Tips for Writing a Personal Statement

Reflection

• Reflect on your academic and extracurricular experiences and how they have shaped your motivations for a career in health care.
• Create a list of experiences that represent the evolution of your path to a career in health care. 
• Identify key people (mentors, faculty, supervisors...) who have inspired you.
• Think about the message you wish to convey.

Structure

• How do you want to tell your story?
• What are the key elements of your story that bring it into focus?
• If you start with a thesis statement, remember to return to that thesis at the end t provide closure.
• The conclusion is a restatement of your focus, but in a way that shows how your story has evolved over time from mere observations to reflection to wisdom that will continue to serve you in your medcial training and as a clinician.

In answering the prompt "why do you want to become a clinician?"

• Seek to illustrate rather than merely tell your story.
• Incorporate examples from your experiences that capture your commitment to serving in health care. For example, discuss an experience:
  1. shadowing a clinician,
  2. volunteering at the ER, hospice center, or inpatient clinic
  3. volunteering at the local medical, dental or vet clinic,
  4. working as an EMT,
  5. serving as a translator at a free clinic
• Incorporate examples of service outside the clinic, to help further illustrate your commitment to service and desire to help others.
• Incorporate examples of leadership and overcoming hardship, to demonstrate perseverance, resilience and grit.
• Be succinct in illustrating your examples.
• Create smooth yet strong transitions throughout your story.

How to SHOW and not tell

• Use sensory details to help set scenes. Note what the sky looks like, what color a child's dress is, how the food smells. Make sure your reader is right there with you.
• Share your personal emotions and indicate how your surroundings affected you. This will give the reader a better idea of your individualism and make experiences that are common seem unique.
• Be anecdotal and use examples to illustrate your observations.
• Write with the intention of communicating something original. Don't just put down what you think the reader wants to hear.
• Avoid general commentary.

Things to avoid

1. Overly flowery language
2. Controversial language
3. Reference to longing to be a clinician since a very young age
4. Discussing why you don't want to do research
5. Discussing why you don't want to become a health care provider other than your intended career path

Final items to keep in mind

Style refers to how you choose to use words to say what you have to say. There are a lot of different styles, and many of them are acceptable for a personal statement. However, make sure your grammar (syntax) is correct. Proofread for errors, spelling, and subject-verb agreement. Make sure that you don't have sentence fragments or run on sentences. Use punctuation correctly. Always have someone proofread your statement, and if grammar is not your thing, have someone who is good at grammar check your statement for errors.

If you bring raise issues, follow through on them and offer explanation or background. A common mistake is to make a statement and then assume that the reader will be able to place it as relevant. You must be explicit, and make sure that you round out the issues you raise with supporting details. For example, if you introduce the fact that you are a single mother, you must make sure that it is relevant to your focus, and you should offer details about how it is relevant. If you say that your desire to become a doctor started after your trip to Mexico, you need to tell why this is so. Sometimes writers rely too much on meaning that they believe to be implicit and leave the reader with questions. Remember, the person reading your essay knows very little about you, your life experiences, your character, or your personality. Be clear.