 When writing your DO personal statement, yes, you are writing your essay advancing your case as to why medicine, but also make sure that you're capturing those osteopathic principles. Hi, I am Dr. Josie. This is Write Your Acceptance. Thank you so much for stopping by. I have worked with hundreds of medical, MD, DO, residency, then after students applying, focusing on their personal statements in secondaries, my expertise is how to help you just stand out on the page and help you really kind of make that case for yourself. Stick around and let's talk DO personal statements. Step one, you are writing about why medicine, why you are pursuing medicine. If you want to see kind of the various components of a medical school personal statement, I will link a few videos here. I have samples of students that have used their essays and slightly adapted their MD personal statement for DO. And so you can kind of see some samples and the kind of vital components of a personal statement. But kind of generally speaking, I want personal statements that show growth that take the temperature of their experience and their pursuit of medicine in different moments of their trajectory so that we have a spark moment that we have intentional experiences that the student kind of sought out to really clarify their interest in osteopathic medicine and then kind of like their lessons learned from these different experiences. So you want to kind of think about that spark moment, how, you know, you tuned into medicine in the first place, those intentional kind of experiences you sought out, and then those lessons and takeaways from these experiences that have crystallized your why medicine, if you are doing those three kind of things or three chapters to the personal statement, then you are really kind of making a case as to why medicine at every moment in your personal statement, whether DO or MD, which is great because then you don't feel like you have to kind of finish and wrap up with this big kind of why medicine ending because you've been doing that work throughout. And that is key for me. Step two, make sure that you're sharing strategic short anecdotes. You want to think about having a camera over your shoulders. You want to kind of have image driven, sensorial language. I want to see here taste touch whenever possible. You want to show yourself in action. A lot of times students will internalize or kind of offer an interior reflection as to something that happened. They see something and they wonder why they would have done something different or how they would have learned kind of XYZ. I think that or like I kind of coach my students into working through or sharing stories that show them in action. How did you make a difference to a patient? How did you comfort someone? How did you help have a patient or a patient's family access resources they didn't have before, whether it's transportation, whether it's food insecurity issues. So how did you make a difference in a patient's life? Those are interesting anecdotes. And I think they are definitely kind of a hierarchy of experiences that you want to kind of think about for MD, MDO, I think less interesting are the kind of shadowing experiences. Sometimes shadowing experiences are active in nature where you kind of directly engage with patients. You're comforting a patient while they're kind of, you know, dressing a wound or something while the physician is dressing wound. And so then that's interesting, but you're typical watching someone and kind of internalizing the lesson where you're not making a difference. I think are less interesting than you in action. So think about the stories, especially in that middle section of the personal statement where you are sharing kind of intentional experiences that you have sought out. Think about what are those experiences where they show you in action and kind of offer an anecdote or offer a mini story show that and then give us a lesson, give us a takeaway of the experience as a whole. So while I'm a proponent of students recycling their MD and DO personal statements and doing so in a very strategic way, we can talk more about that if that's of interest. I do think that for DO personal statement, you want to really kind of think about that there are certain non-clinical experiences that lend themselves better to DO personal statement than they do MD. So for example, I've had students that have worked in a special needs camp that have used that as one of their experiences in a DO personal statement, how they learned how to manage if the kids were taking medication, manage another kid's triggers and help them kind of experience and create an opportunity that shares in the spirit of inclusion and diversity and adaptability. So adapting to another person's needs and how that kind of requires a holistic assessment of what wellness looks like. That is very interesting and that has played very well in DO personal statements. I've also seen students write about being a therapy coordinator or a vaccine advocate and how then that kind of lesson, so they give their experience and their story and then how they shared that their takeaway or lesson was about how empowering patients through education is kind of sometimes a more kind of a long term view of medicine and medical care and wellness because you are not only treating the patient when they come in, but you are arming them with information to make better informed health conscious decisions in the future. So that's also another way that I've seen it do very well. Another example or lesson that I've seen that has done very well in DO personal statements is kind of creating space for diverse patient populations, whether you are creating inclusive spaces where patients feel safe and seen within the medical system where you're translating for them, you're helping patient access resources they need. So that kind of also has played very well. I have a program that I work with students on called the PSRX. If you want to learn more about how I will work with you to help build your essay from start to finish comment below or in the description you will have the link to a 350 minute call with me so that you can learn about how I work with students and we can go from there. You definitely want to make sure that you are crafting a very, very compelling and strategic and that you're creating depth in your personal statement so that you can show a varied sense of journey for your pursuit of medicine. Step three, once you have kind of identified the stories or identify the experiences that you're going to capture in your why medicine kind of journey, right? Make sure that they always have those takeaways and those lessons. That's why in step two and if you need to kind of rewind a little bit, check that out again. I give you exactly kind of the experience of the students we're sharing but also the takeaway. So you want to make sure that with every experience that you share that you've done whether it's research coordinator, a therapy coordinator, caring for patients, a CNA, I've seen kind of, you know, a very diverse group of students and their experiences that you are pairing every major experience with a lesson or takeaway and that those lessons or takeaways are varied in nature. You don't want two experiences or three experiences in your personal statement that give you the same lesson because you're not showing how varied and how multifaceted and intentional you've been with your experiences that you have learned different dimensions of medicine and how you aspire to perform in advance the osteopathic principles. Finally, step four, figure out how you want to be personal, whether you are adding cultural dimension about yourself, about your family's relationship to wellness, to holistic care, to preventative medicine or lack thereof. If you growing up without a DO principles or in the sense of like, you know, very fast to take medication or not fast to go for preventative care, waiting to go when there was an acute pain. So what was your relationship growing up or your family's historical relationship or cultural relationship to medicine? So think about kind of personal dimensions of who you are that you may want to sprinkle in throughout your essay. Sometimes you're, because I review and work on so many with you guys, a lot of times I see this in the kind of framework of the essay. So in the beginning or the end of the essay, but these kind of details, especially when they're in relation to your relationship to medicine or inherited relationship to medicine, maybe a very interesting way to personalize your personal statement and still be making a case as to why medicine and why DO for you. Thank you for watching. Remember, if you want to learn more about how I work with students, I have a free 15 minute call option in the description below. Check out that commonly link and we can talk soon. Take care.