspiring, so you need to be careful with going this route.  There is a VERY thin & unforgiving line between catchy & cliché.

 

What You SHOULD Do

Now let’s move on to what you SHOULD do on your personal statement.   The first thing you should do is put yourself in the shoes of your reader.  It may be anywhere from the director of the program, to attending, and in some cases, senior residents.   Imagine that you are tired from working long hours and that you’ve just read 20 other personal statements and that you have time to read one more.  Then read your statement.

The Structure

Before we get into the details, let’s first examine the structure for the personal statement.  Your statement should be no longer than one page under standard parameters (font size, tabs, spacing). The following is a general guideline for how to organize your personal statement:

• The Introduction
• The Body

1. Should have several paragraphs (usually 3) that provide evidence to support the statement made in the introduction. The paragraph should flow by using transitions & resolutions
2. Each paragraph should have a transition, which starts each paragraph with a TOPIC STATEMENT that will be the theme of that paragraph
3. Each paragraph should have a RESOLUTION which ends each paragraph with a meaningful sentence that provides a transition to the next paragraph
4. A paragraph about your future goals in your career/specialty/medicine
5. Mention what you expect & desire from a residency program

• Conclusion

1. The conclusion should tie everything together and bring your statement full circle
2. Restate your interest in the field, as well as quickly mention key points made in the body
3. End on a positive note with one or two attention- grabbing sentences

 

Choosing a Subject: Your Story

Choosing what to write about can be the most difficult part of the process.  No matter how poetic and brilliant you are as a writer (or vice versa), a good piece of writing is only as good as thesubject being written about.  It can make a good writer bad, and a bad writer...well, not so bad.    The general idea is to choose a story or topic that will give the program deeper incite about what made you want to pursue the career of medicine.

To that end, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to write about something that ACTUALLY influenced your path towards residency.  If you are honest with yourself about why you want to be a physician in the United States, you will help narrow down your list of things to write about.

You then need to take into account the specialty that you’re applying for and ask yourself, ‘Does my story help prove why I would be PERFECT for a specialty.’  An obvious example would be to NOT use a surgical experience in a personal statement being sent for an internal medicine residency.  You need to keep in mind, ‘skill sets’.  While the core skills of being a doctor span all specialties, there are some characteristics that would predispose someone to one specialty or another.  Make sure your topic submits evidence towards your potential in the field of your choosing.

Another thing you can do is talk it out with a close friend.  I’ve sat with a lot of students in the past trying to help them find the right subject for their personal statement.  I ask them to come back with 5 different subjects/stories that helped influence their path to medicine.  We’ll then talk about them…and almost without fail, we’ll start talking about their experiences – whether it’s on the list of 5 or not – and the student will get to a story and get a little choked up.  I’ll get goosebumps, reach over to hand him/her a box of tissues, and say without hesitation: “That’s your personal statement”.

The, ‘First Line’ Rule: Capturing Their Attention from the Start

A good statement begins with a great first line.  As someone that has read & corrected a lot of ps’s, the, ‘FIRST LINE’ rule I use should give you a clue as to how important your opening is.  This is what I do: I take a pile of personal statements and I read the first line.  If the first line captures my attention and seems interesting, then it goes in the READ FIRST pile.  The ones with, ‘so-so’, boring ones first lines go in the “READ if I have time & energy later in this session” pile.

The first line is like the opening scene of a TV drama.  Popular shows like, “House, MD”, “Alias”, “Greys Anatomy”, and, “24” utilize this teqnique to full effect.  For example,  an episode of House, MD will cut straight into a scene of Dr House waking up in the middle of a night club…and realizing that he had blood on his head.  He then walks out of the club only to find a disaster has occurred just outside.  They then cut to the Title Credit: HOUSE, MD.

The first reaction that the viewer has is, ‘WAIT, how did that happen?  What Happens next???’  You, as a writer, have the same power to draw your reader in.  When you’re sitting there, trying to think of an opening line, close your eyes and picture your story as a TV drama.  Then paint that very same picture, in words, in your first few lines.

Getting Down to Business: Relating your story back to medicine

Whether you decide  to write about a past medical experience or go off the beaten path and take a non-medical related story that shows how your personality and decision making style lend themselves well to a specialty, you always need to bring it, “back to the future.”   In other words, whatever story you tell, you have to cleanly tie it together with why you have decided to pursue a specialty.

For example, if you’re going to write about the time you helped during a natural disaster, it needs to be followed up with a paragraph describing how the skill sets you displayed during the story are the exact ones needed to succeed in the specialty being applied for?    In this case, that paragraph might look like this:

“My experience in helping victims during the New Orleans floods has led me straight to the specialty of Emergency Medicine.  The skills that came naturally to me during that crisis are the same ones I would like to utilize and build upon during my residency and throughout my career.  During that experience, I kept a level-head, worked well with both supervisors & those looking towards me for leadership, think quickly on my feet, and stayed as organized as possible given the situation.  I look forward to learning from those that came before me to help further develop these skills as I begin my career.”

 

The Drafts: Arrive at Perfection One Step At A Time.

The above example is a decent paragraph in a ‘first draft’ or first attempt at your personal statement.   I just sat here for the past 10 minutes reading it over and over again, and while I found somemistakes and corrected them, experience has proven that I will NOT find everything on my own.  I say this because it is very easy to get frustrated by a first draft.  Remember, however, you can’t get to a final draft without first soldiering through the first draft.   (USE SPELL & GRAMMER CHECK)

The best way to get from first to final versions is to have others read what you write during the various stages of the writing process.  I was very deliberate about not say, ‘ask your friends’ to read it’.   Sometimes your best friend can be your worst enemy in correcting drafts, as they may be too nice in their assessment.  I’m not saying go find your worst enemy, but you do need to look for someone that you have no emotional ties to and that won’t be afraid to hurt your feelings.   With a mix of people reading it, they will offer you perspectives that you may not have seen before.  (USE SPELL & GRAMMER CHECK)

Remember to always take the good with the bad when it comes to comments or criticisms about your writing.  I know it’s hard to listen to someone pick apart something you worked hard on, but it’s the only way you get better.  It’s a mentality you’ll need during residency anyway, so just think of this as practice for the moral beat down that you’ll get during your training years. (USE SPELL & GRAMMER CHECK)

Another great way for you to improve your personal statement is to record yourself reading it.  Pretend you’re James Earl Jones doing a voiceover for your movie trailer.  Listening to yourself tell the story is an easy way to spot, ‘flow’ problems’ in your story telling.  It’ll be weird hearing your own voice, but it’s an exercise that could make a big difference with the quality of your personal statement. (USE SPELL & GRAMMER CHECK)

 

No one expects you to be a great writer…for some, lack of skill in that field may have even lead them to medicine by default (just kidding).  But programs DO expect you to seek help and submit the best possible statement you can.   Knowing your limits and being able to ask for help from someone with more developed skills than you another skill you’ll need to take into residency. (USE SPELL & GRAMMER CHECK)

Did I mention to use spell & grammar check?  Submitting a statement with these errors is disrespectful and gives the program the impression that you do not take pride in your work and don’t care enough to take the time to put your best foot forward.

Be Thankful That They Care…

Applicants tend to overlook the importance of the personal statement.  Waiting until the last minute to write it is not uncommon and is by far the most common mistake made.  While the process will take time & effort, keep in mind when you get frustrated by it that this is an opportunity that programs are offering you to separate yourself from the rest of the applicants.  Programs could easily just go on scores, transcripts, interviews, and experience and define you by that alone.  Instead they value their residents & training programs enough to get to know their applicants on a more personal level.

Residency training programs are like a family, only in this family, they get to choose their members (I bet some of us wish we could do the same).  With that in mind, as you begin thinking about how you want to portray yourself in your personal statement, ask yourself what you value in a good family member and go from there.

The personal statement is an important and necessary part of your residency application.  The right personal statement will not only give programs incite about you that they could not find anywhere else in your application packet, but it will also, hopefully, remind you why have worked as hard as you have to get to where you are now.  You’re so close.  Now go finish what you started…

Good Luck!  ~ Dr Brian