 This is the best personal statement I've ever edited. It shows vulnerability, growth, their why medicine in a compelling way. Stick around so you can tell your story as effectively. First, make sure to subscribe and hit that bell so you don't miss a video on all things personal statement and secondaries. Hi, I am Dr. Josie. This is Write Your Acceptance as a university writing faculty personal statement coach with 15 years of experience in higher education and working with students. I know what they're looking for. This personal statement got into top top programs across the country and so now it's your turn. Okay, so I'm going to read it in chunks and kind of walk you through why that moment is so compelling and why it works so well. All right, so this is the beginning. Doctor, his face is twitching. The nurse declared as a physician penetrated the area between the zygomatic arch and the mandibular notch with a 20 gauge needle. We're almost to the target nerve hang in there. The physician told the patient as a needle disappeared into the patient's flesh, his spasms worsened and his vitals rose. This was not a case I saw while shattering a physician. In this case, the patient was me. It was fall 2017. The year I was to begin medical school instead, I was in a hospital bed. So this section, the first two paragraphs in its entirety are about 800 characters. And I tell you that because you really want to think about the essay real estate of the personal statement. So kind of beginning middle and end. This is a chronic pain that is happening to him. It's sidelined to him. He will talk about why it was such a formative moment, but it's not something he intentionally sought out, right? So if it's a passive experience, you want it to be very specific and it not take up too much room in your personal statement, but it establishes in a very interesting way there why they're re applicant, right? Or why they are kind of delayed in their journey where they expected to be versus where they are right now. And they do it very early. Sometimes students will do it or usually students will do it kind of toward the end of the essay. And it's one of the last things we hear. I like that the student begins with it right off the bat. It really establishes kind of where this essay is going to go. So paragraph three, multiple gap years were never part of my plan, but unfortunately chronic pain runs on its own time. In the process of surmounting chronic pain, I continued my commitment to medicine by seeking research and clinical experiences. My circumstances placed me in a unique position to view medicine via two vantage points, that of a patient and of a future of clinician. As a result, I have developed a keen awareness of both disparities and hope. Here we explain the kind of story, right? We give that story context and depth about the gap years, about their why. And in a way we set up for the thesis statement. So this is not academic writing, but it does help kind of anchor your essay sometimes to have a thesis statement. Not all do, but we have as a result, I have developed a keen awareness of both disparities and hope disparities and hope. Those two kind of buzzwords are going to be thematically intertwined throughout the essay. So in a very interesting way, it is establishing the parameters and his why medicine in a very specific, anchored manner, which is strong. So now we start with hope. The middle part of the essay is the most important in my opinion, because it really shows how the student has intentionally sought out experiences. So it is kind of like an active moment. What experiences has a student found and looked for and engaged in? How have they connected with patients to really figure out that this is not only a profession, but a calling? So we begin. At North Bay Neuroscience Institute, we were the only group in northern California running early detection trials for Alzheimer's disease and drove over three hours to see us desperately seeking hope for her 60 year old father who began having cognitive issues in his mid 50s. Now he needed around the clock care as the only child she took on the huge responsibility of being his caregiver in addition to being a single mom. In those few seconds, the gravity of the situation struck me. This was no longer just some cool research for my medical school application. This was a real human in a grave situation. In that moment, nothing else mattered besides being present for her. So in this paragraph, in a very kind of seamless manner, we kind of dip into their first formative or one of the first formative experiences that they have a medical clinical trial for Alzheimer's, we meet Anne and kind of her backstory with her father. And then we really in a very honest and vulnerable way, see how the experience changes for the student and deepens and it humanizes when he starts to meet the faces and stories behind the actual trial. So we have this kind of sense of hope and hopelessness, right, and seeking hope. So one of the themes in the case of statements being kind of teased out. Are you stuck knowing kind of what your story is, but you're not sure how to kind of go about it? If you are, by the way, comment below, I'd love to help you out. So next section, a sobering stillness remained with me that day as I ponder the heavy responsibility the white coat carries. I love that image. The responsibility I felt became heavier as my pondering took me from Anne, who at least had an opportunity to be seen to all the local at risk Hispanics who we could not even include in our research due to strict language regulations. I concluded that medicine is not a job. It is a noble commitment to serve humanity. So now we went from someone seeking hope, but having the opportunity to seek that hope, right, to a vulnerable population, a minority population, because they don't speak the language, don't even have access to this trial to this kind of line of guidance and help, right. So we are kind of teetering between balancing between the disparities and hope mentioned in the thesis. So now we're going to go into a specific example about this disparity, right. But notice the sentences I love, and probably one of the hardest things about a personal statement is making sure that you have transitional sentences that move you from one experience to the next. So the last sentence of that previous paragraph that I just read, I concluded that medicine is not a job. It is a noble commitment to serve humanity, right. And then first line of the next sentence, my call to serve humanity came early when a hospice assignment landed me within one of the most neglected crevices of our society nursing homes. So we have commitment to serve humanity as the last phrase of the previous sentence, and then my call to serve humanity came early. And then we go into now this nursing home experience. As I entered Jose's small room, my heart broke. He had no family pictures, no personal items, nothing that spoke to who he was, except for one thing, a small picture of his mariachi group sitting on his dresser. At that instant, I realized why I was a perfect volunteer for him aside from being the only one who spoke Spanish. We share the same culture. I began playing classic mariachi songs on my phone, and his eyes lit up. Music became a bonding medium. Jose played a crucial role in my journey. He not only illuminated the existence of serious disparities within health care, disparities, right. So one of the buzzwords, but he showed me that I could be part of the solution. Seniors in nursing homes are among society's most fragile demographic. And unfortunately, they're also among the most isolated. Lamentably for Jose, his language and cultural barrier amplifying his isolation within his nursing home. I like this section because it does a little bit of everything for the student. It allows them to be in action, right. And when I say action, it could be a small kind of effort experience, right. He meets Jose. He meets this resident at the nursing home. He finds commonality and his duties are not to come and play Jose's favorite mariachi songs, but he goes beyond what's expected of him to make a connection and forge a sense of belonging for Jose in this nursing home, right. And so we see that. So we have a story just enough to kind of see that connection. And then we go into not only what Jose taught him from an individual perspective, but then we have some kind of greater insight on just nursing homes and this patient population in general. Without ever pretending like the student knows what it means to be a doctor, what it's like to be a doctor, right. They're just coming from insight and experience that they've had specifically. So that is very, very important. Make sure it always comes back to any lesson that you say, any insight that you gather, make sure it comes. It's anchored in very personal experiences. And so then we start toward the end. For me, medicine has become a deep rooted purpose that I cannot abandon in a twisted way. I am thankful for the tribulations for the last five years because it revealed to me that becoming a physician is more than just a dream. It has become a calling that I will answer. Witnessing medicine via multiple fronts has given me the means to become a relatable physician who will both remedy patients and remedy healthcare gaps. I will, as Hippocrates pledged, cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. I have distanced myself from chronic pain and never once gave up on my dream. I have proven my resilience to my doctors, mentors, families and most important to myself. I have become the patient and it is now time I don a white coat and become the newest member of a second family, a family of healers. So beautifully ending. I think it was most, most important and crucial to come back to the chronic pain that we started with, right? Because it shows the distance that we have from it. So it shows that the student, you know, it's not a red flag. It's not a cause for concern. They have kind of effective pain management strategies in place that clearly the student is ready and able to manage a rigorous medical education. I love the critical choices that the student made by starting with that, right? Most students would then just consolidate the entire chronic pain paragraph as a second to last paragraph at the end and then kind of wrap up. And then that's the last thing the ad comms are reading and thinking about right now. I'm thinking about Jose. I'm thinking about the mariachi, right? The sensorial. So there's so much going on in between that was stuff that was intentional and that the student actively sought out that is most important. So that is why this is one of my favorite essays ever. I get attached to essays. What can I tell you? So for more transition tricks, for more guidance on your personal statement, definitely download your free personal statement guidance in the description below and watch this video to get your 10, 10 must tips that every personal statement should kind of check off before saying that it is done. Make sure you hit that subscribe and like button and we'll see you soon. Thank you so much. Bye