how to write a medical essay

Writing a Medicine Essay: Guide, Types, Tips, and Topics

A medical essay is a written paper that is focused on a medical topic. It is mostly an essay written by medical students. Your instructor may assign this type of paper to gauge your understanding of a particular health issue. While it might seem simple, writing these essays is challenging, especially for first-timers. This is because they require scientific accuracy, clear undressing of the given topic, and clinical insights. In the essay, you are required to demonstrate your knowledge and skills of the various medical concepts and their application in the real world. This means that every claim and argument you make must be supported with scientific evidence.

If you are wondering how to write a medical essay, we will provide you with all the tips and steps you need to write a high-quality essay.

Different Types of Medical Essays

There are many types of medical essays you will come across in school that vary based on the purpose, subject matter, and formatting style. These are:

Argumentative Essays

These types of medical essays take a stance on medical issues and require the support of well-researched, accurate, and current information. An argumentative essay is usually assigned as a capstone project in your final years and requires lengthy and detailed research to establish your position on a topic.

When writing an argumentative medical essay, your goal should be to convince the readers to agree with your point of view by presenting a strong argument. Some of the topics you may cover include the impact of technology, the effectiveness of particular medical treatments, etc.

Compare and Contrast Essays

These types of essays deal with two or more subjects in a particular category of the medical field and compare their similarities and contrast their differences. Your instructor will assign a compare and contrast essay to challenge your analytical and comparative skills and see whether you can make meaningful arguments about a given topic.

Compare and contrast essays rely on factual analysis, so you must support all your arguments with sufficient scientific evidence. Additionally, it would be best if you used special transition words and phrases such as in comparison, by contrast, likewise, similarly, the same as, both, also, etc.

Expository Essays

Expository means intended to explain. This type of medical essay aims to explain a particular medical topic clearly and consciously. Expository essays require you to investigate a particular topic, evaluate the available evidence, expound on the claims, and explain a focused idea clearly.

Use accurate and current information from reliable sources when writing expository essays to ensure you provide well-structured, logical, and clear arguments.

Descriptive Medical Essays

This type of literature helps in communicating a particular information, for instance, a specific medical condition, treatment, theory or procedure, in a descriptive manner. Descriptive essays provide a comprehensive and effective description in a way that readers will feel like they are experiencing the subject firsthand.

To write descriptive essays, you must use words and phrases that pique curiosity to bring your narrative to life. Ensure you also integrate thoughts, feelings, smells, tastes and sounds into your essay.

Overall, descriptive medical essays help to provide an objective portrayal of a medical subject to help readers better and understand the complex topics in the medical world.

Overall, no matter which type of essay you are writing, there should be a clear and logical flow of information from one part of an essay to another.

Outline of a Medical Essay

Are you asking what are the parts of a medical essay?—the answer is simple. An essay on medicine must include the following parts: introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion.

Introduction

An introduction of a medical essay introduces your topic and provides some background information about the subject being discussed.

It also includes the reason for writing the essay and provides brief points of what you will cover in the body of the paper. An introduction should also include your thesis statement which offers a concise summary of your essay and state the claim you will be making in your paper.

Your introduction should be concise and quickly hook the readers to ensure they read the rest of the essay.

Body Paragraphs

The body section of your medical essay is where you delve into the main claim of your paper. It could have two supporting paragraphs or five. There is no limit to how many numbers of paragraphs you can write unless your professor provides a specific number.

When supporting your thesis statement with multiple sources, the best thing to do is to have only one paragraph per idea and source cited. For instance, if you are writing an argumentative medical essay, one paragraph should provide a single aspect of your arguments supported by credible evidence.

The conclusion of your medical essay should provide a summary of what you have discussed in the body of your paper. It contains three sections:

• A restatement of your thesis statement without using the exact wording.
• General conclusions and state why your essay is essential.
• The final part brings everything together clearly and concisely to show readers you have understood the topic under discussion.

Avoid bringing in any new information in the conclusion section of your paper. The goal here is to provide readers with a closure.

Use the following format to organize your essay:

1. Introduction

• Background information
• Thesis statement

2. Body Paragraphs

1. First point

• Introduction statement.
• Supporting evidence (facts, statistics, etc).
• Conclusion statement transitioning to the next paragraph.

2. Second point

• Supporting evidence (facts, statistics, etc.).

3. Third point

3. Conclusion

• Restatement of the thesis statement.
• General conclusion.
• Closing statement.

This is just a basic outline you can follow when writing your medical essay. Depending on the type of essay you are writing, you may need to include some information.

Steps for Writing a Great Medical Essay

Follow these steps when writing your medical essay. Remember, there are no right or wrong ways to write an essay. It can be a messy process as long as you ensure that there is a good flow of information.

Read the Assignment Prompt

Writing a high-quality health and medicine essay requires that you first understand your instructors' expectations. Therefore, begin by reading the prompt given, which will have all the information about the rules, guidelines and instructions that you must follow.

How well you write an essay can differentiate a high-quality medical essay from a low-quality paper. Your instructor will expect you incorporate relevant scientific evidence in your essay and demonstrate an understanding of it to show that you possess the right knowledge about the medical field.

Your instructor will also want to see whether you can accurately dissect the chosen topic into different components and explain it well to the readers.

So, by reading and understanding what is expected, you can clearly articulate your facts and express your ideas.

Chose a Great Medical Essay Topic

To write a great medical essay topic, you must choose an interesting topic that will be easy to write about. There are various interesting topics for medical essays that you can choose from, which range from various subjects in medicine.

Choose a topic that you are familiar with or one you will be able to write about. There are various interesting topics for a medical essay which you can choose from for your paper.

In addition to choosing an interesting topic, ensure you keep the following in mind:

• The topic of your choice should be relevant to the assignments.
• Think about the scope of the paper. Will you be writing about a specific medical topic or discussing medicine in general?

Once you have chosen a topic, research to locate information about it, begin by writing down what you already know about the topic, and then use that to develop probing questions such as why, what if, etc.

Identify keywords that are related to your topic, as they will help in locating specific information. At this point, it’s important to do background research about the topic to ensure that there is enough to write about it. Doing this will help you achieve a basic understanding of the chosen topic before delving deeper, which means you can formulate the topic and broaden or narrow it.

Conduct Research

Doing thorough research lays the foundation for a high-quality essay, as you will have sufficient information to take a critical approach to the chosen topic. So, go through the different types of scientific literature, such as PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library, to find scientific articles. These resources are credible and will give you the information needed to write a high-quality essay.

Remember, a medical essay seeks to understand your understanding of scientific knowledge and evidence acquired both in theory and practice. So, to be able to demonstrate this knowledge, you must have relevant, accurate information from a variety of credible sources.

Please note that there are two types of research you can conduct depending on the topic. Primary and secondary research. Primary research is where you collect information firsthand through methods such as interviews, questionaries etc. Secondary research, on the other hand, is where you obtain information from information collected by other researchers, such as books, journals, etc. This is the most common form of research because it saves you time, money, and energy, unlike primary research.

Create an Outline

Like other types of essays, your medical essay should have an outline that organizes your thoughts and ideas before writing. Your outline should tell readers what your essay will cover and ensure you prevent a clear and well-structured argument. In other words, your outline is a roadmap. When you get stuck during the writing process, it will help you get right back on track.

As mentioned, your medical essay outline has three main parts: Introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Some of the tips that can help you create a good outline for your essay on medicine.

• Begin by first writing several ideas that you intend to include in your essay on medicine. Think of these ideas as the skeleton of your paper.

Begin Drafting

Now that you have prepared adequately for the topic at hand, you can start writing. Start by writing your introduction, which begins with a hook to capture the reader's attention, followed by some background information about the topic, and then a thesis presentation.

However, if you want to capture all ideas and ensure you write an engaging introduction, write it after. There is no right or wrong way to do this, as long as your introduction achieves its intended purpose.

When writing the body paragraphs, ensure you support your ideas with accurate information from reliable sources. Include both in-text citations and a reference list or bibliographic section at the end of the paper.

For every piece of evidence you provide, ensure you expound on it and connect it to your ideas under the paragraph and to the overall argument. Do this by explaining, interpreting and expanding on your evidence. If you are providing a counterargument, debunk the evidence provided.

Ensure you have included as much information as possible to ensure the readers get a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

Revise and Edit Your Draft

Revising refers to looking at the essay from a fresh perspective. It is an ongoing process involving reviewing the arguments, evidence and presentations. Learning how to revise an essay will ensure that your essay meets all the criteria for medical paper writing and that it has addressed all the necessary points. Based on the revisions, you could alter or rewrite the ideas or arguments of your essay.

Editing, on the other hand, refers to improving the appearance of your essay by correcting grammar, spelling and function errors. The goal is to make your essay as clear and effective as possible.

When revising and editing, pretend to be one of your readers. Ask yourself whether you are satisfied with what you are reading.

Read your medical essay out loud to pick out any problems with unity and coherence. As you read, check for clarity and a good flow of your ideas. Check for areas that are confusing and redundant and ensure you correct them.

Medical Essay Topics 

Here is a list of medical essay topics you can borrow to write your essay.

Argumentative Medical Essay Topics

• Is universal healthcare a fundamental right or a financial burden?
• The Gender Bias in Medical Research and Treatment: How It Affects Women’s Health
• Should people be compelled to donate their organs after death?
• Are Vaccines necessary for public health or an infringement on personal freedoms?
• Is medical marijuana a viable treatment option or a gateway drug?
• How can society break the barriers to seeking mental health treatment?
• Is obesity a result of personal choices or environmental factors?
• What can be done to combat this growing threat of antibiotic resistance 
• Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) foods: Are they safe? 
• Euthanasia: Is it compassionate or a violation of human dignity?
• Alternative medicine vs. conventional medicine: Which is more effective in overall health?
• Is low-fat better than low-carb?
• Negative Effects of Total Isolation on Physical and Mental Health.
• Mental Health Benefits Associated with Physical Activity.

Expository Medical Essay Topics 

• Risk of postoperative atrial fibrillation in patients receiving red blood cell transfusion.
• What causes HIV/AIDS stereotypes?
• Challenges of precision medicine
• What are the ethics of genetics testing?
• The need for government intervention in negotiating drug prices
• Addressing health disparities among the African community.
• Mental health stigma is the barrier to seeking treatment.
• Implications of fast food joints.
• Role of education in promoting healthy eating habits among teenagers.
• Use of stem cells for cancer treatment. 
• Incorporating alternative medicine into modern medicine.
• Controversy in the American healthcare system.

Descriptive Medical Essay Topics

• The importance of preventative medicine in maintaining good health.
• Importance of genetics in influencing the development of diseases.
• The impact of lifestyle choices on overall health and well-being.
• What's the link between mental health and physical health?
• The benefits of integrative medicine in treating chronic health conditions.
• The role of proper nutrition in preventing and treating illnesses.
• The effects of stress on the body and strategies for managing stress.
• The use of technology in healthcare delivery and an improving patient outcome.
• What are the challenges of healthcare access for low-income populations?
• Ethical considerations in end-of-life care and decision making.
• Benefits and drawbacks of health technology.

Compare and Contrast Medical Essays

• Western medicine vs traditional Chinese medicine.
• Conventional medicine vs. Alternative medicine.
• A holistic approach to health and wellness compared to allopathic medicine.
• Examine the benefits and drawbacks of prescription medications versus natural remedies for chronic health conditions.
• Preventive medicine vs. Reactive medicine.
• Health insurance: public vs. private.
• Generic drugs vs. brand name drugs.
• Assisted living vs. nursing homes.
• Telemedicine vs. in-person appointments.
• Change in lifestyle vs mental health medication.
• UK vs Us: Mental health treatment.
• Hospital patient care vs at-home patient care.

Tips for Writing a Good Medical Essay

Vary the length of the sentences.

Long sentences can be monotonous and lull readers to sleep. It is important to mix your essay with short sentences to make the readers feel like they are reading natural speech. This will persuade readers to stay invested in your essay's message.

Use Active Voice

The active voice is more direct and makes your health and medical essay easier to read, especially if you are writing about a complex topic. It creates a stronger and more direct tone that captures and maintains the reader's interest, which is important, especially when trying to convince readers about a particular topic.

Use Vivid Verbs

Use vivid verbs instead of weak verbs, which will just clutter your essay and make it difficult for readers to understand the messages. Vivid verbs help paint a clear picture of the topic, thus making your arguments more persuasive.

Final Word on Writing Medical Essays

It could be an essay about healthcare policy, the pathophysiology of a certain disorder (autism, genetic disorders, or chronic disorders), medical processes, or healthcare issues. Once you are assigned to write an essay on medicine topics, you need to take the steps we have outlined above. Go through the pre-writing, writing, and post-writing steps above and see for yourself your capabilities.

Remember, a great medical essay involves following a clear structure and incorporating clear arguments supported by information from reliable sources. By following the above steps and tips, you can write a great medical essay that communicates your ideas and provides insights into complex subjects in medicine.

If you are stuck and need a professional writer to handle your paper, you can trust our medicine writers. These astute writers are experienced in research writing and have a background in medicine. Sign up, place an order, and get everything done within the shortest turnaround time.

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10 Successful Medical School Essays

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-- Accepted to: Harvard Medical School GPA: 4.0 MCAT: 522

Sponsored by A ccepted.com : Great stats don’t assure acceptance to elite medical schools. The personal statement, most meaningful activities, activity descriptions, secondaries and interviews can determine acceptance or rejection. Since 1994, Accepted.com has guided medical applicants just like you to present compelling medical school applications. Get Accepted !

I started writing in 8th grade when a friend showed me her poetry about self-discovery and finding a voice. I was captivated by the way she used language to bring her experiences to life. We began writing together in our free time, trying to better understand ourselves by putting a pen to paper and attempting to paint a picture with words. I felt my style shift over time as I grappled with challenges that seemed to defy language. My poems became unstructured narratives, where I would use stories of events happening around me to convey my thoughts and emotions. In one of my earliest pieces, I wrote about a local boy’s suicide to try to better understand my visceral response. I discussed my frustration with the teenage social hierarchy, reflecting upon my social interactions while exploring the harms of peer pressure.

In college, as I continued to experiment with this narrative form, I discovered medical narratives. I have read everything from Manheimer’s Bellevue to Gawande’s Checklist and from Nuland’s observations about the way we die, to Kalanithi’s struggle with his own decline. I even experimented with this approach recently, writing a piece about my grandfather’s emphysema. Writing allowed me to move beyond the content of our relationship and attempt to investigate the ways time and youth distort our memories of the ones we love. I have augmented these narrative excursions with a clinical bioethics internship. In working with an interdisciplinary team of ethics consultants, I have learned by doing by participating in care team meetings, synthesizing discussions and paths forward in patient charts, and contributing to an ongoing legislative debate addressing the challenges of end of life care. I have also seen the ways ineffective intra-team communication and inter-personal conflicts of beliefs can compromise patient care.

Writing allowed me to move beyond the content of our relationship and attempt to investigate the ways time and youth distort our memories of the ones we love.

By assessing these difficult situations from all relevant perspectives and working to integrate the knowledge I’ve gained from exploring narratives, I have begun to reflect upon the impact the humanities can have on medical care. In a world that has become increasingly data driven, where patients can so easily devolve into lists of numbers and be forced into algorithmic boxes in search of an exact diagnosis, my synergistic narrative and bioethical backgrounds have taught me the importance of considering the many dimensions of the human condition. I am driven to become a physician who deeply considers a patient’s goal of care and goals of life. I want to learn to build and lead patient care teams that are oriented toward fulfilling these goals, creating an environment where family and clinician conflict can be addressed efficiently and respectfully. Above all, I look forward to using these approaches to keep the person beneath my patients in focus at each stage of my medical training, as I begin the task of translating complex basic science into excellent clinical care.

In her essay for medical school, Morgan pitches herself as a future physician with an interdisciplinary approach, given her appreciation of how the humanities can enable her to better understand her patients. Her narrative takes the form of an origin story, showing how a childhood interest in poetry grew into a larger mindset to keep a patient’s humanity at the center of her approach to clinical care.

This narrative distinguishes Morgan as a candidate for medical school effectively, as she provides specific examples of how her passions intersect with medicine. She first discusses how she used poetry to process her emotional response to a local boy’s suicide and ties in concern about teenage mental health. Then, she discusses more philosophical questions she encountered through reading medical narratives, which demonstrates her direct interest in applying writing and the humanities to medicine. By making the connection from this larger theme to her own reflections on her grandfather, Morgan provides a personal insight that will give an admissions officer a window into her character. This demonstrates her empathy for her future patients and commitment to their care.

Her narrative takes the form of an origin story, showing how a childhood interest in poetry grew into a larger mindset to keep a patient's humanity at the center of her approach to clinical care.

Furthermore, it is important to note that Morgan’s essay does not repeat anything in-depth that would otherwise be on her resume. She makes a reference to her work in care team meetings through a clinical bioethics internship, but does not focus on this because there are other places on her application where this internship can be discussed. Instead, she offers a more reflection-based perspective on the internship that goes more in-depth than a resume or CV could. This enables her to explain the reasons for interdisciplinary approach to medicine with tangible examples that range from personal to professional experiences — an approach that presents her as a well-rounded candidate for medical school.

Disclaimer: With exception of the removal of identifying details, essays are reproduced as originally submitted in applications; any errors in submissions are maintained to preserve the integrity of the piece. The Crimson's news and opinion teams—including writers, editors, photographers, and designers—were not involved in the production of this article.

-- Accepted To: A medical school in New Jersey with a 3% acceptance rate. GPA: 3.80 MCAT: 502 and 504

Sponsored by E fiie Consulting Group : “ EFIIE ” boasts 100% match rate for all premedical and predental registered students. Not all students are accepted unto their pre-health student roster. Considered the most elite in the industry and assists from start to end – premed to residency. EFIIE is a one-stop-full-service education firm.

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The tribulations I've overcome in my life have manifested in the compassion, curiosity, and courage that is embedded in my personality. Even a horrific mishap in my life has not changed my core beliefs and has only added fuel to my intense desire to become a doctor. My extensive service at an animal hospital, a harrowing personal experience, and volunteering as an EMT have increased my appreciation and admiration for the medical field.

At thirteen, I accompanied my father to the Park Home Animal Hospital with our eleven-year-old dog, Brendan. He was experiencing severe pain due to an osteosarcoma, which ultimately led to the difficult decision to put him to sleep. That experience brought to light many questions regarding the idea of what constitutes a "quality of life" for an animal and what importance "dignity" plays to an animal and how that differs from owner to owner and pet to pet. Noting my curiosity and my relative maturity in the matter, the owner of the animal hospital invited me to shadow the professional staff. Ten years later, I am still part of the team, having made the transition from volunteer to veterinarian technician. Saving a life, relieving pain, sharing in the euphoria of animal and owner reuniting after a procedure, to understanding the emotions of losing a loved one – my life was forever altered from the moment I stepped into that animal hospital.

As my appreciation for medical professionals continued to grow, a horrible accident created an indelible moment in my life. It was a warm summer day as I jumped onto a small boat captained by my grandfather. He was on his way to refill the boat's gas tank at the local marina, and as he pulled into the dock, I proceeded to make a dire mistake. As the line was thrown from the dock, I attempted to cleat the bowline prematurely, and some of the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life ensued.

Saving a life, relieving pain, sharing in the euphoria of animal and owner reuniting after a procedure, to understanding the emotions of losing a loved one – my life was forever altered from the moment I stepped into that animal hospital.

"Call 911!" I screamed, half-dazed as I witnessed blood gushing out of my open wounds, splashing onto the white fiberglass deck of the boat, forming a small puddle beneath my feet. I was instructed to raise my hand to reduce the bleeding, while someone wrapped an icy towel around the wound. The EMTs arrived shortly after and quickly drove me to an open field a short distance away, where a helicopter seemed to instantaneously appear.

The medevac landed on the roof of Stony Brook Hospital before I was expeditiously wheeled into the operating room for a seven-hour surgery to reattach my severed fingers. The distal phalanges of my 3rd and 4th fingers on my left hand had been torn off by the rope tightening on the cleat. I distinctly remember the chill from the cold metal table, the bright lights of the OR, and multiple doctors and nurses scurrying around. The skill and knowledge required to execute multiple skin graft surgeries were impressive and eye-opening. My shortened fingers often raise questions by others; however, they do not impair my self-confidence or physical abilities. The positive outcome of this trial was the realization of my intense desire to become a medical professional.

Despite being the patient, I was extremely impressed with the dedication, competence, and cohesiveness of the medical team. I felt proud to be a critical member of such a skilled group. To this day, I still cannot explain the dichotomy of experiencing being the patient, and concurrently one on the professional team, committed to saving the patient. Certainly, this experience was a defining part of my life and one of the key contributors to why I became an EMT and a volunteer member of the Sample Volunteer Ambulance Corps. The startling ring of the pager, whether it is to respond to an inebriated alcoholic who is emotionally distraught or to help bring breath to a pulseless person who has been pulled from the family swimming pool, I am committed to EMS. All of these events engender the same call to action and must be reacted to with the same seriousness, intensity, and magnanimity. It may be some routine matter or a dire emergency; this is a role filled with uncertainty and ambiguity, but that is how I choose to spend my days. My motives to become a physician are deeply seeded. They permeate my personality and emanate from my desire to respond to the needs of others. Through a traumatic personal event and my experiences as both a professional and volunteer, I have witnessed firsthand the power to heal the wounded and offer hope. Each person defines success in different ways. To know even one life has been improved by my actions affords me immense gratification and meaning. That is success to me and why I want to be a doctor.

This review is provided by EFIIE Consulting Group’s Pre-Health Senior Consultant Jude Chan

This student was a joy to work with — she was also the lowest MCAT profile I ever accepted onto my roster. At 504 on the second attempt (502 on her first) it would seem impossible and unlikely to most that she would be accepted into an allopathic medical school. Even for an osteopathic medical school this score could be too low. Additionally, the student’s GPA was considered competitive at 3.80, but it was from a lower ranked, less known college, so naturally most advisors would tell this student to go on and complete a master’s or postbaccalaureate program to show that she could manage upper level science classes. Further, she needed to retake the MCAT a third time.

However, I saw many other facets to this student’s history and life that spoke volumes about the type of student she was, and this was the positioning strategy I used for her file. Students who read her personal statement should know that acceptance is contingent on so much more than just an essay and MCAT score or GPA. Although many students have greater MCAT scores than 504 and higher GPAs than 3.80, I have helped students with lower scores and still maintained our 100% match rate. You are competing with thousands of candidates. Not every student out there requires our services and we are actually grateful that we can focus on a limited amount out of the tens of thousands that do. We are also here for the students who wish to focus on learning well the organic chemistry courses and physics courses and who want to focus on their research and shadowing opportunities rather than waste time deciphering the next step in this complex process. We tailor a pathway for each student dependent on their health care career goals, and our partnerships with non-profit organizations, hospitals, physicians and research labs allow our students to focus on what matters most — the building up of their basic science knowledge and their exposure to patients and patient care.

Students who read her personal statement should know that acceptance is contingent on so much more than just an essay and MCAT score or GPA.

Even students who believe that their struggle somehow disqualifies them from their dream career in health care can be redeemed if they are willing to work for it, just like this student with 502 and 504 MCAT scores. After our first consult, I saw a way to position her to still be accepted into an MD school in the US — I would not have recommended she register to our roster if I did not believe we could make a difference. Our rosters have a waitlist each semester, and it is in our best interest to be transparent with our students and protect our 100% record — something I consider a win-win. It is unethical to ever guarantee acceptance in admissions as we simply do not control these decisions. However, we respect it, play by the rules, and help our students stay one step ahead by creating an applicant profile that would be hard for the schools to ignore.

This may be the doctor I go to one day. Or the nurse or dentist my children or my grandchildren goes to one day. That is why it is much more than gaining acceptance — it is about properly matching the student to the best options for their education. Gaining an acceptance and being incapable of getting through the next 4 or 8 years (for my MD/PhD-MSTP students) is nonsensical.

-- Accepted To: Imperial College London UCAT Score: 2740 BMAT Score: 3.9, 5.4, 3.5A

My motivation to study Medicine stems from wishing to be a cog in the remarkable machine that is universal healthcare: a system which I saw first-hand when observing surgery in both the UK and Sri Lanka. Despite the differences in sanitation and technology, the universality of compassion became evident. When volunteering at OSCE training days, I spoke to many medical students, who emphasised the importance of a genuine interest in the sciences when studying Medicine. As such, I have kept myself informed of promising developments, such as the use of monoclonal antibodies in cancer therapy. After learning about the role of HeLa cells in the development of the polio vaccine in Biology, I read 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' to find out more. Furthermore, I read that surface protein CD4 can be added to HeLa cells, allowing them to be infected with HIV, opening the possibility of these cells being used in HIV research to produce more life-changing drugs, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP). Following my BioGrad laboratory experience in HIV testing, and time collating data for research into inflammatory markers in lung cancer, I am also interested in pursuing a career in medical research. However, during a consultation between an ENT surgeon and a thyroid cancer patient, I learnt that practising medicine needs more than a scientific aptitude. As the surgeon explained that the cancer had metastasised to her liver, I watched him empathetically tailor his language for the patient - he avoided medical jargon and instead gave her time to come to terms with this. I have been developing my communication skills by volunteering weekly at care homes for 3 years, which has improved my ability to read body language and structure conversations to engage with the residents, most of whom have dementia.

However, during a consultation between an ENT surgeon and a thyroid cancer patient, I learnt that practising medicine needs more than a scientific aptitude.

Jude’s essay provides a very matter-of-fact account of their experience as a pre-medical student. However, they deepen this narrative by merging two distinct cultures through some common ground: a universality of compassion. Using clear, concise language and a logical succession of events — much like a doctor must follow when speaking to patients — Jude shows their motivation to go into the medical field.

From their OSCE training days to their school’s Science society, Jude connects their analytical perspective — learning about HeLa cells — to something that is relatable and human, such as a poor farmer’s notable contribution to science. This approach provides a gateway into their moral compass without having to explicitly state it, highlighting their fervent desire to learn how to interact and communicate with others when in a position of authority.

Using clear, concise language and a logical succession of events — much like a doctor must follow when speaking to patients — Jude shows their motivation to go into the medical field.

Jude’s closing paragraph reminds the reader of the similarities between two countries like the UK and Sri Lanka, and the importance of having a universal healthcare system that centers around the just and “world-class” treatment of patients. Overall, this essay showcases Jude’s personal initiative to continue to learn more and do better for the people they serve.

While the essay could have benefited from better transitions to weave Jude’s experiences into a personal story, its strong grounding in Jude’s motivation makes for a compelling application essay.

-- Accepted to: Weill Cornell Medical College GPA: 3.98 MCAT: 521

Sponsored by E fie Consulting Group : “ EFIIE ” boasts 100% match rate for all premedical and predental registered students. Not all students are accepted unto their pre-health student roster. Considered the most elite in the industry and assists from start to end – premed to residency. EFIIE is a one-stop-full-service education firm.

Following the physician’s unexpected request, we waited outside, anxiously waiting to hear the latest update on my father’s condition. It was early on in my father’s cancer progression – a change that had shaken our entire way of life overnight. During those 18 months, while my mother spent countless nights at the hospital, I took on the responsibility of caring for my brother. My social life became of minimal concern, and the majority of my studying for upcoming 12th- grade exams was done at the hospital. We were allowed back into the room as the physician walked out, and my parents updated us on the situation. Though we were a tight-knit family and my father wanted us to be present throughout his treatment, what this physician did was give my father a choice. Without making assumptions about who my father wanted in the room, he empowered him to make that choice independently in private. It was this respect directed towards my father, the subsequent efforts at caring for him, and the personal relationship of understanding they formed, that made the largest impact on him. Though my decision to pursue medicine came more than a year later, I deeply valued what these physicians were doing for my father, and I aspired to make a similar impact on people in the future.

It was during this period that I became curious about the human body, as we began to learn physiology in more depth at school. In previous years, the problem-based approach I could take while learning math and chemistry were primarily what sparked my interest. However, I became intrigued by how molecular interactions translated into large-scale organ function, and how these organ systems integrated together to generate the extraordinary physiological functions we tend to under-appreciate. I began my undergraduate studies with the goal of pursuing these interests, whilst leaning towards a career in medicine. While I was surprised to find that there were upwards of 40 programs within the life sciences that I could pursue, it broadened my perspective and challenged me to explore my options within science and healthcare. I chose to study pathobiology and explore my interests through hospital volunteering and research at the end of my first year.

Though my decision to pursue medicine came more than a year later, I deeply valued what these physicians were doing for my father, and I aspired to make a similar impact on people in the future.

While conducting research at St. Michael’s Hospital, I began to understand methods of data collection and analysis, and the thought process of scientific inquiry. I became acquainted with the scientific literature, and the experience transformed how I thought about the concepts I was learning in lecture. However, what stood out to me that summer was the time spent shadowing my supervisor in the neurosurgery clinic. It was where I began to fully understand what life would be like as a physician, and where the career began to truly appeal to me. What appealed to me most was the patient-oriented collaboration and discussions between my supervisor and his fellow; the physician-patient relationship that went far beyond diagnoses and treatments; and the problem solving that I experienced first-hand while being questioned on disease cases.

The day spent shadowing in the clinic was also the first time I developed a relationship with a patient. We were instructed to administer the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) test to patients as they awaited the neurosurgeon. My task was to convey the instructions as clearly as possible and score each section. I did this as best I could, adapting my explanation to each patient, and paying close attention to their responses to ensure I was understood. The last patient was a challenging case, given a language barrier combined with his severe hydrocephalus. It was an emotional time for his family, seeing their father/husband struggle to complete simple tasks and subsequently give up. I encouraged him to continue trying. But I also knew my words would not remedy the condition underlying his struggles. All I could do was make attempts at lightening the atmosphere as I got to know him and his family better. Hours later, as I saw his remarkable improvement following a lumbar puncture, and the joy on his and his family’s faces at his renewed ability to walk independently, I got a glimpse of how rewarding it would be to have the ability and privilege to care for such patients. By this point, I knew I wanted to commit to a life in medicine. Two years of weekly hospital volunteering have allowed me to make a small difference in patients’ lives by keeping them company through difficult times, and listening to their concerns while striving to help in the limited way that I could. I want to have the ability to provide care and treatment on a daily basis as a physician. Moreover, my hope is that the breadth of medicine will provide me with the opportunity to make an impact on a larger scale. Whilst attending conferences on neuroscience and surgical technology, I became aware of the potential to make a difference through healthcare, and I look forward to developing the skills necessary to do so through a Master’s in Global Health. Whether through research, health innovation, or public health, I hope not only to care for patients with the same compassion with which physicians cared for my father, but to add to the daily impact I can have by tackling large-scale issues in health.

Taylor’s essay offers both a straightforward, in-depth narrative and a deep analysis of his experiences, which effectively reveals his passion and willingness to learn in the medical field. The anecdote of Taylor’s father gives the reader insight into an original instance of learning through experience and clearly articulates Taylor’s motivations for becoming a compassionate and respectful physician.

Taylor strikes an impeccable balance between discussing his accomplishments and his character. All of his life experiences — and the difficult challenges he overcame — introduce the reader to an important aspect of Taylor’s personality: his compassion, care for his family, and power of observation in reflecting on the decisions his father’s doctor makes. His description of his time volunteering at St. Michael’s Hospital is indicative of Taylor’s curiosity about medical research, but also of his recognition of the importance of the patient-physician relationship. Moreover, he shows how his volunteer work enabled him to see how medicine goes “beyond diagnoses and treatments” — an observation that also speaks to his compassion.

His description of his time volunteering at St. Michael's Hospital is indicative of Taylor's curiosity about medical research, but also of his recognition of the importance of the patient-physician relationship.

Finally, Taylor also tells the reader about his ambition and purpose, which is important when thinking about applying to medical school. He discusses his hope of tackling larger scale problems through any means possible in medicine. This notion of using self interest to better the world is imperative to a successful college essay, and it is nicely done here.

-- Accepted to: Washington University

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Running has always been one of my greatest passions whether it be with friends or alone with my thoughts. My dad has always been my biggest role model and was the first to introduce me to the world of running. We entered races around the country, and one day he invited me on a run that changed my life forever. The St. Jude Run is an annual event that raises millions of dollars for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. My dad has led or our local team for as long as I can remember, and I had the privilege to join when I was 16. From the first step I knew this was the environment for me – people from all walks of life united with one goal of ending childhood cancer. I had an interest in medicine before the run, and with these experiences I began to consider oncology as a career. When this came up in conversations, I would invariably be faced with the question “Do you really think you could get used to working with dying kids?” My 16-year-old self responded with something noble but naïve like “It’s important work, so I’ll have to handle it”. I was 16 years young with my plan to become an oncologist at St. Jude.

As I transitioned into college my plans for oncology were alive and well. I began working in a biochemistry lab researching new anti-cancer drugs. It was a small start, but I was overjoyed to be a part of the process. I applied to work at a number of places for the summer, but the Pediatric Oncology Education program (POE) at St. Jude was my goal. One afternoon, I had just returned from class and there it was: an email listed as ‘POE Offer’. I was ecstatic and accepted the offer immediately. Finally, I could get a glimpse at what my future holds. My future PI, Dr. Q, specialized in solid tumor translational research and I couldn’t wait to get started.

I was 16 years young with my plan to become an oncologist at St. Jude.

Summer finally came, I moved to Memphis, and I was welcomed by the X lab. I loved translational research because the results are just around the corner from helping patients. We began a pre-clinical trial of a new chemotherapy regimen and the results were looking terrific. I was also able to accompany Dr. Q whenever she saw patients in the solid tumor division. Things started simple with rounds each morning before focusing on the higher risk cases. I was fortunate enough to get to know some of the patients quite well, and I could sometimes help them pass the time with a game or two on a slow afternoon between treatments. These experiences shined a very human light on a field I had previously seen only through a microscope in a lab.

I arrived one morning as usual, but Dr. Q pulled me aside before rounds. She said one of the patients we had been seeing passed away in the night. I held my composure in the moment, but I felt as though an anvil was crushing down on me. It was tragic but I knew loss was part of the job, so I told myself to push forward. A few days later, I had mostly come to terms with what happened, but then the anvil came crashing back down with the passing of another patient. I could scarcely hold back the tears this time. That moment, it didn’t matter how many miraculous successes were happening a few doors down. Nothing overshadowed the loss, and there was no way I could ‘get used to it’ as my younger self had hoped.

I was still carrying the weight of what had happened and it was showing, so I asked Dr. Q for help. How do you keep smiling each day? How do you get used to it? The questions in my head went on. What I heard next changed my perspective forever. She said you keep smiling because no matter what happened, you’re still hope for the next patient. It’s not about getting used to it. You never get used to it and you shouldn’t. Beating cancer takes lifetimes, and you can’t look passed a life’s worth of hardships. I realized that moving passed the loss of patients would never suffice, but I need to move forward with them. Through the successes and shortcomings, we constantly make progress. I like to imagine that in all our future endeavors, it is the hands of those who have gone before us that guide the way. That is why I want to attend medical school and become a physician. We may never end the sting of loss, but physicians are the bridge between the past and the future. No where else is there the chance to learn from tragedy and use that to shape a better future. If I can learn something from one loss, keep moving forward, and use that knowledge to help even a single person – save one life, bring a moment of joy, avoid a moment of pain—then that is how I want to spend my life.

The change wasn’t overnight. The next loss still brought pain, but I took solace in moving forward so that we might learn something to give hope to a future patient. I returned to campus in a new lab doing cancer research, and my passion for medicine continues to flourish. I still think about all the people I encountered at St. Jude, especially those we lost. It might be a stretch, but during the long hours at the lab bench I still picture their hands moving through mine each step of the way. I could never have foreseen where the first steps of the St. Jude Run would bring me. I’m not sure where the road to becoming a physician may lead, but with helping hands guiding the way, I won’t be running it alone.

This essay, a description of the applicant’s intellectual challenges, displays the hardships of tending to cancer patients as a milestone of experience and realization of what it takes to be a physician. The writer explores deeper ideas beyond medicine, such as dealing with patient deaths in a way to progress and improve as a professional. In this way, the applicant gives the reader some insight into the applicant’s mindset, and their ability to think beyond the surface for ways to become better at what they do.

However, the essay fails to zero in on the applicant’s character, instead elaborating on life events that weakly illustrate the applicant’s growth as a physician. The writer’s mantra (“keep moving forward”) is feebly projected, and seems unoriginal due to the lack of a personalized connection between the experience at St. Jude and how that led to the applicant’s growth and mindset changes.

The writer explores deeper ideas beyond medicine, such as dealing with patient deaths in a way to progress and improve as a professional.

The writer, by only focusing on grief brought from patient deaths at St. Jude, misses out on the opportunity to further describe his or her experience at the hospital and portray an original, well-rounded image of his or her strengths, weaknesses, and work ethic.

The applicant ends the essay by attempting to highlight the things they learned at St. Jude, but fails to organize the ideas into a cohesive, comprehensible section. These ideas are also too abstract, and are vague indicators of the applicant’s character that are difficult to grasp.

-- Accepted to: New York University School of Medicine

Sponsored by MedEdits : MedEdits Medical Admissions has been helping applicants get into medical schools like Harvard for more than ten years. Structured like an academic medical department, MedEdits has experts in admissions, writing, editing, medicine, and interview prep working with you collaboratively so you can earn the best admissions results possible.

“Is this the movie you were talking about Alice?” I said as I showed her the movie poster on my iPhone. “Oh my God, I haven’t seen that poster in over 70 years,” she said with her arms trembling in front of her. Immediately, I sat up straight and started to question further. We were talking for about 40 minutes, and the most exciting thing she brought up in that time was the new flavor of pudding she had for lunch. All of sudden, she’s back in 1940 talking about what it was like to see this movie after school for only 5¢ a ticket! After an engaging discussion about life in the 40’s, I knew I had to indulge her. Armed with a plethora of movie streaming sights, I went to work scouring the web. No luck. The movie, “My Son My Son,” was apparently not in high demand amongst torrenting teens. I had to entreat my older brother for his Amazon Prime account to get a working stream. However, breaking up the monotony and isolation felt at the nursing home with a simple movie was worth the pandering.

While I was glad to help a resident have some fun, I was partly motivated by how much Alice reminded me of my own grandfather. In accordance with custom, my grandfather was to stay in our house once my grandmother passed away. More specifically, he stayed in my room and my bed. Just like grandma’s passing, my sudden roommate was a rough transition. In 8th grade at the time, I considered myself to be a generally good guy. Maybe even good enough to be a doctor one day. I volunteered at the hospital, shadowed regularly, and had a genuine interest for science. However, my interest in medicine was mostly restricted to academia. To be honest, I never had a sustained exposure to the palliative side of medicine until the arrival of my new roommate.

The two years I slept on that creaky wooden bed with him was the first time my metal was tested. Sharing that room, I was the one to take care of him. I was the one to rub ointment on his back, to feed him when I came back from school, and to empty out his spittoon when it got full. It was far from glamorous, and frustrating most of the time. With 75 years separating us, and senile dementia setting in, he would often forget who I was or where he was. Having to remind him that I was his grandson threatened to erode at my resolve. Assured by my Syrian Orthodox faith, I even prayed about it; asking God for comfort and firmness on my end. Over time, I grew slow to speak and eager to listen as he started to ramble more and more about bits and pieces of the past. If I was lucky, I would be able to stich together a narrative that may or may have not been true. In any case, my patience started to bud beyond my age group.

Having to remind him that I was his grandson threatened to erode at my resolve.

Although I grew more patient with his disease, my curiosity never really quelled. Conversely, it developed further alongside my rapidly growing interest in the clinical side of medicine. Naturally, I became drawn to a neurology lab in college where I got to study pathologies ranging from atrophy associated with schizophrenia, and necrotic lesions post stroke. However, unlike my intro biology courses, my work at the neurology lab was rooted beyond the academics. Instead, I found myself driven by real people who could potentially benefit from our research. In particular, my shadowing experience with Dr. Dominger in the Veteran’s home made the patient more relevant in our research as I got to encounter geriatric patients with age related diseases, such as Alzhimer’s and Parkinson’s. Furthermore, I had the privilege of of talking to the families of a few of these patients to get an idea of the impact that these diseases had on the family structure. For me, the scut work in the lab meant a lot more with these families in mind than the tritium tracer we were using in the lab.

Despite my achievements in the lab and the classroom, my time with my grandfather still holds a special place in my life story. The more I think about him, the more confident I am in my decision to pursue a career where caring for people is just as important, if not more important, than excelling at academics. Although it was a lot of work, the years spent with him was critical in expanding my horizons both in my personal life and in the context of medicine. While I grew to be more patient around others, I also grew to appreciate medicine beyond the science. This more holistic understanding of medicine had a synergistic effect in my work as I gained a purpose behind the extra hours in the lab, sleepless nights in the library, and longer hours volunteering. I had a reason for what I was doing that may one day help me have long conversations with my own grandchildren about the price of popcorn in the 2000’s.

The most important thing to highlight in Avery’s essay is how he is able to create a duality between his interest in not only the clinical, more academic-based side of medicine, but also the field’s personal side.

He draws personal connections between working with Alice — a patient in a hospital or nursing home — and caring intensely for his grandfather. These two experiences build up the “synergistic” relationship between caring for people and studying the science behind medicine. In this way, he is able to clearly state his passions for medicine and explain his exact motives for entering the field. Furthermore, in his discussion of her grandfather, he effectively employs imagery (“rub ointment on his back,” “feed him when I came back from school,” etc.) to describe the actual work that he does, calling it initially as “far from glamorous, and frustrating most of the time.” By first mentioning his initial impression, then transitioning into how he grew to appreciate the experience, Avery is able to demonstrate a strength of character, sense of enormous responsibility and capability, and open-minded attitude.

He draws personal connections between working with Alice — a patient in a hospital or nursing home — and caring intensely for his grandfather.

Later in the essay, Avery is also able to relate his time caring for his grandfather to his work with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients, showcasing the social impact of his work, as the reader is likely already familiar with the biological impact of the work. This takes Avery’s essay full circle, bringing it back to how a discussion with an elderly patient about the movies reminds him of why he chose to pursue medicine.

That said, the essay does feel rushed near the end, as the writer was likely trying to remain within the word count. There could be a more developed transition before Avery introduces the last sentence about “conversations with my own grandchildren,” especially as a strong essay ending is always recommended.

-- Accepted To: Saint Louis University Medical School Direct Admission Medical Program

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The tension in the office was tangible. The entire team sat silently sifting through papers as Dr. L introduced Adam, a 60-year-old morbidly obese man recently admitted for a large open wound along his chest. As Dr. L reviewed the details of the case, his prognosis became even bleaker: hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, cardiomyopathy, hyperlipidemia; the list went on and on. As the humdrum of the side-conversations came to a halt, and the shuffle of papers softened, the reality of Adam’s situation became apparent. Adam had a few months to live at best, a few days at worst. To make matters worse, Adam’s insurance would not cover his treatment costs. With no job, family, or friends, he was dying poor and alone.

I followed Dr. L out of the conference room, unsure what would happen next. “Well,” she muttered hesitantly, “We need to make sure that Adam is on the same page as us.” It’s one thing to hear bad news, and another to hear it utterly alone. Dr. L frantically reviewed all of Adam’s paperwork desperately looking for someone to console him, someone to be at his side. As she began to make calls, I saw that being a physician calls for more than good grades and an aptitude for science: it requires maturity, sacrifice, and most of all, empathy. That empathy is exactly what I saw in Dr. L as she went out of her way to comfort a patient she met hardly 20 minutes prior.

Since high school, I’ve been fascinated by technology’s potential to improve healthcare. As a volunteer in [the] Student Ambassador program, I was fortunate enough to watch an open-heart surgery. Intrigued by the confluence of technology and medicine, I chose to study biomedical engineering. At [school], I wanted to help expand this interface, so I became involved with research through Dr. P’s lab by studying the applications of electrospun scaffolds for dermal wound healing. While still in the preliminary stages of research, I learned about the Disability Service Club (DSC) and decided to try something new by volunteering at a bowling outing.

As she began to make calls, I saw that being a physician calls for more than good grades and an aptitude for science: it requires maturity, sacrifice, and most of all, empathy.

The DSC promotes awareness of cognitive disabilities in the community and seeks to alleviate difficulties for the disabled. During one outing, I collaborated with Arc, a local organization with a similar mission. Walking in, I was told that my role was to support the participants by providing encouragement. I decided to help a relatively quiet group of individuals assisted by only one volunteer, Mary. Mary informed me that many individuals with whom I was working were diagnosed with ASD. Suddenly, she started cheering, as one of the members of the group bowled a strike. The group went wild. Everyone was dancing, singing, and rejoicing. Then I noticed one gentleman sitting at our table, solemn-faced. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he remained unresponsive. I sat with him for the rest of the game, trying my hardest to think of questions that would elicit more than a monosyllabic response, but to no avail. As the game ended, I stood up to say bye when he mumbled, “Thanks for talking.” Then he quickly turned his head away. I walked away beaming. Although I was unable to draw out a smile or even sustain a conversation, at the end of the day, the fact that this gentleman appreciated my mere effort completely overshadowed the awkwardness of our time together. Later that day, I realized that as much as I enjoyed the thrill of research and its applications, helping other people was what I was most passionate about.

When it finally came time to tell Adam about his deteriorating condition, I was not sure how he would react. Dr. L gently greeted him and slowly let reality take its toll. He stoically turned towards Dr. L and groaned, “I don’t really care. Just leave me alone.” Dr. L gave him a concerned nod and gradually left the room. We walked to the next room where we met with a pastor from Adam’s church.

“Adam’s always been like that,” remarked the pastor, “he’s never been one to express emotion.” We sat with his pastor for over an hour discussing how we could console Adam. It turned out that Adam was part of a motorcycle club, but recently quit because of his health. So, Dr. L arranged for motorcycle pictures and other small bike trinkets to be brought to his room as a reminder of better times.

Dr. L’s simple gesture reminded me of why I want to pursue medicine. There is something sacred, empowering, about providing support when people need it the most; whether it be simple as starting a conversation, or providing support during the most trying of times. My time spent conducting research kindled my interest in the science of medicine, and my service as a volunteer allowed me to realize how much I valued human interaction. Science and technology form the foundation of medicine, but to me, empathy is the essence. It is my combined interest in science and service that inspires me to pursue medicine. It is that combined interest that makes me aspire to be a physician.

Parker’s essay focuses on one central narrative with a governing theme of compassionate and attentive care for patients, which is the key motivator for her application to medical school. Parker’s story focuses on her volunteer experience shadowing of Dr. L who went the extra mile for Adam, which sets Dr. L up as a role model for Parker as she enters the medical field. This effectively demonstrates to the reader what kind of doctor Parker wants to be in the future.

Parker’s narrative has a clear beginning, middle, and end, making it easy for the reader to follow. She intersperses the main narrative about Adam with experiences she has with other patients and reflects upon her values as she contemplates pursuing medicine as a career. Her anecdote about bowling with the patients diagnosed with ASD is another instance where she uses a story to tell the reader why she values helping people through medicine and attentive patient care, especially as she focuses on the impact her work made on one man at the event.

Parker's story focuses on her volunteer experience shadowing of Dr. L who went the extra mile for Adam, which sets Dr. L up as a role model for Parker as she enters the medical field.

All throughout the essay, the writing is engaging and Parker incorporates excellent imagery, which goes well with her varied sentence structure. The essay is also strong because it comes back full circle at its conclusion, tying the overall narrative back to the story of Dr. L and Adam, which speaks to Parker’s motives for going to medical school.

-- Accepted To: Emory School of Medicine

Growing up, I enjoyed visiting my grandparents. My grandfather was an established doctor, helping the sick and elderly in rural Taiwan until two weeks before he died at 91 years old. His clinic was located on the first floor of the residency with an exam room, treatment room, X-ray room, and small pharmacy. Curious about his work, I would follow him to see his patients. Grandpa often asked me if I want to be a doctor just like him. I always smiled, but was more interested in how to beat the latest Pokémon game. I was in 8th grade when my grandfather passed away. I flew back to Taiwan to attend his funeral. It was a gloomy day and the only street in the small village became a mourning place for the villagers. Flowers filled the streets and people came to pay their respects. An old man told me a story: 60 years ago, a village woman was in a difficult labor. My grandfather rushed into the house and delivered a baby boy. That boy was the old man and he was forever grateful. Stories of grandpa saving lives and bringing happiness to families were told during the ceremony. At that moment, I realized why my grandfather worked so tirelessly up until his death as a physician. He did it for the reward of knowing that he kept a family together and saved a life. The ability for a doctor to heal and bring happiness is the reason why I want to study medicine. Medical school is the first step on a lifelong journey of learning, but I feel that my journey leading up to now has taught me some things of what it means to be an effective physician.

With a newfound purpose, I began volunteering and shadowing at my local hospital. One situation stood out when I was a volunteer in the cardiac stress lab. As I attached EKG leads onto a patient, suddenly the patient collapsed and started gasping for air. His face turned pale, then slightly blue. The charge nurse triggered “Code Blue” and started CPR. A team of doctors and nurses came, rushing in with a defibrillator to treat and stabilize the patient. What I noticed was that medicine was not only about one individual acting as a superhero to save a life, but that it takes a team of individuals with an effective leader, working together to deliver the best care. I want to be a leader as well as part of a team that can make a difference in a person’s life. I have refined these lessons about teamwork and leadership to my activities. In high school I was an 8 time varsity letter winner for swimming and tennis and captain of both of those teams. In college I have participated in many activities, but notably serving as assistant principle cellist in my school symphony as well as being a co-founding member of a quartet. From both my athletic experiences and my music experiences I learned what it was like to not only assert my position as a leader and to effectively communicate my views, but equally as important I learned how to compromise and listen to the opinions of others. Many physicians that I have observed show a unique blend of confidence and humility.

What I noticed was that medicine was not only about one individual acting as a superhero to save a life, but that it takes a team of individuals with an effective leader, working together to deliver the best care.

College opened me up to new perspectives on what makes a complete physician. A concept that was preached in the Guaranteed Professional Program Admissions in Medicine (GPPA) was that medicine is both an art and a science. The art of medicine deals with a variety of aspects including patient relationships as well as ethics. Besides my strong affinity for the sciences and mathematics, I always have had interest in history. I took courses in both German literature and history, which influenced me to take a class focusing on Nazi neuroscientists. It was the ideology of seeing the disabled and different races as test subjects rather than people that led to devastating lapses in medical ethics. The most surprising fact for me was that doctors who were respected and leaders in their field disregarded the humanity of patient and rather focused on getting results from their research. Speaking with Dr. Zeidman, the professor for this course, influenced me to start my research which deals with the ethical qualms of using data derived from unethical Nazi experimentation such as the brains derived from the adult and child euthanasia programs. Today, science is so result driven, it is important to keep in mind the ethics behind research and clinical practice. Also the development of personalized genomic medicine brings into question about potential privacy violations and on the extreme end discrimination. The study of ethics no matter the time period is paramount in the medical field. The end goal should always be to put the patient first.

Teaching experiences in college inspired me to become a physician educator if I become a doctor. Post-MCAT, I was offered a job by Next Step Test Prep as a tutor to help students one on one for the MCAT. I had a student who stated he was doing well during practice, but couldn’t get the correct answer during practice tests. Working with the student, I pointed out his lack of understanding concepts and this realization helped him and improves his MCAT score. Having the ability to educate the next generation of doctors is not only necessary, but also a rewarding experience.

My experiences volunteering and shadowing doctors in the hospital as well as my understanding of what it means to be a complete physician will make me a good candidate as a medical school student. It is my goal to provide the best care to patients and to put a smile on a family’s face just as my grandfather once had. Achieving this goal does not take a special miracle, but rather hard work, dedication, and an understanding of what it means to be an effective physician.

Through reflecting on various stages of life, Quinn expresses how they found purpose in pursuing medicine. Starting as a child more interested in Pokemon than their grandfather’s patients, Quinn exhibits personal growth through recognizing the importance of their grandfather’s work saving lives and eventually gaining the maturity to work towards this goal as part of a team.

This essay opens with abundant imagery — of the grandfather’s clinic, flowers filling the streets, and the village woman’s difficult labor — which grounds Quinn’s story in their family roots. Yet, the transition from shadowing in hospitals to pursuing leadership positions in high schools is jarring, and the list of athletic and musical accomplishments reads like a laundry list of accomplishments until Quinn neatly wraps them up as evidence of leadership and teamwork skills. Similarly, the section about tutoring, while intended to demonstrate Quinn’s desire to educate future physicians, lacks the emotional resonance necessary to elevate it from another line lifted from their resume.

This essay opens with abundant imagery — of the grandfather's clinic, flowers filling the streets, and the village woman's difficult labor — which grounds Quinn's story in their family roots.

The strongest point of Quinn’s essay is the focus on their unique arts and humanities background. This equips them with a unique perspective necessary to consider issues in medicine in a new light. Through detailing how history and literature coursework informed their unique research, Quinn sets their application apart from the multitude of STEM-focused narratives. Closing the essay with the desire to help others just as their grandfather had, Quinn ties the narrative back to their personal roots.

-- Accepted To: Edinburgh University UCAT Score: 2810 BMAT Score: 4.6, 4.2, 3.5A

Exposure to the medical career from an early age by my father, who would explain diseases of the human body, sparked my interest for Medicine and drove me to seek out work experience. I witnessed the contrast between use of bone saws and drills to gain access to the brain, with subsequent use of delicate instruments and microscopes in neurosurgery. The surgeon's care to remove the tumour, ensuring minimal damage to surrounding healthy brain and his commitment to achieve the best outcome for the patient was inspiring. The chance to have such a positive impact on a patient has motivated me to seek out a career in Medicine.

Whilst shadowing a surgical team in Texas, carrying out laparoscopic bariatric procedures, I appreciated the surgeon's dedication to continual professional development and research. I was inspired to carry out an Extended Project Qualification on whether bariatric surgery should be funded by the NHS. By researching current literature beyond my school curriculum, I learnt to assess papers for bias and use reliable sources to make a conclusion on a difficult ethical situation. I know that doctors are required to carry out research and make ethical decisions and so, I want to continue developing these skills during my time at medical school.

The chance to have such a positive impact on a patient has motivated me to seek out a career in Medicine.

Attending an Oncology multi-disciplinary team meeting showed me the importance of teamwork in medicine. I saw each team member, with specific areas of expertise, contributing to the discussion and actively listening, and together they formed a holistic plan of action for patients. During my Young Enterprise Award, I facilitated a brainstorm where everyone pitched a product idea. Each member offered a different perspective on the idea and then voted on a product to carry forward in the competition. As a result, we came runners up in the Regional Finals. Furthermore, I started developing my leadership skills, which I improved by doing Duke of Edinburgh Silver and attending a St. John Ambulance Leadership course. In one workshop, similar to the bariatric surgeon I shadowed, I communicated instructions and delegated roles to my team to successfully solve a puzzle. These experiences highlighted the crucial need for teamwork and leadership as a doctor.

Observing a GP, I identified the importance of compassion and empathy. During a consultation with a severely depressed patient, the GP came to the patient's eye level and used a calm, non-judgmental tone of voice, easing her anxieties and allowing her to disclose more information. While volunteering at a care home weekly for two years, I adapted my communication for a resident suffering with dementia who was disconnected from others. I would take her to a quiet environment, speak slowly and in a non-threatening manner, as such, she became talkative, engaged and happier. I recognised that communication and compassion allows doctors to build rapport, gain patients' trust and improve compliance. For two weeks, I shadowed a surgeon performing multiple craniotomies a day. I appreciated the challenges facing doctors including time and stress management needed to deliver high quality care. Organisation, by prioritising patients based on urgency and creating a timetable on the ward round, was key to running the theatre effectively. Similarly, I create to-do-lists and prioritise my academics and extra-curricular activities to maintain a good work-life balance: I am currently preparing for my Grade 8 in Singing, alongside my A-level exams. I also play tennis for the 1st team to relax and enable me to refocus. I wish to continue my hobbies at university, as ways to manage stress.

Through my work experiences and voluntary work, I have gained a realistic understanding of Medicine and its challenges. I have begun to display the necessary skills that I witnessed, such as empathy, leadership and teamwork. The combination of these skills with my fascination for the human body drives me to pursue a place at medical school and a career as a doctor.

This essay traces Alex's personal exploration of medicine through different stages of life, taking a fairly traditional path to the medical school application essay. From witnessing medical procedures to eventually pursuing leadership positions, this tale of personal progress argues that Alex's life has prepared him to become a doctor.

Alex details how experiences conducting research and working with medical teams have confirmed his interest in medicine. Although the breadth of experiences speaks to the applicant’s interest in medicine, the essay verges on being a regurgitation of the Alex's resume, which does not provide the admissions officer with any new insights or information and ultimately takes away from the essay as a whole. As such, the writing’s lack of voice or unique perspective puts the applicant at risk of sounding middle-of-the-road.

From witnessing medical procedures to eventually pursuing leadership positions, this tale of personal progress argues that Alex's life has prepared him to become a doctor.

The essay’s organization, however, is one of its strengths — each paragraph provides an example of personal growth through a new experience in medicine. Further, Alex demonstrates his compassion and diligence through detailed stories, which give a reader a glimpse into his values. Through recognizing important skills necessary to be a doctor, Alex demonstrates that he has the mature perspective necessary to embark upon this journey.

What this essay lacks in a unique voice, it makes up for in professionalism and organization. Alex's earnest desire to attend medical school is what makes this essay shine.

-- Accepted To: University of Toronto MCAT Scores: Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems - 128, Critical Analysis and Reading Skills - 127, Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems - 127, Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior - 130, Total - 512

Moment of brilliance.

Revelation.

These are all words one would use to describe their motivation by a higher calling to achieve something great. Such an experience is often cited as the reason for students to become physicians; I was not one of these students. Instead of waiting for an event like this, I chose to get involved in the activities that I found most invigorating. Slowly but surely, my interests, hobbies, and experiences inspired me to pursue medicine.

As a medical student, one must possess a solid academic foundation to facilitate an understanding of physical health and illness. Since high school, I found science courses the most appealing and tended to devote most of my time to their exploration. I also enjoyed learning about the music, food, literature, and language of other cultures through Latin and French class. I chose the Medical Sciences program because it allowed for flexibility in course selection. I have studied several scientific disciplines in depth like physiology and pathology while taking classes in sociology, psychology, and classical studies. Such a diverse academic portfolio has strengthened my ability to consider multiple viewpoints and attack problems from several angles. I hope to relate to patients from all walks of life as a physician and offer them personalized treatment.

I was motivated to travel as much as possible by learning about other cultures in school. Exposing myself to different environments offered me perspective on universal traits that render us human. I want to pursue medicine because I believe that this principle of commonality relates to medical practice in providing objective and compassionate care for all. Combined with my love for travel, this realization took me to Nepal with Volunteer Abroad (VA) to build a school for a local orphanage (4). The project’s demands required a group of us to work closely as a team to accomplish the task. Rooted in different backgrounds, we often had conflicting perspectives; even a simple task such as bricklaying could stir up an argument because each person had their own approach. However, we discussed why we came to Nepal and reached the conclusion that all we wanted was to build a place of education for the children. Our unifying goal allowed us to reach compromises and truly appreciate the value of teamwork. These skills are vital in a clinical setting, where physicians and other health care professionals need to collaborate as a multidisciplinary team to tackle patients’ physical, emotional, social, and psychological problems.

I hope to relate to patients from all walks of life as a physician and offer them personalized treatment.

The insight I gained from my Nepal excursion encouraged me to undertake and develop the role of VA campus representative (4). Unfortunately, many students are not equipped with the resources to volunteer abroad; I raised awareness about local initiatives so everyone had a chance to do their part. I tried to avoid pushing solely for international volunteerism for this reason and also because it can undermine the work of local skilled workers and foster dependency. Nevertheless, I took on this position with VA because I felt that the potential benefits were more significant than the disadvantages. Likewise, doctors must constantly weigh out the pros and cons of a situation to help a patient make the best choice. I tried to dispel fears of traveling abroad by sharing first-hand experiences so that students could make an informed decision. When people approached me regarding unfamiliar placements, I researched their questions and provided them with both answers and a sense of security. I found great fulfillment in addressing the concerns of individuals, and I believe that similar processes could prove invaluable in the practice of medicine.

As part of the Sickkids Summer Research Program, I began to appreciate the value of experimental investigation and evidence-based medicine (23). Responsible for initiating an infant nutrition study at a downtown clinic, I was required to explain the project’s implications and daily protocol to physicians, nurses and phlebotomists. I took anthropometric measurements and blood pressure of children aged 1-10 and asked parents about their and their child’s diet, television habits, physical exercise regimen, and sunlight exposure. On a few occasions, I analyzed and presented a small set of data to my superiors through oral presentations and written documents.

With continuous medical developments, physicians must participate in lifelong learning. More importantly, they can engage in research to further improve the lives of their patients. I encountered a young mother one day at the clinic struggling to complete the study’s questionnaires. After I asked her some questions, she began to open up to me as her anxiety subsided; she then told me that her child suffered from low iron. By talking with the physician and reading a few articles, I recommended a few supplements and iron-rich foods to help her child. This experience in particular helped me realize that I enjoy clinical research and strive to address the concerns of people with whom I interact.

Research is often impeded by a lack of government and private funding. My clinical placement motivated me to become more adept in budgeting, culminating in my role as founding Co-President of the UWO Commerce Club (ICCC) (9). Together, fellow club executives and I worked diligently to get the club ratified, a process that made me aware of the bureaucratic challenges facing new organizations. Although we had a small budget, we found ways of minimizing expenditure on advertising so that we were able to host more speakers who lectured about entrepreneurship and overcoming challenges. Considering the limited space available in hospitals and the rising cost of health care, physicians, too, are often forced to prioritize and manage the needs of their patients.

No one needs a grand revelation to pursue medicine. Although passion is vital, it is irrelevant whether this comes suddenly from a life-altering event or builds up progressively through experience. I enjoyed working in Nepal, managing resources, and being a part of clinical and research teams; medicine will allow me to combine all of these aspects into one wholesome career.

I know with certainty that this is the profession for me.

Jimmy opens this essay hinting that his essay will follow a well-worn path, describing the “big moment” that made him realize why he needed to become a physician. But Jimmy quickly turns the reader’s expectation on its head by stating that he did not have one of those moments. By doing this, Jimmy commands attention and has the reader waiting for an explanation. He soon provides the explanation that doubles as the “thesis” of his essay: Jimmy thinks passion can be built progressively, and Jimmy’s life progression has led him to the medical field.

Jimmy did not make the decision to pursue a career in medicine lightly. Instead he displays through anecdotes that his separate passions — helping others, exploring different walks of life, personal responsibility, and learning constantly, among others — helped Jimmy realize that being a physician was the career for him. By talking readers through his thought process, it is made clear that Jimmy is a critical thinker who can balance multiple different perspectives simultaneously. The ability to evaluate multiple options and make an informed, well-reasoned decision is one that bodes well for Jimmy’s medical career.

While in some cases this essay does a lot of “telling,” the comprehensive and decisive walkthrough indicates what Jimmy’s idea of a doctor is. To him, a doctor is someone who is genuinely interested in his work, someone who can empathize and related to his patients, someone who can make important decisions with a clear head, and someone who is always trying to learn more. Just like his decision to work at the VA, Jimmy has broken down the “problem” (what his career should be) and reached a sound conclusion.

By talking readers through his thought process, it is made clear that Jimmy is a critical thinker who can balance multiple different perspectives simultaneously.

Additionally, this essay communicates Jimmy’s care for others. While it is not always advisable to list one’s volunteer efforts, each activity Jimmy lists has a direct application to his essay. Further, the sheer amount of philanthropic work that Jimmy does speaks for itself: Jimmy would not have worked at VA, spent a summer with Sickkids, or founded the UWO finance club if he were not passionate about helping others through medicine. Like the VA story, the details of Jimmy’s participation in Sickkids and the UWO continue to show how he has thought about and embodied the principles that a physician needs to be successful.

Jimmy’s essay both breaks common tropes and lives up to them. By framing his “list” of activities with his passion-happens-slowly mindset, Jimmy injects purpose and interest into what could have been a boring and braggadocious essay if it were written differently. Overall, this essay lets the reader know that Jimmy is seriously dedicated to becoming a physician, and both his thoughts and his actions inspire confidence that he will give medical school his all.

The Crimson's news and opinion teams—including writers, editors, photographers, and designers—were not involved in the production of this content.

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How to Write a Medical Essay

Medical essay overview.

Medical essays are some of the most common course requirements in medical school. As regular assignments, they can be given out as mid-semester evaluation tests or end-semester exams.

Scholars are required to demonstrate various learning skills, including understanding of various concepts, theories, bodies of knowledge, and their application in real world scenarios.

With the requisite skills, writing such essays can be quite an interesting endeavor. Writing a good medical essay demands an in-depth understanding of the relevant expectations.  

Key Expectations on how to Write a Medical Essay

When writing a medical essay, you have to consider various expectations. These expectations encompass critical guidelines on  how to write an essay .

They are usually the difference between a superior and a low quality essay. Such expectations are a discussed below.  

a) A proper understanding of factual evidence : the medical essays seek to examine your understanding of all relevant scientific evidence acquired in theory and practice.

In the essay, you must demonstrate that you possess the right knowledge about the medical field.

b)   Effective communication : communication is extremely important. Having extensive factual knowledge without adequate communication skills will always result into a poor essay.

Your facts must be well articulated to ensure that the reader fully understands your argument(s). This requires you to ensure that your grammar, punctuation, and syntax reflects adequate proficiency levels in English.

As well, it is critical to ensure that your sentences and paragraphs are fluent enough to allow fluidity in thoughts and arguments.  

c)   Accurate analysis of problems : medical essays require that you consider different and voluminous bodies on knowledge to help solve a particular problem.

Most of the topics explored by such essays are controversial and therefore require a thoughtfully considered opinion.

To achieve this, you should be able to dissect the essay problem into different basic components to find out which of the component weighs more consequently requiring more priority.

In this, in all your points/arguments, you must explain why one thing should be done and not the other.

d) Effective identification of relevant issues : medical essays in most cases encompass convoluted question(s). Therefore, you must accurately identify what issues you are supposed to address in the essay.

Inability to do this will result into failure in answering the correct question or addressing it sufficiently. As such, you should ensure that you understand and answer the right question.

This can only be realized through accurate identification of essay topic area(s) and topic scope.

e)   Proper time management : whether it is a sit in or a take away essay, time management is a critical factor when writing a medical essay.

The essay generally requires adequate research, analysis of different sets of facts, and proper compilation of evidence. This is a time consuming process and proper time management comes in handy.

Late submission is usually punishable and you are therefore required to demonstrate your ability to manage time effectively. 

Steps on how to Write a Medical Essay

Writing a medical essay could assume numerous steps. These steps are critical in helping realize work that resonates with all elements of a good essay. These steps are as elaborated below.

a) Conducting a basic research on essay topic:  This step encompasses examining the essay topic/question to help comprehend the expected answers, scope, and standards.

You must adequately explore the requirements of the essay provided in the instructions. Such requirements could be explicit or implicit in the essay instructions.

You are required to respond adequately to both set of requirements.

b) Generating essay thesis:  An appropriate thesis is one of the major elements of a good essay. The thesis should clearly put forward an argument that will be advanced in the essay.  

It should appear in the introduction part, and in most cases, as the last sentence. The thesis statement must be concise and all-encompassing.

It is essential to keep on referencing the thesis in the essay body to ensure that the essay remains on course.

c) Listing down the main points:  This entails developing a rough draft based on the essay's key arguments to support the thesis.

You are supposed to note down numerous points and conduct a research to find out which of these points can be supported with adequate evidence.

Then continue to select the points with adequate evidence, focusing more on supportive data and examples.

d) Developing a rough draft:  This step entails developing your argument from the selected points. The argument should be developed around paragraphs, with each point being covered in a separate paragraph.  

These paragraphs and the whole essay should assume the correct essay structure. Such structure looks at key aspects such as topic sentences and transitions.

e) Re-writing the essay:  This step involves finalizing the essay. It encompasses developing the essay introduction and conclusion. In following good essay writing practices, you should ensure that these two parts are written last.

You should start with the introduction, highlighting all the key points to be covered in the essay. The conclusion should then follow and summarize the main points in the essay. 

f) Proofreading the essay:  This is an essential step in medical essay writing. It is meant to eliminate all errors and enhance coherence.

It is important to note that however good an essay could be, errors and mistakes significantly lower its quality.

You should therefore go through the essay at least twice to ensure that it is devoid of grammatical errors and it effectively answers the question asked.

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How to Write a Medical Research Paper

Last Updated: February 5, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by Chris M. Matsko, MD . Dr. Chris M. Matsko is a retired physician based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With over 25 years of medical research experience, Dr. Matsko was awarded the Pittsburgh Cornell University Leadership Award for Excellence. He holds a BS in Nutritional Science from Cornell University and an MD from the Temple University School of Medicine in 2007. Dr. Matsko earned a Research Writing Certification from the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) in 2016 and a Medical Writing & Editing Certification from the University of Chicago in 2017. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 89% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 202,394 times.

Writing a medical research paper is similar to writing other research papers in that you want to use reliable sources, write in a clear and organized style, and offer a strong argument for all conclusions you present. In some cases the research you discuss will be data you have actually collected to answer your research questions. Understanding proper formatting, citations, and style will help you write and informative and respected paper.

Researching Your Paper

• Pick something that really interests you to make the research more fun.
• Choose a topic that has unanswered questions and propose solutions.

• Quantitative studies consist of original research performed by the writer. These research papers will need to include sections like Hypothesis (or Research Question), Previous Findings, Method, Limitations, Results, Discussion, and Application.
• Synthesis papers review the research already published and analyze it. They find weaknesses and strengths in the research, apply it to a specific situation, and then indicate a direction for future research.

• Keep track of your sources. Write down all publication information necessary for citation: author, title of article, title of book or journal, publisher, edition, date published, volume number, issue number, page number, and anything else pertaining to your source. A program like Endnote can help you keep track of your sources.
• Take detailed notes as you read. Paraphrase information in your own words or if you copy directly from the article or book, indicate that these are direct quotes by using quotation marks to prevent plagiarism.
• Be sure to keep all of your notes with the correct source.
• Your professor and librarians can also help you find good resources.

• Keep all of your notes in a physical folder or in a digitized form on the computer.
• Start to form the basic outline of your paper using the notes you have collected.

Writing Your Paper

• Start with bullet points and then add in notes you've taken from references that support your ideas. [1] X Trustworthy Source PubMed Central Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Go to source
• A common way to format research papers is to follow the IMRAD format. This dictates the structure of your paper in the following order: I ntroduction, M ethods, R esults, a nd D iscussion. [2] X Research source
• The outline is just the basic structure of your paper. Don't worry if you have to rearrange a few times to get it right.
• Ask others to look over your outline and get feedback on the organization.
• Know the audience you are writing for and adjust your style accordingly. [3] X Research source

• Use a standard font type and size, such as Times New Roman 12 point font.
• Double-space your paper.
• If necessary, create a cover page. Most schools require a cover page of some sort. Include your main title, running title (often a shortened version of your main title), author's name, course name, and semester.

• Break up information into sections and subsections and address one main point per section.
• Include any figures or data tables that support your main ideas.
• For a quantitative study, state the methods used to obtain results.

• Clearly state and summarize the main points of your research paper.
• Discuss how this research contributes to the field and why it is important. [4] X Research source
• Highlight potential applications of the theory if appropriate.
• Propose future directions that build upon the research you have presented. [5] X Research source
• Keep the introduction and discussion short, and spend more time explaining the methods and results.

• State why the problem is important to address.
• Discuss what is currently known and what is lacking in the field.
• State the objective of your paper.
• Keep the introduction short.

• Highlight the purpose of the paper and the main conclusions.
• State why your conclusions are important.
• Be concise in your summary of the paper.
• Show that you have a solid study design and a high-quality data set.
• Abstracts are usually one paragraph and between 250 – 500 words.

• Unless otherwise directed, use the American Medical Association (AMA) style guide to properly format citations.
• Add citations at end of a sentence to indicate that you are using someone else's idea. Use these throughout your research paper as needed. They include the author's last name, year of publication, and page number.
• Compile your reference list and add it to the end of your paper.
• Use a citation program if you have access to one to simplify the process.

• Continually revise your paper to make sure it is structured in a logical way.
• Proofread your paper for spelling and grammatical errors.
• Make sure you are following the proper formatting guidelines provided for the paper.
• Have others read your paper to proofread and check for clarity. Revise as needed.

Expert Q&A

• Ask your professor for help if you are stuck or confused about any part of your research paper. They are familiar with the style and structure of papers and can provide you with more resources. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Refer to your professor's specific guidelines. Some instructors modify parts of a research paper to better fit their assignment. Others may request supplementary details, such as a synopsis for your research project . Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Set aside blocks of time specifically for writing each day. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Do not plagiarize. Plagiarism is using someone else's work, words, or ideas and presenting them as your own. It is important to cite all sources in your research paper, both through internal citations and on your reference page. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 2

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• ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3178846/
• ↑ http://owl.excelsior.edu/research-and-citations/outlining/outlining-imrad/
• ↑ http://china.elsevier.com/ElsevierDNN/Portals/7/How%20to%20write%20a%20world-class%20paper.pdf
• ↑ http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/3/191
• ↑ http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html#form

About This Article

To write a medical research paper, research your topic thoroughly and compile your data. Next, organize your notes and create a strong outline that breaks up the information into sections and subsections, addressing one main point per section. Write the results and discussion sections first to go over your findings, then write the introduction to state your objective and provide background information. Finally, write the abstract, which concisely summarizes the article by highlighting the main points. For tips on formatting and using citations, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How To Avoid The 5 Most Common Medical Essay Writing Mistakes

Some of the most common medical essay writing mistakes can be avoided with proper planning, practice and presentation. Here’s how to improve your essay writing skills and give yourself the best chance of writing a winning essay on exam day.

1. PAY ATTENTION TO ESSAY STRUCTURE

The traditional essay structure includes three key sections: an introduction, several paragraphs outlining the core arguments, and a conclusion.

Your introduction should briefly outline what the essay will cover. Within this, you should include a ‘thesis statement’ which articulates the main idea or argument of your essay.

The body paragraphs should begin with a topic sentence, which outlines the focus of the paragraph, and the following sentences in the paragraph need to develop the idea in the topic sentence with clear evidence and examples. Finally, aim to wrap up everything nicely in your conclusion without repeating any arguments or introducing new ideas.

If you stick to this essay formula, your arguments will be clear and well-structured – with plenty room for development.

Some tips to help you pay attention to the essay structure include:

• Plan – before you start writing, sketch out a plan which includes notes for the three key sections
• Write your introduction last – writing the ‘perfect’ introduction can take up a lot of time and energy – particularly when you’re writing under pressure; writing your introduction last can be helpful because you already know exactly what your essay will be about
• Practice – make sure you have written several practice essays in the traditional essay format before you start and try to get your hands on some samples – so you have a comparable standard

2. WORK ON YOUR GRAMMAR, SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION

Spelling and grammatical errors can result in lost points, regardless of how strong your ideas are. Having good ideas is one thing, but articulating them clearly is something else entirely.

If English is your second language, take time to learn and study the craft of writing. Read other people’s writing and study sentence structure. Develop your vocabulary in general but also in relation to the subject you’re writing about.

Tips to help you improve your writing skills include:

• Read widely – read articles, textbooks and writing in your medical field as well as outside it
• Develop your vocabulary – read a variety of medical materials so you can enhance your medical terminology and understand how these terms are used in context
• Practice – again, you will only be able to develop your writing skills and vocabulary through practice, practice, and more practice

3. STAY FOCUSED

Sometimes, you might feel tempted to write about a topic or idea you’re comfortable with, instead of addressing what the essay question is about. You could write an amazing essay, but if it doesn’t address the essay question or topic then you will lose marks.

Tips to help you stay focused and ensure you are adequately addressing the essay question include:

• Circle the keywords in the question – look at the themes and ideas in these keywords and use these to help you develop your focus
• Don’t try to rewrite past essays – try not to rewrite any practice essays you may have written in the past (unless they are 100% relevant to the topic)
• Practice brainstorming – get your hands on some essay questions or quotes and practice the brainstorming aspect to help it seem less daunting

4. ADDRESS THE KEY SELECTION CRITERIA

Whenever you write an essay as part of your exams, there will be specific criteria that your essay marker will use to assess your essay. It’s vital you familiarise yourself with this criterion and keep it top of mind when you’re writing your essay.

The essay writing criteria contains general requirements like proper grammar, being able to demonstrate a range of arguments related to the topic, and a clear conclusion. But it will also include discipline-specific requirements, such as discussions of the socio-political, historical and cultural themes related to your medical field and being able to demonstrate an understanding of the recovery model, for example.

Tips to help you address the key selection criteria include:

• Think of the criteria as a checklist – and confirm you have ticked off everything in the list before you can submit your essay
• Ensure you have the latest criteria – criteria can change, so be certain that you’re referring to the latest version when you’re practicing
• Write practice essays that address the key selection criteria – if you haven’t practiced writing an essay that addresses the criteria before your final essay, you may struggle to do this on the day

5. STAY CALM ON EXAM DAY

It’s normal to have some nerves on exam day, but if you find yourself in a panic, you might procrastinate, ramble or struggle to formulate clear sentences.

The more you practice essay writing, the more confident in your abilities you’ll become – meaning you’ll be more likely to cope with any type of question that comes your way on the big day.

Tips to help you stay calm include:

• Deep breathing – if you’re feeling very anxious, put down your pen, close your eyes and take a series of deep breaths until the feeling passes
• Stay positive – when negative thoughts arise they can make you feel stressed and anxious, so develop a series of positive messages to help you overcome your nerves
• Practice writing under pressure – the best way to reduce the likelihood of nerves jeopardising your success is to practice under strict exam conditions

Other tips to help you improve your medical essay writing skills

• Pay attention to your handwriting – clear handwriting wins over poor handwriting every time, so pay attention to your handwriting, and practice writing clearly
• Be consistent with your tense – choose one tense, usually third person – you may not lose marks for writing in the first person but generally third person is more formal, convincing and relevant to the academic style
• Opt for quality over quantity – don’t assume that more words will get you more marks; you’ll be marked on the quality of your arguments, how convincing they are and how well they address the key selection criteria
• Avoid unnecessary complications – awkward vocabulary, long sentences and complex terminology can all complicate your essay and make it harder for your examiner to understand your ideas

For almost two years, I’ve been helping Psych Scene course candidates to improve their medical essay writing skills with training, personalised feedback and suggestions for improvement on their practice essays. If you’d like some help with your essay, please contact me.

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How to write "the change you want to see in health care" essay

By SeventyFourImages via EnvatoElements

By Urvi Gupta

There are many ways of approaching an essay such as this one. Here are some methods that we find useful, and we hope they will be helpful to you as well.

The most powerful essays are those which could not be written by anyone other than yourself. Keep this in mind as you begin your brainstorm. Finding stories which are personal and teach the reader something about you is crucial.

Pull out some pen and paper. Set a 5-minute timer on your phone. Use this time to jot down every thought that comes into mind about the ways you wish our health care system was better. Try to keep your pen to the paper and keep writing throughout the 5 minutes. 

Look over your list. Which ones stick out to you as the most compelling? Through your interactions with healthcare, have any of the challenges you brainstormed impacted you personally? Have you had any experiences where you worked towards any of these goals? Use these questions to pick 1-3 topics from your list.

Begin outlining your essay. For each of your topics, try to include answers to the following questions:

Briefly describe the topic/issue.

Why is this topic important to you specifically? How has it affected you/the people around you/the world? Give concrete examples.

How do you propose you can make it better? Again, be specific and try to draw inspiration from your own life. 

Begin writing!

Read your draft out loud to yourself or a friend/family member to look for areas that are unclear or that could be improved.

Remember that it is less important as to what you pick for the change you want to see in health care and more important that you have something compelling and personal to say about it. We want to learn about you!

The views expressed here are the authors and they do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Stanford University School of Medicine. External websites are shared as a courtesy. They are not endorsed by the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The most powerful essays are those which could not be written by anyone other than yourself.

Urvi Gupta, BS SASI Teaching Assistant

6 Tips for Writing Your AMCAS® Personal Comments Essay

New section.

The Personal Comments Essay section of the American Medical College Application Service® (AMCAS®) application is your opportunity to tell medical school admissions officers who you are and what makes you unique. Here are some tips to help you as you write your essay.

The AMCAS® application to medical school asks for a lot of information about yourself. It includes biographical information, courses taken, and work experiences just to name a few.  The application also requires you to include a Personal Comments Essay, which is entered in Section 8 of the application. This essay provides an opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants and provide admissions officers with more insight into why you have chosen to pursue a career in medicine.

Many admissions committees place significant weight on this section, so we have compiled a list of tips to help you craft a well-organized and compelling essay.

• Take time to think about the content of your essay before writing a first draft. As you’re thinking about the structure of your essay, remember to keep the content general because it will go to all medical schools you apply to. Try not to duplicate information provided elsewhere in the application. Some questions you may want to consider before you begin writing include: What are some of your personal values and how have they influenced your desire to enter the medical profession? What motivates you to learn more about medicine? What should medical schools know about you that isn’t described in other sections of the application?
• Show, don't tell.  If challenges in your childhood or a defining experience led you to consider medicine, use details to describe those experiences and bring your essay to life. Try to include content that aligns with the premed competencies for entering medical students . Write in your authentic voice; your essay can help you contextualize and elaborate on topics during your interview.
• Stay on topic. There is a 5,300 character limit (including spaces) in this section. This equals about 1 1/2 pages of writing, single-spaced.  Make sure your essay is interesting, follows a logical and orderly flow, relates to your reasons for choosing medicine, and describes why you believe you will be successful as a physician.
• Don’t be afraid of the editing process.  Be sure to write more than one draft and make edits to your essay. Find a reviewer who does not have a personal relationship with you, as an external reviewer will help you gain new perspectives on your writing and refine the story you want to tell admissions committees.
• Remember to proofread and be mindful of formatting. The AMCAS application does not include spell check, so be sure to proofread your essay for any typos or grammatical errors. You will not be able to go back into this section to make any edits after submitting your application. To avoid formatting issues, we recommend that you draft your essay in text-only word processing software, such as Microsoft Notepad or Mac TextEdit, then copy and paste your essay into the application. You can also type your essay directly into the AMCAS application.
• If you are applying to MD-PhD programs, there are two additional essays you will need to complete. The first essay asks your reasons for pursuing the combined degree and is relatively short. The second essay asks you to describe your research activities and is about three pages long. You can read more about these additional essays in the 2024 AMCAS® Applicant Guide (PDF) or get further guidance from your prehealth advisor or career counselor.

For more AMCAS-related tips, please check out the AMCAS Tools and Tutorials page . There, you’ll find video tutorials, presentations, guides, and recordings of past webinars. For further advice from current prehealth advisors, access our “Advisor Corner: Crafting Your Personal Statement” article .

2 Med School Essays That Admissions Officers Loved

Here are tips on writing a medical school personal statement and examples of essays that stood out.

2 Great Med School Personal Statements

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A compelling medical school admissions essay can address nearly any topic the applicant is interested in, as long as it conveys the applicant's personality.

A personal statement is often a pivotal factor in medical school admissions decisions.

"The essay really can cause me to look more deeply at the entire application," Dr. Stephen Nicholas, former senior associate dean of admissions with the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons , told U.S. News in 2017. "So I do think it's pretty important."

A compelling medical school admissions essay can address nearly any topic the applicant is interested in, as long as it conveys the applicant's personality, according to Dr. Barbara Kazmierczak, director of the M.D.-Ph.D. Program and a professor of medicine and microbial pathogenesis with the Yale School of Medicine.

“The passion that the writer is bringing to this topic tells us about the individual rather than the topic that they’re describing, and the essay is the place for us to learn about the applicant – who they are and what experiences have brought them to this point of applying to medical school,” she told U.S. News in 2017.

Rachel Rudeen, former admissions coordinator for the University of Minnesota Medical School , says personal statements help medical schools determine whether applicants have the character necessary to excel as a doctor. "Grit is something we really look for," she says.

Evidence of humility and empathy , Rudeen adds, are also pluses.

Why Medical Schools Care About Personal Statements

The purpose of a personal statement is to report the events that inspired and prepared a premed to apply to medical school, admissions experts say. This personal essay helps admissions officers figure out whether a premed is ready for med school, and it also clarifies whether a premed has a compelling rationale for attending med school, these experts explain.

When written well, a medical school personal statement conveys a student's commitment to medicine and injects humanity into an admissions process that might otherwise feel cold and impersonal, according to admissions experts.

Glen Fogerty, associate dean of admissions and recruitment with the medical school at the University of Arizona—Phoenix , put it this way in an email: "To me, the strongest personal statements are the ones that share a personal connection. One where a candidate shares a specific moment, the spark that ignited their passion to become a physician or reaffirmed why they chose medicine as a career."

Dr. Viveta Lobo, an emergency medicine physician with the Stanford University School of Medicine in California who often mentors premeds, says the key thing to know about a personal statement is that it must indeed be personal, so it needs to reveal something meaningful. The essay should not be a dry piece of writing; it should make the reader feel for the author, says Lobo, director of academic conferences and continuing medical education with the emergency medicine department at Stanford.

A great personal statement has an emotional impact and "will 'do' something, not just 'say' something," Lobo wrote in an email. Admissions officers "read hundreds of essays – so before you begin, think of how yours will stand out, be unique and different," Lobo suggests.

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School

Lobo notes that an outstanding personal statement typically includes all of the following ingredients:

• An intriguing introduction that gets admissions officers' attention.
• Anecdotes that illustrate what kind of person the applicant is.
• Reflections about the meaning and impact of various life experiences .
• A convincing narrative about why medical school is the logical next step.
• A satisfying and optimistic conclusion.

"You should sound excited, and that passion should come through in your writing," Lobo explains.

A personal statement should tie together an applicant's past, present and future by explaining how previous experiences have led to this point and outlining long-term plans to contribute to the medical profession, Lobo said during a phone interview. Medical school admissions officers want to understand not only where an applicant has been but also the direction he or she is going, Lobo added.

When premeds articulate a vision of how they might assist others and improve society through the practice of medicine, it suggests that they aren't self-serving or simply interested in the field because of its prestige, Lobo says. It's ideal when premeds can eloquently describe a noble mission, she explains.

Elisabeth Fassas, author of "Making Pre-Med Count: Everything I Wish I'd Known Before Applying (Successfully) to Medical School," says premeds should think about the doctors they admire and reflect on why they admire them. Fassas, a first-year medical student at the University of Maryland , suggests pondering the following questions:

• "Why can you really only see yourself being a physician?"
• "What is it about being a doctor that has turned you on to this field?"
• "What kind of doctor do you imagine yourself being?"
• "Who do you want to be for your patients?"
• "What are you going to do specifically for your patients that only you can do?"

Fassas notes that many of the possible essay topics a med school hopeful can choose are subjects that other premeds can also discuss, such as a love of science. However, aspiring doctors can make their personal statements unique by articulating the lessons they learned from their life experiences, she suggests.

Prospective medical students need to clarify why medicine is a more suitable calling for them than other caring professions, health care fields and science careers, Fassas notes. They should demonstrate awareness of the challenges inherent in medicine and explain why they want to become doctors despite those difficulties, she says.

Tips on Crafting an Excellent Medical School Personal Statement

The first step toward creating an outstanding personal statement, Fassas says, is to create a list of significant memories. Premeds should think about which moments in their lives mattered the most and then identify the two or three stories that are definitely worth sharing.

Dr. Demicha Rankin, associate dean for admissions at the Ohio State University College of Medicine , notes that a personal statement should offer a compelling portrait of a person and should not be "a regurgitation of their CV."

The most outstanding personal statements are the ones that present a multifaceted perspective of the applicant by presenting various aspects of his or her identity, says Rankin, an associate professor of anesthesiology.

For example, a premed who was a swimmer might explain how the discipline necessary for swimming is analogous to the work ethic required to become a physician, Rankin says. Likewise, a pianist or another type of musician applying to medical school could convey how the listening skills and instrument-tuning techniques cultivated in music could be applicable in medicine, she adds.

Rankin notes that it's apparent when a premed has taken a meticulous approach to his or her personal statement to ensure that it flows nicely, and she says a fine essay is akin to a "well-woven fabric." One sign that a personal statement has been polished is when a theme that was explored at the beginning of the essay is also mentioned at the end, Rankin says, explaining that symmetry between an essay's introduction and conclusion makes the essay seem complete.

Rankin notes that the author of an essay might not see flaws in his or her writing that are obvious to others, so it's important for premeds to show their personal statement to trusted advisers and get honest feedback. That's one reason it's important to begin the writing process early enough to give yourself sufficient time to organize your thoughts, Rankin says, adding that a minimum of four weeks is typically necessary.

Mistakes to Avoid in a Medical School Personal Statement

One thing premeds should never do in an admissions essay is beg, experts say. Rankin says requests of any type – including a plea for an admissions interview – do not belong in a personal statement. Another pitfall to avoid, Rankin says, is ranting about controversial political subjects such as the death penalty or abortion.

If premeds fail to closely proofread their personal statement, the essay could end up being submitted with careless errors such as misspellings and grammar mistakes that could easily have been fixed, according to experts. Crafting a compelling personal statement typically necessitates multiple revisions, so premeds who skimp on revising might wind up with sloppy essays, some experts say.

However, when fine-tuning their personal statements, premeds should not automatically change their essays based on what others say, Fogerty warns.

"A common mistake on personal statements is having too many people review your statement, they make recommendations, you accept all of the changes and then – in the end – the statement is no longer your voice," Fogerty wrote in an email. It's essential that a personal statement sound like the applicant and represent who he or she is as a person, Fogerty says.

Dr. Nicholas Jones, a Georgia-based plastic and reconstructive surgeon, says the worst error that someone can make in the personal statement is to be inauthentic or deceptive.

"Do not lie. Do not fabricate," he warns.

Jones adds that premeds should not include a story in their personal statement that they are not comfortable discussing in-depth during a med school admissions interview . "If it's something too personal or you're very emotional and you don't want to talk about that, then don't put it in a statement."

Medical School Personal Statement Examples

Here are two medical school admissions essays that made a strong, positive impression on admissions officers. The first is from Columbia and the second is from the University of Minnesota. These personal statements are annotated with comments from admissions officers explaining what made these essays stand out.

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2024 How to Write a Medical School Personal Statement (11 Steps)

• By Med School Insiders
• December 2, 2023
• Medical Student , Pre-med
• Medical School Application , Personal Statement

Each piece of a med school application brings a unique set of anxiety-ridden challenges, but few equal that of the personal statement. A personal statement is much, much more than a narrative-version of your CV. Reiterating your grades and extracurriculars in complete sentences is not how to write a medical school personal statement.

A personal statement is an opportunity to tell your story. Why do you want to study medicine? What drives you? This is your chance to let an admissions committee know who you really are beyond your grades.

Of course, you’re studying to become a doctor, not a novelist, which means the idea of crafting your personal statement may seem daunting, to say the least.

In this guide, we’ll take a comprehensive, step-by-step look at how to write a medical school personal statement, including how to get started, everything you need to include, and common mistakes to avoid.

Article Sections

• Anatomy of Medical School Personal Statement

What Med School Admissions Committees Look For

How to get started.

• How to Write a Personal Statement

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Medical school personal statement examples, anatomy of a medical school personal statement.

A personal statement has a 5,300 character maximum, about 1.5 pages of single-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font. The challenge isn’t trying to fill in words; the challenge is selecting the key moments in your life that made you want to be a doctor and expressing them concisely.

A personal statement is made up of three parts:

Introduction

It’s essentially a short essay that uses your life experience to succinctly demonstrate why you’re the right person for the job. If someone’s making a movie about your life and the events that shaped your desire to become a doctor, what key moments do you want to highlight?

Your introduction must capture an admissions committee’s attention. Use the introduction to hook your readers. The first few sentences should entice them to read more.

There isn’t a perfect number of paragraphs or set structure. This is where you discuss the experiences that have shaped your personality, your desire to study medicine, and your dreams for the future.

This is the summary of your statement, and it should tie in directly to your introduction. Now is the time to emphasize why you want to be a physician and your future goals.

Learn more about the Anatomy of a Stellar Medical School Personal Statement .

Admissions committees need to know they’re accepting students who are ready to face the rigorous day-and-night grind of medical school. They have your CV and transcripts; now you need to demonstrate you have what it takes to succeed.

The personal statement is your chance to display your personality and highlight the experiences that shaped you. What drives you? What strengths and experiences will you bring to medical school? Why are you an asset?

The admissions committee isn’t looking for a list of your accomplishments. They want to know your story . Don’t tell the admissions committee you’re compassionate and driven; show them with tangible examples from your life.

So you’re a great listener. What’s a moment in your past that demonstrates this? If you care deeply about the wellbeing of others, what story from your life illustrates that passion?

1 | Read Real Personal Statement Examples

Right off the bat, it’s important to remember that you’re not alone—far from it. Every medical student who came before you has written personal statements, which means you have a wealth of examples to read and learn from.

Every personal statement is unique to the writer. Don’t expect to find a perfect blueprint you can copy off of, but reading several different personal statements will give you a sense of the themes, concepts, strategies, and stories that can help you find success.

If you know people in your own life who have successfully matriculated to med school, it’s a good idea to ask them if you can take a look at their personal statement. Med School Insiders compiled a database of personal statements donated by successful medical school applicants. Reading successful personal statements will give you an idea of what’s expected.

Reading bad personal statements can also give you an idea of what mistakes to avoid. Learn from our bad personal statement examples , which includes key insights into what you should do instead.

2 | Reflect on Past Experiences

Take this as an opportunity to reflect. Don’t think of it as brainstorming, and don’t worry about being creative just yet. Simply think back on key moments from your past.

Think of your personal statement like your superhero origin story. You may have excellent grades, abilities, and a natural aptitude for science, but why are you pursuing medicine? What moment or moments in your life revealed to you why you had to be a doctor?

Take Spider-Man. Yes, Peter Parker received his superpowers from a radioactive spider bite, but that’s not why he fights crime; Spider-Man fights crime so that what happened to his Uncle Ben never happens to anyone else. Bruce Wayne is incredibly smart, incredibly strong, and incredibly rich, but that’s not why he fights crime as Batman. Bruce Wayne became Batman so that no one else would lose their parents to a random act of violence like he did.

The truth is, a lot of superheroes have pretty similar motivations, and doctors have similar motivations, too. Your desire to become a doctor likely stems from a genuine intellectual interest in medicine, a desire to work closely with other humans, and a drive to help people and save lives. The other med school hopefuls you’re applying with have very similar motivations.

The key is digging deep and determining what you value most about becoming a doctor. Once you know that, think about the tangible experiences in your life that helped you realize those values.

Utilize our list of 25 medical school personal statement prompts as you ideate and reflect on your life to date.

3 | Choose Which Experiences/Traits to Highlight

Identify three to four personal strengths you are particularly proud of and want the admissions committee to know. Where did these strengths shine in your premedical years? What experiences helped you build on these strengths? This will make up the body of your personal statement.

Remember: writing a personal statement takes time—and lots of it. It will likely take several different attempts and drafts. After discussing your selected strengths, you may find that they don’t define you well enough or that there are better options. Don’t be discouraged. Give yourself plenty of time to reflect on and explore a variety of different strengths.

Don’t forget about the interview; the admissions committee will certainly ask you to further elaborate on the experiences outlined in your personal statement. Share personal stories that you want to be asked about and feel comfortable addressing.

Generally, personal statements involve experiences in the following categories:

• A passion for patient interaction
• Intellectual curiosity for medicine (academics, research, etc.)
• Dedication and discipline (medicine or another pursuit)
• Perseverance in the face of adversity
• Interpersonal and professional skills

How to Write a Medical School Personal Statement

4 | show, don’t tell.

If essays or storytelling aren’t necessarily your strong suit, think back to math class and those equations where the teacher made you show your work for the full grade. It’s not enough that you got the answer right; you had to show how you arrived at the answer.

Think of this in the same way. It’s great that you’re compassionate, but the admissions committee isn’t going to take you at your word. They want you to back up that claim with evidence. It is vital that you show the admissions committee you’re compassionate with concrete examples from your life that illustrate your journey to medicine.

It’s much more impactful to share a story that demonstrates specific qualities than it is to tell someone you have those qualities directly. Saying you are hardworking or resilient is not enough. You need to craft a story that allows the reader to infer those qualities about you.

5 | Leverage the Narrative-Based Approach

You are applying to medical school along with an immense number of other students with great grades, stellar qualifications, and impressive clinical hours. These are all key to your medical school application, but the best grades in the world won’t set you apart in the eyes of the admissions committee.

Your personal statement is a chance to stand out in a crowded field. Too many personal statements read like a CV but with full paragraphs, which quickly becomes monotonous.

Leverage a narrative-based approach so that the admissions committee is excited to learn more about you. Your entire application should illustrate your compelling journey toward becoming a doctor. Highlight how your experiences make you an asset who will contribute uniquely to the medical school.

It’s not enough to simply check off the boxes. The admissions committee wants to know your story.

Learn How to Develop a Cohesive Narrative for Medical School Applications .

6 | Create an Outline

After taking the time to reflect on the experiences and traits you want to include in your personal statement, create an outline to structure your approach .

You do not need to stick to it, but this is the general structure of most personal statements:

• Introduction (A strong hook to catch the reader’s attention—usually an anecdote or reflection that introduces the theme of your story. Hook the reader with the opening sentence.)
• Experience 1
• Experience 2
• Experience 3
• Conclusion (Tie your story back to the opening hook/theme. Summarize why you want to be a physician and what your future goals are.)

Remember, this is not a list of your accomplishments. The personal statement must read like a cohesive narrative, not a resume.

Establish a theme in the introduction that’s central to your desire to become a doctor. Each following paragraph will illustrate how your personal experiences have shaped that desire and prepared you for your journey. In the conclusion, gracefully tie back to your central theme or hook to turn the personal statement into a consistent, interconnected story.

7 | Force Yourself to Start Writing

It’s understandable and common to feel overwhelmed while writing a personal statement. In fact, if you don’t feel overwhelmed, it’s safe to say that you’re not taking this seriously enough.

Start with a theme, but don’t get stuck trying to come up with the perfect opening sentence. That comes later. Once you have a general outline, just start writing. See what happens, and—most importantly—be kind to yourself.

The first words you write won’t be perfect, but they will get you started. You should fully expect the first draft of your personal statement to be terrible. That’s okay. First drafts are never perfect.

Your first draft probably won’t look anything like your final essay. Put one foot in front of the other and just start writing. Get the ideas out and worry about editing later.

8 | Keep it Concise and Direct

In your subsequent drafts, focus on cutting down your words and being concise. It’s not your use of flowery language that will impress the admissions committee. Forget about extravagant word choices and convoluted sentence structure. You don’t have the space for poetic tangents anyway.

Use your words efficiently, and favor clear language over long, complicated words. It’s easy for readers to spot when you’re using a thesaurus, and it will only take away from your end message. Find the simplest way to say something.

For example:

Hard-working over Assiduous

Compassion over Magnanimity

Agree over Concur

Use tools like the Hemingway App to keep your language direct and concise.

9 | Take Some Time Away

Take time away from your drafts. Once you complete a draft, take a break, and let it sit. Go for a walk, watch some TV, or work on a completely different activity. After your break, come back to your personal statement with fresh eyes. You may find that the fantastic opening line you came up with isn’t so fantastic anymore, or that sentence you weren’t so sure about actually works really well.

Writing your personal statement will take time. Even if you feel extremely confident in your personal statement, take time away from it and come back.

10 | Refine, Review, and Edit

We recommend using editing apps like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor , but don’t rely on bots alone to catch possible mistakes.

Ask your friends and family for their first impressions on the content of your personal statement. Tell them to be brutally honest (because the admissions committee certainly will be.) Reach out to a mentor or people who have been through this process before.

Spelling or grammar mistakes indicate carelessness on your part and are an automatic red flag for admissions committees. Read over your work carefully, and ask others you trust to do the same.

The editing process is such a critical phase for your personal statement. Learn how to edit your personal statement to impress admissions committees.

11 | Invest in Essay Editing Services

Your medical school personal statement is arguably the most important piece of your application. While an excellent essay can lock-in your interview offer, a poorly-written personal statement can ruin your chances—even with stellar grades, impressive academic awards, and a notable list of extracurriculars.

Don’t risk your acceptance. Essay editing services can provide the help that friends, family, and mentors cannot.

Med School Insiders Personal Statement Editing Services includes careful analysis of content and tone as well as helpful insights into how you can improve your essay and impress admissions committees.

Avoid the following common personal statement mistakes .

• Don’t list your accomplishments or rehash your CV and extracurriculars.
• Don’t make spelling or grammar errors.
• Don’t overuse the word I. Doing so makes you more likely to state your accomplishments instead of telling a story.
• Don’t use flowery language or words you found in a thesaurus.
• Don’t explain to a physician what medicine is all about. Talk about yourself and your experiences; the admissions committee already understands medicine.
• Don’t state the obvious or use clichés. (Every applicant likes science and wants to help people.)
• Don’t lie or fabricate your personal stories.
• Don’t make excuses for poor grades or a low MCAT score.
• Don’t speak negatively about another physician or healthcare professional.
• Don’t plead for an interview or acceptance.
• Don’t edit your personal statement by yourself.
• Don’t procrastinate.

Learn more: 20 Personal Statement: Dos and Don’ts .

It’s important to read the personal statements of matriculated students. While you won’t be able to mimic someone else’s personal statement, you can still learn a lot from them, and reading different statements can spark ideas for your own essay.

We compiled a selection of real medical school personal statements from successful applicants. These statements are for reference purposes only and should not be plagiarized in any way. Plagiarism detection software is used when evaluating personal statements, and plagiarizing is grounds for an automatic disqualification.

Be sure to read the included feedback regarding the personal statements as well, as this will give you extra insight into what admissions committees are looking for.

Read Real Medical School Personal Statement Examples .

Medical School Personal Statement Editing

Don’t write your medical school personal statement alone—we can help. Med School Insiders offers a range of personal statement editing packages , from general editing to unlimited, in-depth editing with a physician who will be there to advise you every step of the way.

Learn more about our Comprehensive Medical School Admissions Packages . Our team of doctors has years of experience serving on admissions committees, so you’ll receive key insights from people who have been intimately involved with the selection process.

Next read: Guide to Understanding the Medical School Application Process

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., 15 tips for your medical school personal statement.

Don't underestimate the power of the medical school personal statement to make a strong, positive impression on an admissions committee. Combined with your interview performance, your personal statement can account for 60% (or more) of your total admissions score!

Medical schools want to enroll bright, empathetic, communicative people. Here's how to write a compelling med school personal statement that shows schools who you are and what you're capable of.

Personal Statement Topics

Your medical school personal statement is a component of your primary application submitted via, TMDSAS (for Texas applications), or AACOMAS (NB: If you are applying to medical school in Canada, confirm the application process with your school, as not all application components may be submitted through AMCAS).

These applications offer broad topics to consider, and many essay approaches are acceptable. For example, you could write about:

• an experience that challenged or changed your perspective about medicine
• a relationship with a mentor or another inspiring individual
• a challenging personal experience
• unique hardships, challenges, or obstacles that may have influenced your educational pursuits
• your motivation to seek a career in medicine

You'll write an additional essay (or two) when you submit secondary applications to individual schools. These essays require you to respond to a specific question. Admissions committees will review your entire application, so choose subject matter that complements your original essay .

Read More: Strategies for Secondary Applications

How to Write a Personal Statement for Medical School

Follow these personal statement tips to help the admissions committee better understand you as a candidate.

1. Write, re-write, let it sit, and write again!

Allow yourself 6 months of writing and revision to get your essay in submission-ready shape. This gives you the time to take your first pass, set your draft aside (for a minimum of 24 hours), review what you’ve written, and re-work your draft.

2. Stay focused.

Your personal statement should highlight interesting aspects of your journey—not tell your entire life story. Choose a theme, stick to it, and support it with specific examples.

3. Back off the cliches.

Loving science and wanting to help people might be your sincere passions, but they are also what everyone else is writing about. Instead, be personal and specific.

4. Find your unique angle.

What can you say about yourself that no one else can? Remember, everyone has trials, successes and failures. What's important and unique is how you reacted to those incidents. Bring your own voice and perspective to your personal statement to give it a truly memorable flavor. 

5. Be interesting.

Start with a “catch” that will create intrigue before launching into the story of who you are. Make the admissions committee want to read on!

6. Show don't tell.

Instead of telling the admissions committee about your unique qualities (like compassion, empathy, and organization), show them through the stories you tell about yourself. Don’t just say it—actually prove it.

7. Embrace the 5-point essay format.

Here's a trusty format that you can make your own:

• 1st paragraph: These four or five sentences should "catch" the reader's attention.
• 3-4 body paragraphs: Use these paragraphs to reveal who you are. Ideally, one of these paragraphs will reflect clinical understanding and one will reflect service.
• Concluding paragraph: The strongest conclusion reflects the beginning of your essay, gives a brief summary of you are, and ends with a challenge for the future.

8. Good writing is simple writing.

Good medical students—and good doctors—use clear, direct language. Your essays should not be a struggle to comprehend.

9. Be thoughtful about transitions.

Be sure to vary your sentence structure. You don’t want your essay to be boring! Pay attention to how your paragraphs connect to each other.

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10. Stick to the rules.

Watch your word count. That’s 5,300 characters (including spaces) for AMCAS applications, 5,000 characters for TMDSAS, and 4,500 characters for AACOMAS.

11. Stay on topic.

Rambling not only uses up your precious character limit, but it also causes confusion! Think about the three to five “sound bytes” you want admissions committee to know and remember you by.

12. Don't overdo it.

Beware of being too self-congratulatory or too self-deprecating.

13. Seek multiple opinions.

Before you hit “submit,” ask several people you trust for feedback on your personal statement. The more time you have spent writing your statement, the less likely you are to spot any errors. A professor or friend whose judgment and writing skills you trust is invaluable.

Read More: 12 Smart Tips for Your AMCAS Application

14. Double-check the details.

Always check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. This goes for the rest of your application (like your activities list), too. A common oversight is referencing the wrong school in your statement! Give yourself (and your proofreaders) the time this task truly requires.

15. Consult the experts about your personal statement strategy.

Our med school admissions counselors can diagnose the “health” of your overall application, including your personal statement. Get expert help and guidance to write an effective personal statement that showcases not only your accomplishments, but your passion and your journey.

Want to get an edge over the crowd?

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Medical School Examples

Craft a Winning Medical School Essay with Examples and Proven Tips

Published on: May 8, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

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Are you dreaming of becoming a doctor or a health care professional? 

The first step towards achieving that goal is to get accepted into a top-tier medical school. 

But with so many other qualified medical students competing for the same spot, how do you stand out from the crowd? 

It all starts with your medical school essay. 

Your essay is your opportunity to your unique qualities, experiences, and aspirations. 

In this blog, we'll provide you with examples that will help you catch the attention of admissions committees. 

From purpose to common mistakes to avoid, we'll cover everything you need to get accepted into the medical school of your dreams. 

So, let's dive in!

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Types of Medical School Examples 

Medical school essays come in many different forms, each with its own unique requirements and purpose.

In this section, we'll discuss some of the most common types of medical school essays and what you need to know to write them successfully.

Personal Statements 

Personal statements are the most common type of medical school essay. They are usually a one-page essay that introduces you to the admissions officers. 

It explains why you want to pursue medicine as a career. Personal statements should be engaging, and memorable, and show off your unique qualities.

An outline offers a framework to help you craft a compelling narrative that showcases your strengths and experiences.

Check out this personal statement example that can help future physicians getting into the schools of their dreams.

Medical School Personal Statement Examples pdf

Secondary Essays 

Secondary essays are additional essays that some medical schools require in addition to the personal statement. 

They often ask specific questions about your background, experiences, or interests. They give you an opportunity to show off your future patient care and problem-solving skills.

Here is a brief example of a secondary application medical school essay:

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Diversity Essays 

Diversity essays ask you to write about your experiences with diversity and how they have influenced you to pursue a career and your interest in medicine. 

These essays are becoming increasingly common in medical school applications as schools strive to build a more diverse and inclusive student body.

Good Medical School Essay Examples 

Are you struggling to write a standout medical school essay? They say that the best way to learn is by example. That's especially true when it comes to public health school essays. 

We'll provide you with some of the best examples to help you craft an essay that will help your career in medicine.

Medical College Essay Examples

Personal Statement Medical School Examples Pdf

Medical School Covid Essay Examples

Challenging Medical School Essay Examples 

Writing a medical school essay is more than just telling a story about yourself. It's an opportunity to demonstrate your critical thinking and analytical skills. 

In this section, we'll highlight some of the challenging medical school essay examples. This will give you a sense of what admissions committees are looking for. You can learn how to exceed those expectations by writing a successful medical school essay.

Greatest Challenge Medical School Essay Examples

Successful Medicine Personal Statement Examples

Medical School Scholarship Essay Examples

Medical School Essay Examples for Different Schools 

Each medical school has its own unique mission, values, and admissions criteria, and your essay should reflect that. 

In this section, we'll explore how to tailor your medical school essay for different schools and showcase some examples of successful essays.

Let’s explore these Stanford and Harvard medical school essay examples:

Medical School Personal Statement Examples Harvard

Medical School Personal Statement Examples Stanford

Tips on Crafting an Excellent Medical School Personal Statement 

The medical school personal statement is your opportunity to showcase your unique qualities and experiences. 

Here are some tips to help you craft an excellent personal statement:

Start Early 

Don't wait until the last minute to start writing your personal statement. Give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm, write, and revise your essay. Starting early also allows you to get feedback from mentors, professors, or peers.

Focus on Your Story 

Your personal statement should tell a story that showcases your journey to medicine. Highlight the experiences and qualities that have led you to pursue a career in medicine. Tell them how you plan to use your skills to make a difference.

Be Specific 

Use specific examples to illustrate your experiences and achievements. Don't just list your accomplishments, but show how they have prepared you for a career in medicine. Use concrete details to make your essay more engaging and memorable.

Show, Don't Tell 

Instead of simply stating your qualities, show them through your experiences and actions. For example, don’t say you're a team player. Describe a time when you worked effectively in a team to achieve a goal.

Tailor Your Essay to the School 

As mentioned earlier, each medical school has its own unique mission and values. Tailor your personal statement to each school to demonstrate your fit with their program and values.

Mistakes to Avoid in a Medical School Personal Statement 

When it comes to your medical school personal statement, there are some common mistakes you should avoid:

Avoid using cliched phrases and ideas that are overused in personal statements. Admissions committees want to see your unique perspective and experiences. They do not want generic statements that could apply to anyone.

Negativity 

Don't focus on negative experiences or aspects of your life in your personal statement. Instead, focus on your strengths and how you have grown from challenges.

Lack of Focus 

Make sure your personal statement has a clear focus and theme. Don't try to cover too many topics or experiences in one essay. Instead, focus on one or two experiences that are meaningful to you and illustrate your journey to medicine.

Too Formal or Informal Tone 

Make sure your personal statement strikes the right tone. Avoid being too formal or using overly complex language. Also, avoid being too informal or using slang.

Plagiarism 

Never copy someone else's personal statement or use a template to write your own. Admissions committees can easily spot plagiarism, and it will result in an immediate rejection.

Grammatical and Spelling Errors

Proofread your personal statement thoroughly for grammatical and spelling errors. Even a few small errors can detract from the overall quality of your essay.

Lack of Authenticity 

Be true to yourself in your personal statement. Don't try to present an image of yourself that is not authentic or that you think the admissions committee wants to see. Be honest and genuine in your writing.

In conclusion, crafting a winning medical school essay is a crucial step toward securing admission to the medical school of your dreams. 

This blog has provided examples of essays along with tips to craft an excellent medical school personal statement. By avoiding mistakes, you can increase your chances of standing out from the crowd and impressing the admissions committee. 

Struggling with your medical school essays or college papers? Look no further!

Our college paper writing service specializes in crafting exceptional papers tailored to your academic needs, including medical school essays. And for an extra boost in your writing tasks, don't forget to explore our AI essay generator .

Elevate your academic performance with our medical school essay writing service and unlock the potential of our AI essay tools.

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Frequently Asked Question (FAQs)

What is the ideal med school personal statement word limit.

There is no set length for a medical school personal statement, but most schools typically require a personal statement of 500-800 words.

How do I choose a topic for my medical school essay?

Choose a topic that showcases your unique perspective and experiences, and illustrates your journey to medicine. Consider what makes you stand out and what you are passionate about.

Should I mention my grades and test scores in my medical school essay?

It is not necessary to mention your grades and test scores in your medical school essay as they are already included in your application. Instead, focus on showcasing your unique qualities, experiences, and perspective.

Can I get help with writing my medical school essay?

Yes, there are various resources available to help you with writing your medical school essay. Consider seeking help from a writing tutor, career services office, or professional writing service like ours.

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Sample Medical School Essays

Applying to medical school is an exciting decision, but the application process is very competitive. This means when it comes to your application you need to ensure you’ve put your best foot forward and done everything you can to stand out from other applicants. One great way to provide additional information on why you have decided to pursue a career in medicine and why you’re qualified, is your medical school essay. Read these samples to get a good idea on how you can write your own top-notch essay.

This section contains five sample medical school essays

• Medical School Sample Essay One
• Medical School Sample Essay Two
• Medical School Sample Essay Three
• Medical School Sample Essay Four
• Medical School Sample Essay Five

Medical School Essay One

When I was twelve years old, a drunk driver hit the car my mother was driving while I was in the backseat. I have very few memories of the accident, but I do faintly recall a serious but calming face as I was gently lifted out of the car. The paramedic held my hand as we traveled to the hospital. I was in the hospital for several weeks and that same paramedic came to visit me almost every day. During my stay, I also got to know the various doctors and nurses in the hospital on a personal level. I remember feeling anxiety about my condition, but not sadness or even fear. It seemed to me that those around me, particularly my family, were more fearful of what might happen to me than I was. I don’t believe it was innocence or ignorance, but rather a trust in the abilities of my doctors. It was as if my doctors and I had a silent bond. Now that I’m older I fear death and sickness in a more intense way than I remember experiencing it as a child. My experience as a child sparked a keen interest in how we approach pediatric care, especially as it relates to our psychological and emotional support of children facing serious medical conditions. It was here that I experienced first-hand the power and compassion of medicine, not only in healing but also in bringing unlikely individuals together, such as adults and children, in uncommon yet profound ways. And it was here that I began to take seriously the possibility of becoming a pediatric surgeon.

My interest was sparked even more when, as an undergraduate, I was asked to assist in a study one of my professors was conducting on how children experience and process fear and the prospect of death. This professor was not in the medical field; rather, her background is in cultural anthropology. I was very honored to be part of this project at such an early stage of my career. During the study, we discovered that children face death in extremely different ways than adults do. We found that children facing fatal illnesses are very aware of their condition, even when it hasn’t been fully explained to them, and on the whole were willing to fight their illnesses, but were also more accepting of their potential fate than many adults facing similar diagnoses. We concluded our study by asking whether and to what extent this discovery should impact the type of care given to children in contrast to adults. I am eager to continue this sort of research as I pursue my medical career. The intersection of medicine, psychology, and socialization or culture (in this case, the social variables differentiating adults from children) is quite fascinating and is a field that is in need of better research.

Although much headway has been made in this area in the past twenty or so years, I feel there is a still a tendency in medicine to treat diseases the same way no matter who the patient is. We are slowly learning that procedures and drugs are not always universally effective. Not only must we alter our care of patients depending upon these cultural and social factors, we may also need to alter our entire emotional and psychological approach to them as well.

It is for this reason that I’m applying to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as it has one of the top programs for pediatric surgery in the country, as well as several renowned researchers delving into the social, generational, and cultural questions in which I’m interested. My approach to medicine will be multidisciplinary, which is evidenced by the fact that I’m already double-majoring in early childhood psychology and pre-med, with a minor in cultural anthropology. This is the type of extraordinary care that I received as a child—care that seemed to approach my injuries with a much larger and deeper picture than that which pure medicine cannot offer—and it is this sort of care I want to provide my future patients. I turned what might have been a debilitating event in my life—a devastating car accident—into the inspiration that has shaped my life since. I am driven and passionate. And while I know that the pediatric surgery program at Johns Hopkins will likely be the second biggest challenge I will face in my life, I know that I am up for it. I am ready to be challenged and prove to myself what I’ve been telling myself since that fateful car accident: I will be a doctor.

Tips for a Successful Medical School Essay

• If you’re applying through AMCAS, remember to keep your essay more general rather than tailored to a specific medical school, because your essay will be seen by multiple schools.
• AMCAS essays are limited to 5300 characters—not words! This includes spaces.
• Make sure the information you include in your essay doesn't conflict with the information in your other application materials.
• In general, provide additional information that isn’t found in your other application materials. Look at the essay as an opportunity to tell your story rather than a burden.
• Keep the interview in mind as you write. You will most likely be asked questions regarding your essay during the interview, so think about the experiences you want to talk about.
• When you are copying and pasting from a word processor to the AMCAS application online, formatting and font will be lost. Don’t waste your time making it look nice. Be sure to look through the essay once you’ve copied it into AMCAS and edit appropriately for any odd characters that result from pasting.
• Avoid overly controversial topics. While it is fine to take a position and back up your position with evidence, you don’t want to sound narrow-minded.
• Revise, revise, revise. Have multiple readers look at your essay and make suggestions. Go over your essay yourself many times and rewrite it several times until you feel that it communicates your message effectively and creatively.
• Make the opening sentence memorable. Admissions officers will read dozens of personal statements in a day. You must say something at the very beginning to catch their attention, encourage them to read the essay in detail, and make yourself stand out from the crowd.
• Character traits to portray in your essay include: maturity, intellect, critical thinking skills, leadership, tolerance, perseverance, and sincerity.

Medical School Essay Two

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be writing this essay and planning for yet another ten years into the future, part of me would have been surprised. I am a planner and a maker of to-do lists, and it has always been my plan to follow in the steps of my father and become a physician. This plan was derailed when I was called to active duty to serve in Iraq as part of the War on Terror.

I joined the National Guard before graduating high school and continued my service when I began college. My goal was to receive training that would be valuable for my future medical career, as I was working in the field of emergency health care. It was also a way to help me pay for college. When I was called to active duty in Iraq for my first deployment, I was forced to withdraw from school, and my deployment was subsequently extended. I spent a total of 24 months deployed overseas, where I provided in-the-field medical support to our combat troops. While the experience was invaluable not only in terms of my future medical career but also in terms of developing leadership and creative thinking skills, it put my undergraduate studies on hold for over two years. Consequently, my carefully-planned journey towards medical school and a medical career was thrown off course. Thus, while ten-year plans are valuable, I have learned from experience how easily such plans can dissolve in situations that are beyond one’s control, as well as the value of perseverance and flexibility.

Eventually, I returned to school. Despite my best efforts to graduate within two years, it took me another three years, as I suffered greatly from post-traumatic stress disorder following my time in Iraq. I considered abandoning my dream of becoming a physician altogether, since I was several years behind my peers with whom I had taken biology and chemistry classes before my deployment. Thanks to the unceasing encouragement of my academic advisor, who even stayed in contact with me when I was overseas, I gathered my strength and courage and began studying for the MCAT. To my surprise, my score was beyond satisfactory and while I am several years behind my original ten-year plan, I am now applying to Brown University’s School of Medicine.

I can describe my new ten-year plan, but I will do so with both optimism and also caution, knowing that I will inevitably face unforeseen complications and will need to adapt appropriately. One of the many insights I gained as a member of the National Guard and by serving in war-time was the incredible creativity medical specialists in the Armed Forces employ to deliver health care services to our wounded soldiers on the ground. I was part of a team that was saving lives under incredibly difficult circumstances—sometimes while under heavy fire and with only the most basic of resources. I am now interested in how I can use these skills to deliver health care in similar circumstances where basic medical infrastructure is lacking. While there is seemingly little in common between the deserts of Fallujah and rural Wyoming, where I’m currently working as a volunteer first responder in a small town located more than 60 miles from the nearest hospital, I see a lot of potential uses for the skills that I gained as a National Guardsman. As I learned from my father, who worked with Doctors Without Borders for a number of years, there is quite a bit in common between my field of knowledge from the military and working in post-conflict zones. I feel I have a unique experience from which to draw as I embark on my medical school journey, experiences that can be applied both here and abroad.

In ten years’ time, I hope to be trained in the field of emergency medicine, which, surprisingly, is a specialization that is actually lacking here in the United States as compared to similarly developed countries. I hope to conduct research in the field of health care infrastructure and work with government agencies and legislators to find creative solutions to improving access to emergency facilities in currently underserved areas of the United States, with an aim towards providing comprehensive policy reports and recommendations on how the US can once again be the world leader in health outcomes. While the problems inherent in our health care system are not one-dimensional and require a dynamic approach, one of the solutions as I see it is to think less in terms of state-of-the-art facilities and more in terms of access to primary care. Much of the care that I provide as a first responder and volunteer is extremely effective and also relatively cheap. More money is always helpful when facing a complex social and political problem, but we must think of solutions above and beyond more money and more taxes. In ten years I want to be a key player in the health care debate in this country and offering innovative solutions to delivering high quality and cost-effective health care to all our nation’s citizens, especially to those in rural and otherwise underserved areas.

Of course, my policy interests do not replace my passion for helping others and delivering emergency medicine. As a doctor, I hope to continue serving in areas of the country that, for one reason or another, are lagging behind in basic health care infrastructure. Eventually, I would also like to take my knowledge and talents abroad and serve in the Peace Corps or Doctors Without Borders.

In short, I see the role of physicians in society as multifunctional: they are not only doctors who heal, they are also leaders, innovators, social scientists, and patriots. Although my path to medical school has not always been the most direct, my varied and circuitous journey has given me a set of skills and experiences that many otherwise qualified applicants lack. I have no doubt that the next ten years will be similarly unpredictable, but I can assure you that no matter what obstacles I face, my goal will remain the same. I sincerely hope to begin the next phase of my journey at Brown University. Thank you for your kind attention.

Additional Tips for a Successful Medical School Essay

• Regardless of the prompt, you should always address the question of why you want to go to medical school in your essay.
• Try to always give concrete examples rather than make general statements. If you say that you have perseverance, describe an event in your life that demonstrates perseverance.
• There should be an overall message or theme in your essay. In the example above, the theme is overcoming unexpected obstacles.
• Make sure you check and recheck for spelling and grammar!
• Unless you’re very sure you can pull it off, it is usually not a good idea to use humor or to employ the skills you learned in creative writing class in your personal statement. While you want to paint a picture, you don’t want to be too poetic or literary.
• Turn potential weaknesses into positives. As in the example above, address any potential weaknesses in your application and make them strengths, if possible. If you have low MCAT scores or something else that can’t be easily explained or turned into a positive, simply don’t mention it.

Medical School Essay Three

The roots of my desire to become a physician are, thankfully, not around the bedside of a sick family member or in a hospital, but rather on a 10-acre plot of land outside of a small town in Northwest Arkansas. I loved raising and exhibiting cattle, so every morning before the bus arrived at 7 a.m. I was in the barn feeding, checking cattle for any health issues and washing the show heifers. These early mornings and my experiences on a farm not only taught me the value of hard work, but ignited my interest in the body, albeit bovine at the time. It was by a working chute that I learned the functions of reproductive hormones as we utilized them for assisted reproduction and artificial insemination; it was by giving vaccinations to prevent infection that I learned about bacteria and the germ theory of disease; it was beside a stillborn calf before the sun had risen that I was exposed to the frailty of life.

Facing the realities of disease and death daily from an early age, I developed a strong sense of pragmatism out of necessity. There is no place for abstractions or euphemisms about life and death when treating a calf’s pneumonia in the pouring rain during winter. Witnessing the sometimes harsh realities of life on a farm did not instill within me an attitude of jaded inevitability of death. Instead, it germinated a responsibility to protect life to the best of my abilities, cure what ailments I can and alleviate as much suffering as possible while recognizing that sometimes nothing can be done.

I first approached human health at the age of nine through beef nutrition and food safety. Learning the roles of nutrients such as zinc, iron, protein and B-vitamins in the human body as well as the dangers of food-borne illness through the Beef Ambassador program shifted my interest in the body to a new species. Talking with consumers about every facet of the origins of food, I realized that the topics that most interested me were those that pertained to human health. In college, while I connected with people over samples of beef and answered their questions, I also realized that it is not enough simply to have adequate knowledge. Ultimately knowledge is of little use if it is not digestible to those who receive it. So my goal as a future clinical physician is not only to illuminate the source of an affliction and provide treatment for patients, but take care to ensure the need for understanding by both patient and family is met.

I saw this combination of care and understanding while volunteering in an emergency room, where I was also exposed to other aspects and players in the medical field. While assisting a nurse perform a bladder scan and witnessing technicians carry out an echocardiogram or CT scan, I learned the important roles that other professionals who do not wear white coats have in today’s medical field. Medicine is a team sport, and coordinating the efforts of each of these players is crucial for the successful execution of patient care. It is my goal to serve as the leader of this healthcare unit and unify a team of professionals to provide the highest quality care for patients. Perhaps most importantly my time at the VA showed me the power a smile and an open ear can have with people. On the long walk to radiology, talking with patients about their military service and families always seemed to take their mind off the reason for their visit, if only for a few minutes. This served as a reminder that we are helping people with pasts and dreams, rather than simply remedying patients’ symptoms.

Growing up in a small town, I never held aspirations of world travel when I was young. But my time abroad revealed to me the state of healthcare in developing countries and fostered a previously unknown interest in global health. During my first trip abroad to Ghana, my roommate became ill with a severe case of traveler’s diarrhea. In the rural north of the country near the Sahara, the options for healthcare were limited; he told me how our professor was forced to bribe employees to bypass long lines and even recounted how doctors took a bag of saline off the line of another patient to give to him. During a service trip to a rural community in Nicaragua, I encountered patients with preventable and easily treatable diseases that, due to poverty and lack of access, were left untreated for months or years at a time. I was discouraged by the state of healthcare in these countries and wondered what could be done to help. I plan to continue to help provide access to healthcare in rural parts of developing countries, and hopefully as a physician with an agricultural background I can approach public health and food security issues in a multifaceted and holistic manner.

My time on a cattle farm taught me how to work hard to pursue my interests, but also fueled my appetite for knowledge about the body and instilled within me a firm sense of practicality. Whether in a clinic, operating room or pursuing public and global health projects, I plan to bring this work ethic and pragmatism to all of my endeavors. My agricultural upbringing has produced a foundation of skills and values that I am confident will readily transplant into my chosen career. Farming is my early passion, but medicine is my future.

Medical School Essay Four

I am a white, cisgender, and heterosexual female who has been afforded many privileges: I was raised by parents with significant financial resources, I have traveled the world, and I received top-quality high school and college educations. I do not wish to be addressed or recognized in any special way; all I ask is to be treated with respect.

As for my geographic origin, I was born and raised in the rural state of Maine. Since graduating from college, I have been living in my home state, working and giving back to the community that has given me so much. I could not be happier here; I love the down-to-earth people, the unhurried pace of life, and the easy access to the outdoors. While I am certainly excited to move elsewhere in the country for medical school and continue to explore new places, I will always self-identify as a Mainer as being from Maine is something I take great pride in. I am proud of my family ties to the state (which date back to the 1890’s), I am proud of the state’s commitment to preserving its natural beauty, and I am particularly proud of my slight Maine accent (we don’t pronounce our r’s). From the rocky coastline and rugged ski mountains to the locally-grown food and great restaurants, it is no wonder Maine is nicknamed, "Vacationland.” Yet, Maine is so much more than just a tourist destination. The state is dotted with wonderful communities in which to live, communities like the one where I grew up.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I plan to return to Maine after residency. I want to raise a family and establish my medical practice here. We certainly could use more doctors! Even though Maine is a terrific place to live, the state is facing a significant doctor shortage. Today, we are meeting less than half of our need for primary care providers. To make matters worse, many of our physicians are close to retirement age. Yet, according to the AAMC, only 53 Maine residents matriculated into medical school last year! Undoubtedly, Maine is in need of young doctors who are committed to working long term in underserved areas. As my primary career goal is to return to my much adored home state and do my part to help fill this need, I have a vested interest in learning more about rural medicine during medical school.

I was raised in Cumberland, Maine, a coastal town of 7,000 just north of Portland. With its single stoplight and general store (where it would be unusual to visit without running into someone you know), Cumberland is the epitome of a small New England town. It truly was the perfect place to grow up. According to the most recent census, nearly a third of the town’s population is under 18 and more than 75% of households contain children, two statistics which speak to the family-centric nature of Cumberland’s community. Recently rated Maine's safest town, Cumberland is the type of place where you allow your kindergartener to bike alone to school, leave your house unlocked while at work, and bring home-cooked food to your sick neighbors and their children. Growing up in such a safe, close-knit, and supportive community instilled in me the core values of compassion, trustworthiness, and citizenship. These three values guide me every day and will continue to guide me through medical school and my career in medicine.

As a medical student and eventual physician, my compassion will guide me to become a provider who cares for more than just the physical well-being of my patients. I will also commit myself to my patients’ emotional, spiritual, and social well-being and make it a priority to take into account the unique values and beliefs of each patient. By also demonstrating my trustworthiness during every encounter, I will develop strong interpersonal relationships with those whom I serve. As a doctor once wisely said, “A patient does not care how much you know until he knows how much you care.”

My citizenship will guide me to serve my community and to encourage my classmates and colleagues to do the same. We will be taught in medical school to be healers, scientists, and educators. I believe that, in addition, as students and as physicians, we have the responsibility to use our medical knowledge, research skills, and teaching abilities to benefit more than just our patients. We must also commit ourselves to improving the health and wellness of those living in our communities by participating in public events (i.e by donating our medical services), lobbying for better access to healthcare for the underprivileged, and promoting wellness campaigns. As a medical student and eventual physician, my compassion, trustworthiness, and citizenship will drive me to improve the lives of as many individuals as I can.

Cumberland instilled in me important core values and afforded me a wonderful childhood. However, I recognize that my hometown is not perfect. For one, the population is shockingly homogenous, at least as far as demographics go. As of the 2010 census, 97.2% of the residents of Cumberland were white. Only 4.1% of residents speak a language other than English at home and even fewer were born in another country. Essentially everybody who identified with a religion identified as some denomination of Christian. My family was one of maybe five Jewish families in the town. Additionally, nearly all the town’s residents graduated from high school (98.1%), are free of disability (93.8%), and live above the poverty line (95.8%). Efforts to attract diverse families to Cumberland is one improvement that I believe would make the community a better place in which to live. Diversity in background (and in thought) is desirable in any community as living, learning, and working alongside diverse individuals helps us develop new perspectives, enhances our social development, provides us with a larger frame of reference, and improves our understanding of our place in society.

Medical School Essay Five

“How many of you received the flu vaccine this year?” I asked my Bricks 4 Kidz class, where I volunteer to teach elementary students introductory science and math principles using Lego blocks. “What’s a flu vaccine?” they asked in confusion. Surprised, I briefly explained the influenza vaccine and its purpose for protection. My connection to children and their health extends to medical offices, clinics and communities where I have gained experience and insight into medicine, confirming my goal of becoming a physician.

My motivation to pursue a career in medicine developed when my mother, who was diagnosed with Lupus, underwent a kidney transplant surgery and suffered multiple complications. I recall the fear and anxiety I felt as a child because I misunderstood her chronic disease. This prompted me to learn more about the science of medicine. In high school, I observed patients plagued with acute and chronic kidney disease while briefly exploring various fields of medicine through a Mentorship in Medicine summer program at my local hospital. In addition to shadowing nephrologists in a hospital and clinical setting, I scrubbed into the operating room, viewed the radiology department, celebrated the miracle of birth in the delivery room, and quietly observed a partial autopsy in pathology. I saw many patients confused about their diagnoses. I was impressed by the compassion of the physicians and the time they took to reassure and educate their patients.

Further experiences in medicine throughout and after college shaped a desire to practice in underserved areas. While coloring and reading with children in the patient area at a Family Health Center, I witnessed family medicine physicians diligently serve patients from low-income communities. On a medical/dental mission trip to the Philippines, I partnered with local doctors to serve and distribute medical supplies to rural schools and communities. At one impoverished village, I held a malnourished two-year old boy suffering from cerebral palsy and cardiorespiratory disease. His family could not afford to take him to the nearest pediatrician, a few hours away by car, for treatment. Overwhelmed, I cried as we left the village. Many people were suffering through pain and disease due to limited access to medicine. But this is not rare; there are many people suffering due to inadequate access/accessibility around the world, even in my hometown. One physician may not be able to change the status of underserved communities, however, one can alleviate some of the suffering.

Dr. X, my mentor and supervisor, taught me that the practice of medicine is both a science and an art. As a medical assistant in a pediatric office, I am learning about the patient-physician relationship and the meaningful connection with people that medicine provides. I interact with patients and their families daily. Newborn twins were one of the first patients I helped, and I look forward to seeing their development at successive visits. A young boy who endured a major cardiac surgery was another patient I connected with, seeing his smiling face in the office often as he transitioned from the hospital to his home. I also helped many excited, college-bound teenagers with requests for medical records in order to matriculate. This is the art of medicine – the ability to build relationships with patients and have an important and influential role in their lives, from birth to adulthood and beyond.

In addition, medicine encompasses patient-centered care, such as considering and addressing concerns. While taking patient vitals, I grew discouraged when parents refused the influenza vaccine and could not understand their choices. With my experience in scientific research, I conducted an informal yet insightful study. Over one hundred families were surveyed about their specific reasons for refusing the flu vaccine. I sought feedback on patients’ level of understanding about vaccinations and its interactions with the human immune system. Through this project, I learned the importance of understanding patient’s concerns in order to reassure them through medicine. I also learned the value of communicating with patients, such as explaining the purpose of a recommended vaccine. I hope to further this by attending medical school to become a physician focused on patient-centered care, learning from and teaching my community.

Children have been a common thread in my pursuit of medicine, from perceiving medicine through child-like eyes to interacting daily with children in a medical office. My diverse experiences in patient interaction and the practice of medicine inspire me to become a physician, a path that requires perseverance and passion. Physicians are life-long learners and teachers, educating others whether it is on vaccinations or various diseases. This vocation also requires preparation, and I eagerly look forward to continually learning and growing in medical school and beyond.

To learn more about what to expect from the study of medicine, check out our Study Medicine in the US section.

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How to create impressive medical school secondary essays.

Reviewed by:

Jonathan Preminger

Former Admissions Committee Member, Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine

Reviewed: 4/25/24

‍ Are you ready to tackle your med school secondary essays? Read on to learn how to format them, common essay types, and more! 

At this stage in your application to medical school, you've gone through the AMCAS primary application process and are now receiving your secondary applications. Your secondaries are a series of specific questions that each school you've applied to sends to you.

That being the case, you are probably wondering how to create impressive medical school secondary essays. If you've applied to many schools, you’ll be writing many essays. But you need not worry because this article will dive into the different kinds of essay prompts you will receive and how to answer them effectively.

Get The Ultimate Guide on Writing an Unforgettable Personal Statement

What Are Medical School Secondary Essays?

Medical school secondary essays are the second component of the application process. Each school has a unique secondary application, whereas the primary application was a single application sent to several schools using either AMCAS, TMDSAS, or AACOMAS.

Secondary applications will usually consist of a series of short questions or essay questions. Questions will be unique to each school; however, there is significant overlap among them. If you submitted your primary application in June, you could expect to receive secondary applications beginning in July and continuing throughout the summer.

However, it’s important to note that not all schools send secondary applications to all applicants. Some use the primary application as a screening tool and only send secondaries to students they’d like to see continue on in the admissions process.

A school like Stanford will ask seven essay questions while Loma Linda will ask eight.

Purpose of Medical School Secondary Essays

Medical school secondary essays give you an opportunity to show the school you want to attend how your goals and values align with theirs and how you would contribute to their program as a student.

Schools want to make sure that you are a good fit for their program and find out more about you than you could address in your AMCAS work and activities section. 

They want to see your uniqueness and what sets you apart from the other candidates.

Best Format to Follow When Writing Your Medical School Secondary Essays

When writing your secondaries, here is a suggested guideline: 

• Answer the prompt
• Outline your response
• Use concrete examples
• Relate examples to your theme
• Adhere to word or character counts
• Reflect on your experiences

Answer the Prompt 

Whatever the prompt is, have a definitive response to start the essay to make your answer as straightforward as possible. 

Outline the Response 

As you're given a character count limit, it is best to outline your response to use your space effectively. Create a list of all the points you want to make and tailor them to incorporate the school's central values and goals. 

Use Concrete Examples

Stories are more effective in making a point than general statements. Use examples in your essay to build on your main points. 

Relate Examples to Your Theme

When you provide examples, make sure to answer the question, "how is this relevant?" Your examples should demonstrate how you will benefit medicine and make a good physician.

Adhere to Word and Character Counts

When you have preset responses to prompts, you address all critical points within the character count limits. 

Reflect on Your Experiences 

Describe what you learned and gained from your experiences. Don’t just talk about it; explain why it was significant. 

Re-read your essay the next day to make sure it is free of errors and conveys the message you are trying to make. Consulting a med school advisor can be an effective way to make sure your response is strong and stands out among other applicants.

Sometimes, students re-read and miss their own mistakes, so having an unbiased editor with experience in medical school admissions can be beneficial.

Common Types of Medical School Secondary Essays and Tips for Answering Each Type

Although secondary essay themes can vary, these are the most common essay types.

Diversity Essay

In medicine and other healthcare fields, diversity is essential. A clinician needs to be able to connect with patients from different backgrounds and experiences. Having a diverse student body creates an atmosphere of inclusivity, and as a worker in the social sector, especially front-line work, connecting with your patients is critical.

When writing a diversity essay , you may think the only topics you can cover are multiculturalism, race, and religion. You might think that because you're not a minority, you don’t have anything new to add. 

You might think you are already represented well and have no experience with diversity, so you do not have anything important to say. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A variety of factors determine what level of diversity you can bring to the table:

• Your qualities and what you want to learn, or what you still wish to learn
• Your immigration experience if you were a newcomer or how your values differ from your social circle; how has the difference of values shaped your way of connecting with patients
• What do you understand about cultural competency? Are you aware of different medical approaches in the field? Do you apply that to your practice? And why is it important to know about how other cultures view medicine/treatment?
• Your language
• Where you grew up (rural vs. urban, in-country vs. abroad)

Diversity can also come from your experiences: a sibling with Down Syndrome, service in the military, an illness that you’ve struggled with, or the loss of a loved one. All of these experiences count as diversity and are what medical schools are looking for.

Where you came from and how your skills, experiences, and interests differentiate you from your peers. These unique backgrounds allow different ideas and perspectives to be brought to the classroom.

Additionally, using terms loosely in your essay, like "diversity, "multicultural," or "cultural competency," does not mean you have an understanding of them. Instead, it may make you seem insincere, so the better way to go is to be honest. Speak about what you actually know and what you have really experienced with diversity.

Adversity Essay

The purpose of an adversity essay is for admissions committees to understand your level of resiliency and room for growth in the medical field.

This essay isn’t about competing with people's stories of adversity but showcasing your own challenges and experiences and depicting what those experiences have taught you for professional development. It is more of a reflection piece about managing stress or barriers in your life and illustrating how you overcome them.

The admissions committees want to see this because they want to know if you can overcome hurdles that come your way. Medical school is a massive undertaking full of hurdles –tests and courses will push you to your limit.

The admissions committees want to see your ability to adapt and problem-solve; so that you can pick yourself up after falling down.

Topics you can include:

• How you handled disappointing a loved one/or disappointment in general
• Managing criticism or feedback
• External situations that were out of your hands
• Talk about a challenge you’ve faced. What was your response? What was the result? What did you learn?

"Why Our School?" Essay

This prompt is aimed at determining why you want to attend a particular medical school. Medical schools read through hundreds of secondary essays each year. Instead of highlighting their program facts, which they already know about, show them that you connect to their mission, vision, and values.

The key is to mention your qualities, life experiences, and skills concerning the school's mission, vision, values, and programs. This way, you are not just repeating what the school offers but also mentioning how these programs fit you as an individual.

One approach to answering this prompt is by researching the school's website and finding topics of interest to you or seeing the school's values mentioned consistently throughout the website.

From there, you can pinpoint specific programs you like and write about how you can learn from them and what skills you can offer. Essentially, it is about seeing what the school stands for or what work they encourage and incorporating your own experiences with their beliefs.

For example, If a school places importance on community service and you have relevant volunteer experiences, make sure to mention this and how you want to continue improving those skills. If your experience is more research-based, talk about that experience and how more community service will make you a better physician.

If you want to stand out, you can survey students or graduates of the school and inquire about their experiences to see if the school is right for you. How do you reach others? Connecting via social media or reaching out to your peers may be a good start.

This essay's not about writing what the school already knows about themselves but more about what you can learn and benefit from and why this is the right fit for you. 

Gap Year Essay

These days, it's common for students to take a year or two off after completing their undergrad degree before they go to medical school. There are multiple reasons for this, and the medical school you are applying to wants to know what those reasons are.

It is a reasonably straightforward prompt: talk about how you have spent your gap year and how it will contribute to your medical school success and beyond.

Questions to discuss in this essay include:

• What did you achieve during your gap year?
• Why did you want to take a gap year?
• What experiences did you have? How did this year shape your role as a worker, and how will you deliver the skills you've built through the healthcare field?
• What did you learn about yourself during this period?

It is always an excellent tactic to connect your gap year to the program of study you are applying for, and even if it doesn't connect, you can still mention how it makes you a more suitable candidate for the program. 

Even if you did an unrelated job while studying or preparing for medical school, the attributes you learned along the way and your continuous efforts to grow and learn are what admissions committees will notice.

“Anything Else You'd Like Us to Know?” Essay

Out of all the prompts, this is likely the most open-ended, and confusion on how to best answer it is understandable. It can be challenging to address such a vague question. How do you know what to talk about? Is there even anything else that I want to discuss?

Use this as an opportunity to highlight anything about yourself and your experiences that aren't well discussed or explained elsewhere on the application. 

If you have any pre-written material that you have not used in your essays, this is the time to use them. If this is not an option, you can write a completely new essay discussing topics like volunteering or research experience .

You can also talk about other achievements or skills that aren't directly related to medicine but find a way to relate it back to how it makes you a better candidate. This section is also a good place to explain any shortcomings in your application, such as a failed course, a low test score, etc.

Some students believe it is mandatory to answer this question, which is simply not true unless the question states otherwise. If you feel that your application addresses all your key points and conveys your candidacy in the best possible way, there is no need to force it. It's always better to prioritize quality over quantity.

Sample Med School Essay Prompts

From UW School of Medicine

Essay Prompts (250-word limit)

• “How have societal inequities in the U.S. affected you or people you have worked with?
• The UWSOM aims to build a diverse class of students to enrich the field of medicine. What perspectives, identities, and/or qualities would you bring?
• What obstacles have you experienced and how have you overcome them?
• Describe your competency by explaining how you have explored and come to understand issues in the social sciences and humanities as they relate to the practice of medicine.”

From Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago  

Essay Question 1 (450-word limit suggestion)

“Students at the Pritzker School of Medicine complete the majority of their clinical training at UChicago Medicine (UCM). UCM is one of the top ten most racially inclusive hospitals in the United States with a primary service area of 12 South Side zip codes where poverty is over double the state level. Additionally, our students lead six free clinics in diverse neighborhoods throughout the city of Chicago.

Please share with us the personal and professional experiences that have best prepared you to work in this diverse clinical environment.”

Essay Question 2 (450-word limit suggestion)

“All MD students participate in our longitudinal Scholarship & Discovery research program, which offers protected curricular time, mentoring, and funding for students to pursue their scholarly interests. Please describe your research interests and share how our research opportunities will help you advance your career goals.”

Essay Question 3 (450-word limit suggestion)

“Share with us a difficult or challenging situation you have encountered and how you dealt with it. In your response, identify both the coping skills you called upon to resolve the dilemma, and the support person(s) from whom you sought advice.”

Optional Additional Information

“Please feel free to use this space to convey any additional information that you might wish the Committee to know. For example, if you are not currently completing a degree, please share your planned or current activities for this application cycle. We suggest that you limit your text to about 300 words.”

Explore our Med School Secondary Essay Database to find the 2023-2024 prompts for your dream med schools!

Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are some common mistakes to avoid as you navigate your secondary application essays. 

Failing to Pre-Write Your Essays 

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is waiting to receive your secondary application before working on it. It would be best if you started working on your secondaries after you submit your primary applications. 

You have a limited time (many secondaries are due two weeks to a month after receipt) to submit, so the sooner you can get them done, the better. You should always send secondaries back within two weeks to show your continual interest in that medical school.

Focusing Only on the Situation and Not What You Learned

When sharing anecdotes, demonstrate their value by discussing what you took away from them. Don't just go from one statement to another, talking about the events as they occurred. 

Not Following Word Limits

If the word count is 800 words and your piece is 700 words, that is perfectly acceptable. Try and write the best quality piece without going over the word count. 

Being Generic

Some prompts will lead you into discussing why you want to attend a particular school. In these cases, to avoid being generic in your responses, say something specific about the school. You should do some research and come up with a list of programs at each of the medical schools or student organizations at each of the medical schools. Identify what is unique about that school: specific values, programs, or opportunities they have.

Have more questions about secondary essays? Read on for more answers! 

1. When Can I Expect to Receive Secondary Applications? 

Once you submit your primary application and AMCAS receives your transcripts, they begin the verification process. You will receive your secondary applications after AMCAS completes verification and releases your primary applications to the medical schools to which you applied. 

2. Will I Receive a Secondary Application From Every School?

While the majority of schools will send you a secondary without screening your primary application, some will screen your primary. Therefore, you may not receive a secondary from every medical school. 

3. How Long Do I Have to Submit My Essay?

It would be best if you aimed to submit your secondaries as soon as possible – generally within two weeks of receiving your secondary application. Remember, schools correlate your reply time with your level of interest. It’s best to submit within two weeks.

4. What If a School Changes Its Secondary Essay Prompts?

Schools usually change their prompts every few years, and if they do, the themes often remain the same. Instead of asking why you want to attend our school, it may change to asking how you feel your passions align with their goals as an institution. So it's still a good idea to pre-write. 

Even if they change it, you could always reword and repurpose one of your essays for other schools.

5. How Optional Are Optional Essays?

They are somewhere between optional and required. It would help if you only answered an optional prompt when you have relevant information to address. A forced response will not go over well with admissions committees and can hurt your application.

6. Which Secondary Essay Should I Work On First?

You should prioritize the ones from your top-choice schools and the ones that require in-depth answers so that you will have material to re-use if necessary.

Final Thoughts

Completing your secondary applications is a time-consuming and stressful process. Now that you know what to and what not to do, you can begin working on your essays with some confidence. You are now armed with the knowledge of how to create impressive medical school secondary essays.

Don't underestimate the importance of pre-writing your secondaries; always convey your individuality. Answer the prompt as clearly as you can and expand on your key points. Remember that the ultimate goal is to impress the admissions committee enough to be called in for an interview.

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Medical school personal statement examples.

Get accepted to your top choice medical school with your compelling essay.

THE TOP 10 MEDICAL SCHOOLS

HAVE AN AVERAGE ACCEPTANCE RATE OF 5.3%

A GREAT MEDICAL SCHOOL PERSONAL STATEMENT IS KEY IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS

If you want to get into the best school, you need to stand out from other applicants.  

U.S. News   reports the average medical school acceptance rate at the top 100 med schools at 6.35% , but our med school clients enjoy an 85% ACCEPTANCE RATE .

How can you separate yourself from the competition successfully? By creating a great personal statement.

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Here we present medical school personal statement examples to give you ideas for your own essay.

Pay close attention to the consistent format of these effective personal statements:

ENGAGING INTRODUCTION / UNIFYING THEME / COMPELLING CONCLUSION

Give the admissions committee readers a clear picture of you as an individual, a student, and a future medical professional. Make them want to meet you after they finish reading your essay.

Here's what you'll find on this page:

• How Sample Med School Essays Can Help You
• Before you Start Writing
• Writing Your Opening Paragraph
• Writing Your Body Paragraphs
• Writing Transitions
• Writing Your Conclusion
• Common Elements Between Personal Statements

Five Don'ts for Your Medical School Personal Statement

• Personal Statement Examples & Analysis
• Frequently Asked Questions

How can these sample med school essays help you?

You plan to become a physician, a highly respected professional who will have great responsibility over the health and well being of your future patients. How can you prove to the admissions committee that you have the intelligence, the maturity, the compassion, and the dedication needed to succeed in your goal? 

The medical school personal statement examples below are all arguments in favor of top med schools accepting these applicants. And they worked. The applicants who wrote these essays were all accepted to top medical schools - most to multiple schools. They show a variety of experiences and thought processes that all led to the same outcome. However, while the paths to this decision point vary widely, these winning essays share several things in common. 

As you read them, take note of how the stories are built sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, adding to the evidence that the writer is worthy of acceptance. This evidence includes showing a sustained focus, mature self-reflection, and professional and educational experiences that have helped prepare the applicant to succeed. 

As you write your medical school personal statement , include your most compelling, memorable and meaningful experiences that are relevant to your decision to become a doctor. Each sentence should add to the reader’s understanding of who you are, what your strengths are, and why you will make an outstanding physician. Your resulting essay will help the adcom appreciate your intellectual and psychological strengths as well as your motivations, and conclude that you are worthy of acceptance into a top medical school. 

Techniques for creating successful medical school personal statements

Before you start writing your med school personal statement.

Before you start writing your medical school personal statement you will need to choose a topic that will reflect who you are and engage the reader. There are a few strong ways to proceed. Try freewriting with a few of the following topic ideas.

Why medicine? Do you have a personal experience that made you certain about being a physician? How, when, did you know this was the right career for you? Is there a doctor you know (or knew) who emulates an altruistic moral character, someone who won your deepest respect? Can you show this person in action or describe them as they model inherent qualities, those for which you will strive as a physician?

How has a clinical experience been a real growth moment for you? Can you tell that story? Sometimes a clinical experience is deeply personal, something experienced by you or by someone in your family. Sometimes a clinical experience is about a patient whose situation taught you something deeply valuable, something honestly insightful about what good care means, about humanity, about empathy, about compassion, about community, about advantage and disadvantage, about equity and inclusion. 

Choose an experience outside the comfort of your own community, an experience where you were the outsider (uncertain, facing ambiguity) and this experience brought about a fresh, resonant understanding of yourself and others, an understanding that made you grow as a person, and perhaps brought about humility or joy in light of this geographical or cultural dislocation. Often this prompt includes traveling to other countries. Yet, it could work just as beautifully discovering people in close places that were previously unfamiliar to you – the shelter in the next town over, a foster home for medically unstable children, the day you witnessed food insecurity firsthand at a local church and decided to do something about disparity.

Read other successful personal statements in guides and publications. You can read sample personal statements that work here: medical school personal statement examples

The prompts above have great possibilities to be successful because they locate experiences that require better than average human understanding and insight. When we re-convey a moving human experience well, we tell a story that aims to bring us together, unite us in our common humanity. Telling powerful stories about humanity, in the end, presents your deeper attributes to others and demonstrates your capacity to feel deeply about the human condition. 

Be careful how often you use the first person pronoun, though you may use it. Revise for clarity many more times than you might do in other writing moments. Choose precise vocabulary that sounds like you, and, of course, revise so that you present to your readers the most pristinely grammatical you. 

Once you’ve looked at the sample medical school personal statements in the link above, try freewriting again according to one of the themes listed that applies to you. For instance, perhaps your prior freewriting aimed to describe a moment in your life that seeded your interest in medicine. Great. Save that file. Now, start again with a different topic, perhaps one from the linked page of sample personal statements. For instance, let your freewriting explore the time you traveled to another country to participate in a public health mission. What person immediately comes to mind? Hopefully this person is quite different from you in identity and culture. Make sure this comes across. Describe the scene when you first encountered this person. What happened? Tell that story. Why do you think you remember this person so vividly? Did the experience challenge you? Did you learn something deeper and perhaps more complex about humanity, about culture, about your own assumptions about humanity? Hopefully, you grew from this experience. How did you grow? What do you now understand that you did not understand before having had this experience? Hindsight may very well bring about perspective that demonstrates that you now understand the value of that human encounter. 

Here is a cautionary bit of advice about writing about childhood. Yes, it is relatively common to have had a formidable experience in childhood about illness, health, healthcare, medicine or doctors. Right? Most of us have had at least one critical health issue in our own family when still a child. Sometimes it is absolutely true that a moment in childhood began your interest in healthcare. 

One may have had a diagnosis as a child that turned one’s life path toward being health-aware. For instance, are you a juvenile-onset, Type I diabetic? Do you have a cognitive or physical disability? Were you raised in a home with someone who had a critical illness or disability? Did a sibling, parent or grandparent get gravely sick when you were young? 

Upon writing-up any of these situations for your personal statement, there is a catch-22. For medical school application activities, the rule of thumb is “nothing from high school.” So why then is it sometimes a good idea to write about a childhood situation in a personal statement? The answer has to do with the uniqueness of your story and the quality of hindsight through which you narrate it.

Let us slow down for a moment on the issue of writing about childhood. Typically, traditional applicants to medical school are steadfastly dedicated to their academic and pre-professional aims. Science curriculum, especially pre-med curriculum, is demanding and rigorous, and it trains science students to excel in empirical thinking and assessment. 

Sometimes, when asked to write a personal essay, hard core science students feel the rug pulled out from under them. Are you more confident and meticulous about action steps and future plans than you are confident about being a sage looking back on your life? Chances are your answer is “yes.” 

Of course you can write; you’re a smart person and a very good student. Yet, writing a heartfelt, perceptive essay about yourself or an aspect of your life for an application to medical school is unnerving even as you understand why your application might benefit from story-telling. Yes, your application should benefit from your engaging, authorial presence in the essay. An application that lacks this is wholly at a disadvantage. 

Perhaps you are gravitating to the choice to share a story about your childhood. 

For instance, what if you sat down to free-write the following prompt:

Draft an essay about a childhood experience that ingrained medicine as one of your inherent interests. Do so in a manner that demonstrates the value of hindsight while telling it.

Is it hard to stay calm about this prompt right now even though this prompt is precisely what could make your personal statement successful? The idea of this prompt is what many successful applicants have written well, and you can too. Why not seek professional guidance for your personal essay? Accepted has consultants who advise applicants through this process. We advise you on the whole process of developing a successful idea for an essay, help you mine your experiences, outline your strongest ideas, and after you’ve written them up, edit your drafts. You can view these personal statement services here: Essay Package

Back to tips. The key to writing a personal statement that frames a moment in childhood well is to stand firmly in the present and stay descriptive and perceptive. Write up that experience trusting you have insight. Quite a bit of time has passed since then, and that distance has given you the opportunity to see things a little differently now. 

Let’s presume you want to write about how as a child you had an older sibling with a cognitive impairment. You and your family witnessed time and again doors being shut, so to speak, on his ability to be included in school events or community events.

Free writing A: My older brother, G, had moderate cognitive impairment. He was never given field time in soccer games. When this happened, G cried. When this happened, I cried and felt hurt by how much time my parents spent trying to calm him down, eventually leaving the field, holding him close and bringing us back home, another Saturday wrecked. 

Example A has no benefit of hindsight.

Free writing B (with some hindsight): My older brother, G, had moderate cognitive impairment. Most of the time, kids were kind to him. “Hey G, how are you, man?,” they would say and high-five him. Most kids greeted him, offered him snacks and a seat on the sideline blanket. It was touching to see him included and seen at soccer games.

Further hindsight: G was rarely played in the game. 

Reflective comment: No harm would have been done in letting him play. It’s clear to me now how much more work we each need to do about inclusion. Community-based team sports are pretty good about extending kindness at the sidelines, but that is not the same thing as letting all kids play in the game. I am still grateful for every kindness extended to my brother, but perhaps letting him play in the game would have demonstrated to kids and parents alike a deeper message about the importance of inclusion over winning. The coaches meant no harm, but that is precisely how unconscious bias plays. Afterall, community by its very definition is about inclusion.

Standing tall on this matter brings out a maturity and vocabulary to master this kind of personal writing that Free Writing A lacks. You don’t want to go back in time and join your younger self and narrate from that perspective. The “return” to your former child typically results in replicating a childlike emotional capacity – and chances are, that’s not you anymore. You’ve seen more. You’ve grown more. You’re now formally educated. You’re more skilled at making connections between ideas and experiences. You can narrate a scene or circumstance and attach awareness of what you realize now it means – like the over-narratives of documentaries where the author sheds true insight about the meaning of past events. 

Most traditional applicants to medical school are just a few years older than teenagers. 

When hindsight brings great clarity and insight to the significance of an experience, we demonstrate a keener maturity and an understanding that in authoring an experience we have a responsibility to demonstrate how a personal experience becomes a valuable portal to understanding the situation of others. Hindsight done well can be a stunningly beautiful and engaging narrative skill.

Perhaps you would rather write about a clinical experience? If you write about patients, change names, change gender, change some context to assure anonymity. Nearly all healthcare workers are concerned about telling patient stories because we worry about appropriating someone else’s experience, or feel we may not have the right, literally since HIPAA set rules on patients’ privacy rights in 1996. We should be concerned about telling patients’ stories; however, how we tell them is key in honoring them. When we honor patients and convey their stories to others we demonstrate the reciprocity of the professional relationship. Physicians no longer have a prescriptive, patrician role. Physicians are no longer sole authorities. Physicians and patients establish a reciprocal relationship, a two way street wherein a physician steps into a space of illness with the patient and walks with them, with the goal of healing, curing and advocating for them. When doctors tell stories, they establish that patients matter, that these encounters matter, that doctors think about patients and often learn from them. 

How we write patient stories is best done humbly, of course. We can narrate a story that becomes exemplary for its insight and empathy – after all, insight and empathy are desirable traits of a physician. Be sure to show rather than tell, most of the time. Be sure to capture the sensory detail of people and place. For instance, is the patient sitting on a blue plastic chair under ultraviolet lights in the waiting room of a free clinic? Is a woman with her gray hair twisted in a bun wearing a cotton hospital gown, waiting against a concrete wall in a tiny examination room with the door open? (Setting makes a character more real.) 

Finally, your story perspective, what you see and understand, becomes another way of revealing who you are. 

How to write your opening paragraph:

A strong opening paragraph for a story begins “several pages in.” A strong story begins with you, the narrator, already standing in the ocean with water splashing at your knees. This is called a hook: “D began to bleed after the second attempt to start an intravenous line.” 

Then, get the basic narrative facts down, the 5 W’s, the who, what, where, when and why, so your readers will not be confused: “She was a patient in the infusion clinic in the cancer pavilion of a major Boston hospital. She came to the clinic for her first round of chemotherapy.”

What else about this moment engaged you? Did D come to her appointment alone via an Uber ride? Why wasn’t anyone with her? How did that make you feel? Did the two of you hold a conversation while you were trying to start an IV? Why do you think she started to bleed? How did she respond when she saw you were having trouble starting this IV? Why didn’t she have a Medi-port yet? Here, you are building fuller context for her story. Don’t race through the scene; rather, build it, slowing down time, using images and sensory details to “paint” with your words. Smaller details, necessary ones, help you portray D as an individual. 

“Semper Fidelis was tattooed on her forearm. ‘Thank you for your service,’ I said.” 

“‘This cancer thing,’ she said, ‘this is nothing.’”

“D’s comment set me back. She had triple-negative breast cancer. She had blood running down her arm to her hand, between her fingers and onto a stiff, white pillow case on which she rested her arm. Triple-negative breast cancer was much more than nothing. In fact, it was very serious.” 

What questions came to mind that provide several ways of reading this moment? Write them down. For instance,

• Did D not know about the gravity of her diagnosis?
• Was she steely and tough yet informed?
• Did she live through something much worse while enlisted as a Marine?

The questions themselves may wander too much to serve your personal statement as a succinct essay, which it needs to be. However, the answers to those questions may be exactly the additional content you need to develop this story’s acumen and perception as you demonstrate how getting to know the patient is a critical skill in order to help her. And now a theme is starting to come through: a doctor treats a patient, not a diagnosis. Voilà!

Moving forward: How does a doctor reframe clinical assumptions in this instance? What does a future doctor learn from a circumstance like this? 

Notice in the example above that the writing is active, uses details, and vivid language.

This writer has a palpable connection to the moment. One key to choosing one experience over another for your personal statement is how visual and vivid your recollection is. Often, moments worth mining for meaning are easy to recollect because they still have unresolved messages that need to be understood. Writing experiences helps us find their meaning, their sense. 

Notice as well, the scene above captures a moment of ambiguity, a concept particularly difficult for many health science professionals to embrace because there are multiple ways of looking at and understanding something. Stories send empiricism into the wind. People are not solely empirical. There is the self that is the body, which can be understood empirically, but there’s also the self that inhabits the body, the thinking/feeling/being and perceiving self. Stories are not about right answers. Stories attend to sentience and explore humanity. Patients’ lives are rife with uncertain moments, uncertain decisions, uncertain treatments, uncertain consequences, and uncertain outcomes. How does a physician engage with health uncertainty, understand it, and navigate it through pathways of humanity rather than pathways of diagnosis?

How does health care challenge you to grow in humanistic ways?

How to write your body paragraphs:

Once you have written a compelling scene, it might be a good idea to reflect upon why you were drawn to write about this experience in particular before your proceed. How does this scene illustrate meaningfully something worth explaining about becoming a physician? For instance, D’s scene was illustrative of an unexpected shift in perception that mattered when treating a patient with a serious cancer diagnosis. This unexpected shift happened to you, not to her. D’s been living with herself aplenty. Her point of view surprised you, not her, and reveals an incongruence between her perspective on her illness and yours.

Brief moments of ambiguity like this one can make us talk to each other, make us want to do something, can bring us to explore some further niche, specialty or research. Perhaps D brought you to peruse PubMed to research “Issues in Clinical Practice when Caring for Veterans” to see if you could find articles to help you help D and other veterans. Perhaps D’s comment was so truthful that you now volunteer with a veterans’ organization to scribe their stories for a war history museum? This “call to action” is a worthy story in a personal statement. Tell D’s story and conclude it with empathy and action. (Taking action to help is a demonstration of empathy.) Mindfully showing the experience with D as a catalyst to a path of action to help those under duress -- in distress, in crisis, or adrift in inequity -- matters.

Perhaps, follow this conclusion with a brief explanation of what principles now guide your humanistic path to medical school as long as they are principles that matter to your choice schools. 

Here are a few things to avoid in writing your medical school personal statement. Avoid talking about your scholastic path in preparation for medical school in your essay. The essay is not a place to reiterate scholastic achievements, for instance, a high GPA, academic honors, academic awards, publications, or MCAT scores because they’re front and center in other areas of your application. 

Instead, frame your medical school personal statement around a formidable experience that directly or indirectly led you to pursue medicine. This could be a struggle that you’ve overcome that demonstrates your fortitude (the story of a sociocultural disadvantage or disability), the first time you deeply understood the ramifications of health care disparities you will not forget. Likely, this would be a personal story about yourself or a family member, a clinical story or a mission trip, or a story about a patient from some other volunteer work that you’ve done. 

Additional topic ideas for your personal statement: What is a successful doctor? What does a successful life as a doctor look like? What happens to your understanding of best practices when a patient’s situation makes a best practice unrealistic, and what is the remedy? What epiphany, small or large, resides in you now since having mined a critical, clinical experience? Do you see a difference in the way you respond to patients since having had this experience? How has clinical experience matured you, deepened your awareness of living? If a patient experience became a catalyst for you to branch out or deepen your healthcare exposure opportunities, talk about that too. What opportunities? Why?

Writing effective transitions:

You are now ready to proceed to a conclusion that leaves your readers, the admissions committee, with a lasting impression of you – your life, your mind, your character -- as a 21 st century physician. 

Chances are, you’ll need to transition from the previous discussion of a time in the past to squarely speak about yourself here and now or in a comment toward the future. 

Can you sum up your main idea for the past experience? Consider the benefit of using a word or phrase -- thus, just as, hence, accordingly, in the same way, correspondingly -- and present your central idea again but only in a few repetitive words (called parallelism) or with synonymous words, creating internal unity in the essay. 

Be careful how you do this. The phrasing should feel necessary and fluid rather than reductive or even worse, phrasing that sounds like filler. 

The shift you’re making is from then to now, or from then to now and to the future as in “all this is to say.” Would you benefit from a fact, a quote, a statistic, or an informed prediction on the state of medicine, public health, or the future of medicine? 

Grammar tips: 

Transitional words can indicate:

• a process: first, second, next, finally…
• time: by lunch time, that evening, two weeks later…
• spatial sequences: down the block, two miles west, one bed over…
• logic sequences: likewise, however, evidently, in other words…
• meta-thought: as I say this, looking back, I have nothing left to say…

If grammar and idea flow are a concern, have a look at Accepted’s editing services: Med School Essay Package

A consultant will walk you through the inception of an essay, an outline, and editing from first through final drafts, including suggestions for idea development and transitions from one idea to another.

How to write your conclusion:

A strong conclusion for your medical school personal statement can highlight the relevance of a timely issue (for instance, the physician shortage in the U.S.), make broader inferences about something you’ve already discussed (for instance, the broader implications of a particular health care disparity), or a call to action that you now embrace (for instance, community-based work that you did during the pandemic that now has become a central interest). Altruism, or understanding another’s disadvantaged situation, should not be represented in your conclusion as “ideas alone.” Commitment to serve others is not solely aspirational (“As physicians, we must do everything we can about inequity"), but a strong conclusion puts ideals into action (“I have joined Dr. T’s research team to conduct qualitative research about how social strata paradigms impact health care inequity”). Action in the conclusion should be associated with an experience shown earlier in the essay and culminate as a demonstration that you have already begun shaping your path in medicine. You are not waiting to begin but have already begun facing the challenges and responsibilities of future physicians. This kind of conclusion shows vision, maturity, commitment and character.

If the story in the body of your personal statement is about an experience, the conclusion should show your growth since then and keep in alignment how you’ve grown with the medical school values and missions of the majority of schools on your list. So, if you’re applying to top-tier allopathic schools, your growth may be in the depth and orientation of your recent research, or in having established a tighter link between your clinical experience and research. 

If you’re applying to osteopathic schools, your growth should be in keeping with the osteopathic schools’ values and missions on your list and include recent hands-on experience, something with specific tasks and responsibilities, rather than shadowing, since shadowing is often seen as passive experience. It may be that you’ve become a licensed EMT and will work as an EMT in a relevant region or state during the gap year. It may be that you’ve been certified and now work as a harm reduction specialist for a particular organization in a particular city or county. 

If you’re applying to both allopathic and osteopathic schools, each personal statement should align with the academic orientation of each pathway. Using the same personal statement for both AMCAS and AACOMAS applications is rarely a good idea. 

Accepted offers help with the whole application process: Primary Application Package

Other elements that each essay below have in common:

Accepted provides sample medical school personal statements with titles classifying types of narratives that have potential for success. Applicants do have some freedom of choice in what topic will serve their essay best. Why only “some” freedom in topic for this personal essay? Because this essay is one tool you will use to reach a professional goal. 

Not all essays help us reach professional goals. Writers of effective essays must take into account who will read them. Think about who your audience is. In this case, it’s a medical school admissions committee – not a friend, not a parent, not a peer. How will you write an essay on the same topic, let’s say a lab experience that went from bad to revelatory? You’d tell this story quite differently to your lab mates than you would to your professor, than you would to the president of your university, than you would in a grant application. 

Here’s what can happen when the “audience” isn’t considered sufficiently when writing about a passion. Let’s say you love playing soccer, and played on a Division 3 team as an undergraduate. Let’s say it didn’t matter to you that the team was Division 3 as long as it meant you could get on the field and play through your undergraduate years. It’s quite possible that one can write well about playing soccer, but one must do so in such a way that the reader really believes and understands the parallel between doing what you love and a future in medicine. Otherwise, the writer may very well convey that they love soccer. However, when written without the focus that medical school admissions committees will be readers, the essay could end up conveying that the narrator really wants to be a soccer coach, not a doctor. 

So, there’s only some freedom in topic and some freedom in writing approach - and the two must make sense together in order to facilitate accomplishing your goal. 

There is no “one-size-fits-all” to writing a successful medical school personal statement. There are, however, aspects to the sample essays on this site that stand out. 

First, each personal statement example is authored by someone who knows exactly what story they’re telling. No matter what their first draft looked like, by the time the final draft is ready to go, all fuzzy draft moments have been made lucid and engaging. All sections of the essay should have the polish and the same goals. 

• Why am I telling this in this way? 
• To what ends does each scene or moment speak?
• Have I revised enough to make every sentence demonstrate strong writing skills?

Each sample personal statement emphasizes narrative control, engages with a direct voice, has conclusive things to show and say, demonstrates logical steps in idea development, and presents effective framing of the composition as a well-written form that displays strong writing skills. 

Even when an essay includes a “bookend” structure (a narrative structure that begins and ends with X, with middle content about Y), the story of Y (i.e. a mission trip in Mexico) is the primary story framed by the X bookend story (i.e. the love of running) to give ballast to the context in which this writer wants us to understand the mission trip as well, as a parallel story of challenge, commitment, exhilaration, exhaustion and necessity.

The same is true for stories that contain contrasts. If you’ve traveled ten mile or ten thousand miles, it is quite possible you’ve encountered different assumptions than your own about health care, health care access, trust, understanding of middle-class or first-world beliefs about health, understanding beliefs from poor and disadvantaged communities, illness, health care in contrast with a different cultural standard than what you’re used to, different beliefs about health care access, and a lack of or cautious trust in deference to doctors. (See the “Nontraditional Applicant” and “The Traveler.”) The key to this kind of essay is first demonstrating the contrasts between the two realities (yours and the patient’s reality) and their relative assumptions. Second, demonstrate an understanding of beliefs amid the two experiences and aim to reconcile their adverse assumptions.

However you proceed with the paragraph by paragraph progression of your medical school personal statement, be sure to see how there’s deeper intuition or knowledge associated with how the ideas progress. Do not repeat yourself, or reiterate a statement or idea unless you are clearly doing so for rhetorical emphasis.

Then, kiss your draft goodnight. Let it sit for two or three days, and return to it time and again with fresh eyes – to trim, tighten, clarify, improve tone and intention, and importantly, to make sure you have direct regard for your audience, who it is, what they’re looking for, and how you are the person whom they seek, as you maintain a tone and direction consistent with your goals and what you’re seeking from an admissions committee. 

Many students focus on their own or family members’ medical conditions in their personal statements. The essay sometimes reads like a medical history. Taking this approach can hurt your application for several reasons: It may alert them to conditions that could impact your ability to perform in medical school,   indicate that you lack boundaries by oversharing , or suggest a lack of maturity in focusing only on yourself and family – rather than on helping others or serving the community.

Anything you share in your personal statement can be brought up in your interview. If you share details of painful events, losses, or failures that you have not yet processed or come to terms with, that disclosure could come across as an invitation for the reader to pity you. Accepting long-term changes in our lives transforms us; we are constantly evolving through our experiences. Until you have integrated this information into your identity, depending on how impactful it was, you may not be able to use the experience to shed insight on yourself quite yet. Use negative experiences that are at least a year or older depending on how long it takes you to process and reflect. Most importantly,   use them to show growth and resilience , not to create pity.

• DON’T demonstrate a lack of compassion or empathy. One of the creepiest essays I’ve ever read – it still sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it – was a student’s description of how much she enjoyed anesthetizing and removing the brains of mice. Her intention was to share her love of science, research, and learning but the feverish glee with which she described these procedures lacked compassion for the creatures that lost their lives for her research project. This lack of respect for the sacredness of life made it an easy decision to reject her application. Research was probably a better path for her, especially since she wasn’t able to gauge the reaction her statements would have on her audience.
• DON’T bargain. The least fun essays to read are those that contain more promises than a politician’s speech. They include statements like, “If accepted into this program, I will….” The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you really want to demonstrate what you are capable of achieving during your medical education,  give examples of what you have already accomplished . This approach is far stronger than making hollow promises.
• DON’T complain. Criticizing or pointing out the failures of healthcare professionals who have treated you or whom you have observed in the past will only reflect negatively on you. Since your application will be reviewed by doctors, as well as admissions professionals, it’s critical that you do not insult those from whom you are seeking acceptance. While it is true that medical mistakes and lack of access to care have devastating consequences for patients, their families and communities, identifying ways to improve in these areas without pointing any fingers would be more effective. By demonstrating your realistic knowledge of patient needs and sharing potential solutions, you can present yourself as an asset to their team.

Be careful what you write. Create a personal statement that is honest (not bitter), reveals your personality (not your medical history), and delivers a compelling explanation for your motivations for entering medicine (not empty promises). 

Do you want our expert advice on your medical school personal statement?

Med School Personal Statement Consultant Dr. Mary Mahoney

Med School Personal Statement Examples and Analysis

Now let’s explore what you can learn from some of these outstanding sample med school essays.

Medical school personal statement example  #1: Emergency 911 

“Call 911!” I shouted to my friend as I sprinted down the street. The young Caucasian male had been thrown fifteen yards from the site of impact and surprisingly was still conscious upon my arrival. “My name is Michael. Can you tell me your name?” In his late twenties, he gasped in response as his eyes searched desperately in every direction for help, for comfort, for assurance, for loved ones, for death, until his eyes met mine. “Flail chest,” I thought to myself as I unbuttoned his shirt and placed my backpack upon his right side. “Pulse 98, respiration 28 short and quick. Help is on the way. Hang in there, buddy,” I urged.

After assessing the patient, the gravity of the situation struck me into sobriety. The adrenaline was no longer running through my veins — this was real. His right leg was mangled with a compound fracture; his left leg was also obviously broken. The tow-truck that had hit him looked as though it had run into a telephone pole. Traffic had ceased on the six-lane road, and a large crowd had gathered. However, no one was by my side to help. “Get me some blankets from that motel!” I yelled to a bystander and three people immediately fled. I was in charge.

But my patient was no longer conscious; his pulse was faint and respiration was low. “Stay with me, man!” I yelled. “15 to 1, 15 to 1,” I thought as I rehearsed CPR in my mind. Suddenly he stopped breathing. Without hesitation, I removed my T-shirt and created a makeshift barrier between his mouth and mine through which I proceeded to administer two breaths. No response. And furthermore, there was no pulse. I began CPR. I continued for approximately five minutes until the paramedics arrived, but it was too late. I had lost my first patient.

Medicine. I had always imagined it as saving lives, curing ailments, alleviating pain, overall making life better for everyone. However, as I watched the paramedics pull the sheets over the victim’s head, I began to tremble. I had learned my first lesson of medicine: for all its power, medicine cannot always prevail. I had experienced one of the most disheartening and demoralizing aspects of medicine and faced it. I also demonstrated then that I know how to cope with a life-and-death emergency with confidence, a confidence instilled in me by my certification as an Emergency Medical Technician, a confidence that I had the ability to take charge of a desperate situation and help someone in critical need. This pivotal incident confirmed my decision to pursue medicine as a career. 

Of course healing, curing, and saving is much more rewarding than trying and failing. As an EMT I was exposed to these satisfying aspects of medicine in a setting very new to me — urban medicine. I spent most of a summer doing ride-alongs with the Ambulance Company in Houston. Every call we received dealt with Latino patients either speaking only Spanish or very little broken English. I suddenly realized the importance of understanding a foreign culture and language in the practice of medicine, particularly when serving an underserved majority. In transporting patients from the field to the hospitals I saw the community’s reduced access to medical care due to a lack of physicians able to communicate with and understand their patients. I decided to minor in Spanish. Having almost completed my minor, I have not only expanded my academic horizons, I have gained a cultural awareness I feel is indispensable in today’s diverse society.

Throughout my undergraduate years at Berkeley I have combined my scientific interests with my passion for the Hispanic culture and language. I have even blended the two with my interests in medicine. During my sophomore year I volunteered at a medical clinic in the rural town of Chacala, Mexico. In Mexico for one month, I shadowed a doctor in the clinic and was concurrently enrolled in classes for medical Spanish. It was in Chacala, hundreds of miles away from home, that I witnessed medicine practiced as I imagined it should be. Seeing the doctor treat his patients with skill and compassion as fellow human beings rather than simply diseases to be outsmarted, I realized he was truly helping the people of Chacala in a manner unique to medicine. Fascinated by this exposure to clinical medicine, I saw medicine’s ability to make a difference in people’s lives. For me the disciplines of Spanish and science have become inseparable, and I plan to pursue a career in urban medicine that allows me to integrate them.

Having seen medicine’s different sides, I view this as a multifaceted profession. I have witnessed its power as a healing agent in rural Chacala, and I have seen its weakness when I met death face-to-face as an EMT. Inspired by the Latino community of Houston, I realize the benefits of viewing it from a holistic, culturally aware perspective. And whatever the outcome of the cry "Call 911!" I look forward as a physician to experiencing the satisfaction of saving lives, curing ailments, alleviating pain, and overall making life better for my patients.

Lessons From Med School Sample Essay #1: Emergency 911

This essay is one of our favorites. The applicant tells a story and weaves a lot of information into it about his background and interests. Note how the lead grabs one’s attention and the conclusion ties everything together.

What makes this essay work?

• A dramatic opening paragraph

This essay has an unusually long opener, but not only is it dramatic, it also lays out the high-stakes situation of the writer desperately trying to save the life of a young man. As an EMT, the writer is safe in sharing so much detail, because they establish their bona fides as medically knowledgeable. With the urgent opening sentence (“Call 911!”) and the sad final sentence (“I had lost my first patient.”), the writer bookends a particularly transformative experience, one that confirmed their goal of becoming a doctor.  

• A consistent theme

The theme of a med school essay in which the applicant first deals with the inevitable reality of seeing a patient die can become hackneyed through overuse. This essay is saved from that fate because after acknowledging the pain of this reality check, the writer reports that they immediately committed to expanding his knowledge and skills to better serve the local Hispanic community. While not an extraordinary story for an EMT, the substance, self-awareness, and focus the writer brings to the topic makes it a compelling read.

• Evidence supporting the stated goal

This applicant is already a certified EMT, which serves as evidence of their serious interest in a medical career. In going on ambulance ride-alongs, the writer realized the barrier in communication between many doctors and their Spanish-speaking patients, which inspired the writer to take steps to both learn medical Spanish and shadow a doctor in a Mexican clinic. These concrete steps affirm that the applicant has serious intent.

Medical School Personal Statement Example #2: The Traveler

"On the first day that I walked into the Church Nursing Home, I was unsure of what to expect. A jumble of questions ran through my mind simultaneously: Is this the right job for me? Will I be capable of aiding the elderly residents? Will I enjoy what I do? A couple of hours later, these questions were largely forgotten as I slowly cut chicken pieces and fed them to Frau Meyer. Soon afterwards, I was strolling through the garden with Herr Schmidt, listening to him tell of his tour of duty in World War II. By the end of the day, I realized how much I enjoyed the whole experience and at the same time smiled at the irony of it all. I needed to travel to Heidelberg, Germany, to confirm my interest in clinical medicine.

Experiences like my volunteer work in the German nursing home illustrate the decisive role travel has played in my life. For instance, I had volunteered at a local hospital in New York but was not satisfied. Dreams of watching doctors in the ER or obstetricians in the maternity ward were soon replaced with the reality of carrying urine and feces samples to the lab. With virtually no patient contact, my exposure to clinical medicine in this setting was unenlightening and uninspiring. However, in Heidelberg, despite the fact that I frequently change diapers for the incontinent and deal with occasionally cantankerous elderly, I love my twice-weekly visits to the nursing home. Here, I feel that I am needed and wanted. That rewarding feeling of fulfillment attracts me to the practice of medicine.

My year abroad in Germany also enriched and diversified my experience with research. Although I had a tremendously valuable exposure to research as a summer intern investigating chemotherapeutic resistance in human carcinomas, I found disconcerting the constant cost-benefit analysis required in applied biomedical research. In contrast, my work at the University of Heidelberg gave me a broader view of basic research and demonstrated how it can expand knowledge – even without the promise of immediate profit. I am currently attempting to characterize the role of an enzyme during neural development. Even though the benefit of such research is not yet apparent, it will ultimately contribute to a vast body of information which will further medical science.

My different reactions to research and medicine just exemplify the intrinsically broadening impact of travel. For example, on a recent trip to Egypt, I visited a small village on the banks of the Nile. This impoverished hamlet boasted a large textile factory in its center where many children worked in clean, bright, and cheerful conditions weaving carpets and rugs. After a discussion with the foreman of the plant, I discovered that the children of the village learned trades at a young age to prepare them to enter the job market and to support their families. If I had just heard about this factory, I would have recoiled in horror with visions of sweatshops running through my head. However, watching the skill and precision each child displayed, in addition to his or her endless creativity, soon made me realize that it is impossible to judge this country’s attempts to deal with its poverty using American standards and experience.

Travel has not only had a formative and decisive impact on my decision to pursue a career in medicine, it has also broadened my horizons – whether in a prosperous city on the Rhine or an impoverished village on the Nile. In dealing with patients or addressing research puzzles, I intend to bring the inquiring mind fostered in school, lab, and volunteer experiences. But above all, I intend to bring the open mind formed through travel.

Lessons From Medical School Sample Essay #2: The Traveler

No boring repetition of itinerary from this seasoned traveler! This student ties their travels to their medical ambitions through the effective use of short anecdotes and vivid images. Can you sense the writer’s youthful disappointment during early clinical experiences and mature satisfaction working in the retirement home?

This applicant effectively links the expansive benefits of travel to their medical ambitions. By sharing vivid anecdotes from and reflections on these experiences, the writer enables the reader to easily imagine them as a talented physician in the future.

• An engaging opening that frames the storyline Many fine application essays open with imagery so vibrant that the writing could be mistaken for fiction. This essay is no different. We meet the writer in the setting of a nursing home overseas, where they question whether their volunteer experiences there will help them determine their career path. Notice how the first sentence reflects a worry, “I was unsure of what to expect,” but by the final sentence, the writer concludes with satisfaction, “I needed to travel to Heidelberg, Germany, to confirm my interest in clinical medicine.” With this framing, we appreciate the essay’s theme.
• Reflections on and contrasts about varied experiences in medicine The writer’s reactions to various encounters reveal a maturing mind-set: the “unenlightening and uninspiring” experience volunteering in a New York hospital versus the feeling of being “needed and wanted” in the nursing home in Heidelberg; the “disconcerting . . . constant cost-benefit analysis required in applied biomedical research” versus the “broader view of basic research and . . . how it can expand knowledge – even without the promise of immediate profit” at the University of Heidelberg. These reflections demonstrate a thoughtfulness born of experience.
• How traveling has expanded his potential as a physician Of the five tightly constructed paragraphs in this substantial essay, the final two paragraphs home in on how travel has had an “intrinsically broadening impact” and stimulated an “open mind” to people and situations. This kind of sophisticated view is a desirable trait to adcoms.
• Out-of-the-box theme Although this essay’s foundation is built on the writer’s sincere and dedicated aspirations for a medical career, they allowed themselves the space to write about the broadening intellectual benefits of travel, linking those benefits to professional potential. Even when writing about children working in a factory in Egypt, this applicant brings an expanded mind-set and greater cross-cultural understanding that will no doubt benefit them in their career.

Medical School Personal Statement Example #3: The Non-Traditional Applicant

"Modest one-room houses lay scattered across the desert landscape, their rooftops a seemingly helpless shield against the intense heat generated by the mid-July sun. The steel security bars that guarded the windows and doors of every house seemed to belie the large welcome sign at the entrance to the ABC Indian Reservation. As a young civil engineer employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, I was far removed from my cubicle in downtown Los Angeles.

However, I felt I was well-prepared to conduct my first project proposal. The project involved a $500,000 repair of an earthen levee surrounding an active Native American burial site. A fairly inexpensive and straightforward job by federal standards, but nonetheless, I could hardly contain my excitement. Strict federal construction guidelines laden with a generous portion of technical jargon danced through my head as I stepped up to the podium to greet the twelve tribal council members. My premature confidence quickly disappeared as they confronted me with a troubled ancient gaze. Their faces revealed centuries of distrust and broken government promises.

Suddenly, from a design based solely upon abstract engineering principles, an additional human dimension emerged – one for which I had not prepared. The calculations I had crunched over the past several months and the abstract engineering principles simply no longer applied. Their potential impact on this community was clearly evident in the faces before me. With perspiration forming on my brow, I decided I would need to take a new approach to salvage this meeting. So I discarded my rehearsed speech, stepped out from behind the safety of the podium, and began to solicit the council members’ questions and concerns. By the end of the afternoon, our efforts to establish a cooperative working relationship had resulted in a distinct shift in the mood of the meeting. Although I am not saying we erased centuries of mistrust in a single day, I feel certain our steps towards improved relations and trust produced a successful project.

I found this opportunity to humanize my engineering project both personally and professionally rewarding. Unfortunately, experiences like it were not common. I realized early in my career that I needed a profession where I could more frequently incorporate human interaction and my interests in science. After two years of working as a civil engineer, I enrolled in night school to explore a medical career and test my aptitude for pre-medical classes. I found my classes fascinating and became a more effective student. Today, I am proud of the 3.7 GPA I have achieved in competitive post-baccalaureate courses such as organic chemistry, biochemistry, and genetics.

Confident of my ability to succeed in the classroom, I proceeded to volunteer in the Preceptorship Program at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. I acquired an understanding of the emotional demands and time commitment required of physicians by watching them schedule their personal lives around the needs of their patients. I also soon observed that the rewards of medicine stem from serving the needs of these same patients. I too found it personally gratifying to provide individuals with emotional support by holding an elderly woman’s hand as a physician drew a blood sample or befriending frightened patients with a smile and conversation.

To test my aptitude for a medical career further, I began a research project under the supervision of Dr. John Doe from the Orthopedic Department at Big University. The focus of my study was to determine the fate of abstracts presented at the American Society for Surgery of the Hand annual meeting. As primary author, I reported the results in an article for the Journal of Hand Surgery, a peer-reviewed publication. My contribution to medicine, albeit small, gave me much satisfaction. In the future, I would like to pursue an active role in scientific research.

My preparation for a career as a medical doctor started with my work as a professional engineer. From my experiences at the ABC Indian Reservation, I realized I need more direct personal interaction than engineering offers. The rewarding experiences I have had in my research, my volunteer work at the Los Angeles County Hospital, and my post-bac studies have focused my energies and prepared me for the new challenges and responsibilities that lie ahead in medicine."

Lessons From Med School Sample Essay #3: The Non-Traditional Applicant

Here, an older applicant takes advantage of their experience and maturity. Note how this engineer demonstrates their sensitivity and addresses possible stereotypes about engineers’ lack of communications skills.

What works well in this essay?

• A compelling lead This story begins in a hot desert landscape, an unexpected and dramatic starting point. Can’t you just feel the heat and sense the loneliness of the remote Indian reservation? Equally powerful in this first paragraph is when the writer faces the need to suddenly and completely rethink their carefully planned approach to address the tribal leaders. Their excitement is dashed. Their confidence has plummeted. They are totally unprepared for the mistrust facing them and their plan, and they need to improvise –quickly. Who wouldn’t want to read on to see how they resolve this dramatic turn of events?
• Solid storytelling that leads to a satisfying conclusion This nontraditional med school applicant reinvents themself in this essay. After realizing that they want more human involvement and interaction in their work, they take this self-knowledge and show us the steps they took to achieve their new goal. The steps are logical and well thought out, so the writer’s conclusion that they are well prepared in every way for med school makes perfect sense.
• Evidence to support their theme Through taking prerequisite courses in medicine (and achieving high grades) to bedside hospital volunteering (which provides emotional satisfaction) to helping write a medical research paper (which provides a feeling that they are making a meaningful contribution), the writer offers evidence that they are well suited for their new goal of a career in medicine. Each experience shared is relevant to the writer’s story. Any reader will agree that the applicant’s future as a physician is promising.
• A thoughtful perspective From the opening paragraph, the writer shows their ability to adapt to new situations and realities with quick thinking and psychological openness. They assess each stage of their journey, testing it for intellectual value and emotional satisfaction. Journeys of reflective self-discovery are something adcoms value.

Medical School Personal Statement Example #4: The Anthropology Student

"Crayfish tails in tarragon butter, galantine of rabbit with foie gras, oxtail in red wine, and apple tartelettes. The patient had this rich meal and complained of “liver upset” (crise de foie). Why a liver ache? I always associate indigestion with a stomach ache. In studying French culture in my Evolutionary Psychology class, I learned that when experiencing discomfort after a rich meal, the French assume their liver is the culprit. Understanding and dealing with the minor – sometimes major – cultural differences is a necessity in our shrinking world and diverse American society. Anthropology has prepared me to effectively communicate with an ethnically diverse population. My science classes, research, and clinical experience have prepared me to meet the demands of medical school.

I first became aware of the valuable service that physicians provide when I observed my father, a surgeon, working in his office. I gained practical experience assisting him and his staff perform various procedures in his outpatient center. This exposure increased my admiration for the restorative, technological, and artistic aspects of surgery. I also saw that the application of medical knowledge was most effective when combined with compassion and empathy from the health care provider.

While admiring my father’s role as a head and neck surgeon helping people after severe accidents, I also found a way to help those suffering from debilitating ailments. Working as a certified physical trainer, I became aware of the powerful recuperative effects of exercise. I was able to apply this knowledge in the case of Sharon, a 43-year-old client suffering from lupus. She reported a 200% increase in her strength tests after I trained her. This meant she could once again perform simple tasks like carrying groceries into her house. Unfortunately, this glimpse of improvement was followed by a further deterioration in her condition. On one occasion, she broke down and cried about her declining health and growing fears. It was then that I learned no physical prowess or application of kinesiology would alleviate her pain. I helped reduce her anxiety with a comforting embrace. Compassion and understanding were the only remedies available, temporary though they were.

To confirm that medicine is the best way for me to help others, I assisted a research team in the Emergency Room at University Medical Center (UMC). This experience brought me in direct contact with clinical care and provided me with the opportunity to witness and participate in the “behind-the-scenes” hospital operations. Specifically, we analyzed the therapeutic effects of two new drugs – Drug A and Drug B – in patients suffering from acute ischemic stroke. The purpose of this trial was to determine the efficacy and safety of these agents in improving functional outcome in patients who had sustained an acute cerebral infarction. My duties centered around the role of patient-physician liaison, determining patients’ eligibility, monitoring their conditions, and conducting patient histories.

I continued to advance my research experience at the VA Non-Human Primate Center. During the past year, I have been conducting independent research in endocrinology and biological aspects of anthropology. For this project, I am examining the correlation between captive vervet monkeys’ adrenal and androgen levels with age, gender, and various behavioral measures across different stress-level environments. I enjoy the discipline and responsibility which research requires, and I hope to incorporate it into my career.

Anthropology is the study of humans; medicine is the science and art of dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease in humans. From my work at UMC and my observation of my father’s practice, I know medicine will allow me to pursue an art and science that is tremendously gratifying and contributes to the welfare of those around me. My anthropology classes have taught me to appreciate cross-cultural perspectives and their relationship to pathology and its etiology. Firsthand experience with exercise therapy and nutrition has taught me the invaluable role of prevention. Medical school will now provide me with the technical knowledge to alleviate a crise de foie."

[ Click here to view an excerpt from the original draft of this essay. ]

Lessons From Medical School Sample Essay #4: The Anthropology Student

With a diverse background that includes anthropology studies, work as a certified physical trainer, and experience in clinical medical research, this applicant builds a strong case for their logical and dedicated choice of a medical career.

• An engaging opening that frames the storyline This writer cleverly uses an example from anthropology class, linking the description of a heavy, gourmet French meal to an appreciation for cross-cultural understanding that will be an asset during their medical career. Notice that the writer is not describing their own personal experience here but piggybacked on a class lesson to create a colorful, engaging opening.
• A solid variety of relevant experiences In this six-paragraph essay, the writer links their lessons from anthropology studies to a firsthand understanding based on observing how their surgeon-father related to patients, to becoming a physical trainer directly helping others, and then to two different kinds of medical research. Each experience builds logically and chronologically on what came before, adding to the substance of the applicant’s preparation for medical school.
• A powerful personal experience with a client In the third paragraph, the writer’s experience working with a patient with lupus is particularly strong and memorable. Their initial success with Sharon is followed by an almost immediate and radical decline in her condition. This is a moving anecdote that shows the applicant’s understanding of the limitations of medicine – and the power of compassion.
• An excellent summary paragraph that ties everything together The final paragraph isn’t the place to offer new information, and this one doesn’t. Instead, it reminds the reader about the strong foundation the writer built from academics to career and medical research. Readers will be persuaded that after these experiences and reflections, the applicant truly appreciates “cross-cultural perspectives and their relationship to pathology and its etiology,” as well as the “firsthand experience with exercise therapy and nutrition teaching the invaluable role of prevention.”

Don’t Write Like This!

As the time approached for me to set my personal and professional goals, I made a conscientious decision to enter a field which would provide me with a sense of achievement and, at the same time, produce a positive impact on mankind. It became apparent to me that the practice of medicine would fulfill these objectives. In retrospect, my ever-growing commitment to medicine has been crystallizing for years. My intense interest in social issues, education, and athletics seems particularly appropriate to this field and has prepared me well for such a critical choice...

I’ve been asked many times why I wish to become a physician. Upon considerable reflection, the thought of possessing the ability to help others provides me with tremendous internal gratification and offers the feeling that my life’s efforts have been focused in a positive direction. Becoming a physician is the culmination of a lifelong dream, and I am prepared to dedicate myself, as I have in the past, to achieving this goal.

Lessons from Don’t Write Like This

This is an excerpt from the original draft of the Anthropology Student’s AMCAS essay. We are not including the whole thing because you can get the idea all too rapidly from just this brief portion. Note the abundant use of generalities that apply to the overwhelming majority of medical school applicants. Observe how the colorless platitudes and pomposity hide any personality. Can you imagine reading essays like this all day long? If so, then imagine your reaction to a good essay.

More sample essays

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APPLICATION STRATEGY / PRIMARY AND SECONDARY ESSAY REVIEW / INTERVIEW PREP

Med school personal statement FAQs

1. when should i start writing my personal statement for medical school.

Typically, traditional applicants who have a goal of submitting their AMCAS or AACOMAS application in June write their personal statement after they take the MCAT in March. Starting the prewriting for the personal statement earlier than that is fine too; however, if an applicant plans to sit for the MCAT in the early spring, writing a compelling personal narrative while preparing for the MCAT can often be too much. Both require very different kinds of thinking. The intensity of studying for the MCAT, and the empirical thinking it requires, can interfere with the imaginative brainstorming needed to find your topic and develop it.  

Before focusing on the personal statement, look at all the elements of the primary application. As a whole, the personal statement, activities, MMEs, MCAT, transcript, biographical information and letters, will portray you. One element alone is not enough to bring out the whole you. It might help to strategize about how (and where) to highlight different elements of your background, experience, and character in the different parts of the primary application. Then work on the personal statement knowing what aspects of you are already represented in the other sections of the application. This way, each element adds value to the application and contributes to a more complete picture of you.

It makes sense to compartmentalize completing different parts of the application. Many applicants take the time they need to focus on one application component at a time, which seems to help them be thorough. 

Don’t underestimate how much time it takes to write well. Exploring ideas in writing, developing those ideas, showing rather than telling a story, staying clear, writing fluidly, surmising maturely and insightfully, takes much more time than most people anticipate. So, don’t wait until Memorial Day to write your essay and intend to submit on June 1. Give yourself the churn time writing well needs. Also, give yourself time to put a draft down for a day or two and return to it when you’re able to read it afresh. Sometimes, we revise over and over again in one sitting to the point that we can no longer hear the story or its sense because we have been rehearsing and revising a draft to beat the clock. Doing this is a risky way to go about the personal statement. Remember, this essay should be a very impressive part of your application, not merely one more part of the application to finish. At the end of the day, the medical school personal statement is a window that allows others to see you, know you as a person, know you better and beyond your achievements.

2. How do I find the perfect personal statement topic? Does one exist?

Certainly, some ideas are better than others, and one idea might work better for one person and not so well for someone else. However, there is no “perfect” topic. In fact, writing an essay with the approach of trying to out-psych this important application requirement is likely not the strongest way to find your best topic, nor is it the best way to engage your readers. 

Instead, consider the following approach. What is an experience you’ve had that matters greatly in helping others understand who you are as a future physician? Why medicine, not in general, but for you, demonstrated by way of a story about an experience that directly ties to being a physician or indirectly demonstrates your sound character as it corresponds with human qualities medical schools desire. When we read what kinds of people medical schools seek, it’s easy enough to identify quite a few character traits that appeal to many schools: compassion, resiliency, adaptability, selflessness, inclusivity, and altruism among them. What experience, when written with key details and description, reveals who you really are?

3. How do you choose the right amount of personal qualities to list?

A strong medical school personal statement should not replicate other parts of the application, with the exception of it being a specific story that stems from a particular experience associated with one of your activities. Otherwise, there’s no listing in this essay. Unfortunately, some applicants do treat the personal statement as an opportunity to list awards, accolades, and experiences, paragraph by paragraph. Meanwhile, medical school admissions officers can see these awards and experiences in the Experiences section of the application. Rarely, if ever, does this kind of writing bring out voice, vision and identity. Instead, tell a true story, revised with care and precision, that shines with voice, vision and identity.

4. Are there any topics I should avoid for my medical school personal statement?

Certainly, one idea might work better for one person and not so well for someone else. So, there’s a subjectivity in what to write and what not to write. Generally, however, there are some topics to avoid. Don’t write about a time you felt cheated, inconvenienced, frustrated or angry. Sometimes, secondary essay prompts will ask you about a struggle or a mistake, and for these answers, it’s best to show how you turned the situation around or keenly learned from it. Don’t get too caught in childhood. Many applicants do write about a time when they were not yet grown; however, don’t get swallowed by it. Write the scene and then stay in the present to demonstrate your maturity and worthwhile hindsight.

Remember -- no matter what the topic, tone matters. 

5. What kind of experience should I include in my personal statement?

6. can the experience i use on my med school personal statement be from outside of college.

Absolutely. It is relatively common for applicants to only portray themselves as students, and this can be a problem. Sometimes, when applicants write about themselves as excellent students the tone of such a personal statement can sound boastful or pleading. Neither quality is advantageous. 

Seeing oneself in any other light can result in a stronger “snapshot” of who you are, as long as the theme or topic of your personal statement still suits the intention of the application in the first place – demonstrating who you are as an appealing candidate for medical school. When we consider the writing task for the personal statement to be much more story-driven, readers go on a descriptive journey. What journey would you like to share?

7. Should I talk about challenges I’ve faced?

If other parts of your medical school application suggest a struggle – whether a lower MCAT score or a notable weak semester on a transcript – it might be advantageous to explain what happened and how you turned that situation around. Whether writing about a challenge in the personal statement or secondaries, the key is to demonstrate resilience. Applicants with physical or cognitive disabilities may choose to write about seeking assistance -- whether a doctor, therapist or a tutor -- and how learning alternative strategies helped them figure out how to attain higher academic achievement. 

Sometimes challenges are circumstantial. Sometimes families face financial hardship (did the family breadwinner become unemployed and therefore everyone else had to work more hours, including you?), emotional stress (due to an ongoing illness, Covid-19, or a divorce?) or trauma (a death of a loved one, a house fire, a veteran/sibling returning home with PTSD). Sometimes an applicant has been a caregiver for someone in the family. Sometimes an applicant has taken a leave from school because of someone else’s struggles, or the emotional fallout on the applicant from someone else’s struggle – the loss of a childhood friend, for instance. Self-care is reasonable. We might need to share a life moment in order to frame the context of a life struggle, showing it in the context of responsibility rather than recklessness or immaturity. Showing how you stepped up in a challenging time can show that you are accountable and caring, as long as the story is told to these ends, rather than suggesting resentment or self-pity. Again, neither of these tones is advantageous, nor is blame. 

Occasionally applicants have been challenged by a course or by a professor, a classmate or teammate and feel unduly subjected to bias. If there’s discrimination involved, that might be a story to tell. If there’s a personality clash, that might not be a good story to tell. 

Finally, as any story of challenge moves along, it’s important to demonstrate what you did, what you learned, how you adapted, or what you now value from having had this life experience that you did not understand before. 

Being a doctor is rife with challenges. In the end, your readers may come to understand how you are an insightful leader with great resilience or a compassionate, problem-solver.

8. How do I focus my personal statement to show that I want to go into medicine and not another field in healthcare?

Great question. On the one hand, it’s a good idea to demonstrate your compassion for others and empathy for people suffering from illness. On the other hand, these are favorable attributes for nearly all healthcare workers -- not only doctors -- but for physician assistants, nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers and psychologists too. Since most applicants have done some shadowing of physicians, it’s not unusual for these experiences to contain moments of learning about being a physician through shadowing or through work in a clinic. However, the more clinical the story, the better especially if you’re applying to osteopathic schools of medicine. If you’re applying to allopathic schools of medicine, it’s possible you have some interest in being a researcher, so telling a story about working in a physician’s lab might demonstrate your insights into the value of research in light of disease or patient care. If you already have an affinity for a specialty, telling how you came to know this could be the way to go.

9. Do I introduce my desired field of healthcare in my personal statement?

Maybe. If you’re very committed and have demonstrated a trend in your activities from general volunteer work (older listings) to more specialized experience in a field of medicine (more recent listings), it may be a good idea to write up how you came to know one field of medicine was really your passion. 

Bear in mind that announcing a deep interest in a particular field of medicine may make you “a good fit” or “not a good fit” for some schools. So, if you do write up a story about your desired field of medicine for your personal statement, be sure your list of schools corresponds with this. For instance, if you want to be an obstetrician and you convey this in your personal statement, be certain your schools have clinical exposure or better yet offer specializations in obstetrics, or a required rotation through a hospital for women, for instance.

Lastly, by no means must you announce a desired field of healthcare in your personal statement. You may be asked about your specialized interests in medicine in a secondary or in an interview, so it’s a good idea to think this through, but no, you don’t have to tackle this in the personal statement.

10. What should my character limit be? 

The AMCAS and AACOMAS character limit for the personal statement is 5,300 characters with spaces. The TMDSAS character limit for the personal statement is 5,000 characters with spaces. It’s a good idea to use most if not all of this space for your personal statement. Also, try to avoid the temptation to use the same personal statement for AMCAS and AACOMAS. The osteopathic schools seek applicants who know and prefer an osteopathic orientation to medicine, so the AACOMAS personal statement should demonstrate your fit with osteopathic medicine, based on what story you choose to tell and how you tell it, or at the very least, in the conclusion.

11. How do I know when I’m ready to submit my med school personal statement?

I highly recommend getting feedback about this from a strong mentor, advisor or consultant. Accepted offers comprehensive consultation for every part of the writing process, from brainstorming, to outlining, to mentoring on ideas, and editing until a client has a solid final draft in hand, ready for submission. You can review these services here: Initial Essay Package

Generally speaking, when you’ve accomplished FAQ #2 and #3, avoided the pitfalls in #4, revised for clarity and quality of ideas, developed ideas engagingly, and meticulously revised for quality of writing, then, you may be done.

12. What if I don’t have enough space to discuss everything?

Then your topic is too large or unfocused, in which case you need to focus and narrow the scope of your essays. Or you have a bit of editing to do to eliminate wordiness, digressions, or overstatement Ultimately, you want your essay to be focused, clear, and engaging.

13. Should I personalize my personal statement to the med school I am applying to?

Only if you’re applying to one medical school. Otherwise, your personal statement will reach all schools listed in your AMCAS application or AACOMAS application. It is okay, however, to speak toward the ideals of your first choice, aspirational schools on your list. Other times, applicants choose to write toward the schools that are their safest bets. 

Your secondary/supplemental essays will give you plenty of opportunity to show you belong at an individual school.

14.  Can I talk about mental or physical health in my statement?

15. should i address any bad grades that i got in school.

Generally yes, as long as bad grades are truly bad grades. It’s likely that you do not need to address a rogue grade of B on a transcript. If you had a bad semester or two, the question becomes how and where to address them. The answer is an individual one dependent on the context. The one certainty: You definitely don’t want your entire application to be a rationalization of those bad grades. 

See FAQ #7. 

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• Medical School Secondary Essays

How to Ace "Why This Medical School?" Secondary Essay

When writing your medical school admissions essay, you will likely have to answer the “Why This Medical School?” secondary essays prompt. It’s important to know why schools are asking this essay prompt, and how to answer it! Among other tips you’ll come across when learning how to make your medical school application stand out , having a well written, concise essay that expresses your passion and interest in a specific program is key to getting asked for an interview.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 8 min read

The application process for medical schools can be daunting and stressful, especially if you're not sure about where to apply or what makes one school better than another. There are several components of each application, and in order to land yourself an interview at your top school(s), you’ll need to write enticing essays that follow the instructions of each prompt, and provide relevant details that will help you stand out among other applicants. One question that all applicants will get asked on their applications is, “why this medical school?” or, a similar variation of the question. This essay prompt can help you stand out from the crowd by showing that your interest in attending this school goes beyond just getting an education—you may have ties to the location and city, or researched their program extensively and find it to be the most unique and intriguing for you and your future goals. But what exactly should you include in your “why this medical school” essay in order to stand out? Read on to learn some tips for writing a strong response to this question, and view a few sample essays.

The "why this medical school?" essay is one of the most important parts of your medical school application. The prompt asks you to explain why you want to go to this particular school, and it lets the admissions committee get a deeper sense of who you are an if you’re a worthy of consideration for an interview. This essay allows them to learn more about your personality and interests, so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not they think you’d be a good fit for their program not simply because you wish to attend medical school, but because you’d fit in well, and are passionate about, their specific program.

In other words, if your goal is getting into your chosen medical school as quickly as possible (and what applicant doesn't want that?), then answering this essay well will dramatically improve your chances! This particular essay helps admissions committees weed out candidates who are impartial about which school they attend, and who may not align with their program’s values, culture and structure. Medical programs are competitive, and many are seeking the ‘best of the best’ applicants who demonstrate passion, intrinsic motivation, and determination to attend their program. That is why it’s crucial that you plan out your responses to your each of your prompts and medical school secondary essays throughout your application process. Taking your time, writing authentically, crafting several drafts, revising, asking a trusted individual or seeking medical school admissions consulting for support, and submitting your essays on time are all great ways to ensure your “why this medical school” essay is superb.

Are you applying to UCSD? Check out how to prepare your secondary for this competitive institution!

Your response to “why this medical school” must be genuine, personal, and most of all, convincing. You absolutely do not want to fabricate a response, as if you’re invited to interview, it will be clear that you weren’t honest and authentic in your essay, and this may result in a rejection. You must make your intentions and passion clear, and for eager future medical students, this should actually be quite easy to do!

Ask yourself: “Why do I want to attend this particular school? What do I like about the school and their program? What makes them better than another school with a similar program?” You can write down your thoughts first, or, even record yourself speaking as you share your thoughts with a family member or friend. This can be a good way of starting your writing process if you’re experiencing writers block. Additionally, preparing your essay responses aloud is a good way of indirectly preparing for other common medical school interview questions that will come your way if and when you get invited for an interview!

"Why This Medical School?" Sample #1, 500-750 words

“I recall the first time I knew, with confidence, that I would one day be a doctor. I knew I needed to be a doctor, in fact, because all I’ve ever wanted to do is learn, and help people. When I was seven years old, a child at the playground who had joined in on a game of tag with my friends and I plummeted from the top of the monkey bars and broke her arm. Many onlookers panicked and ran for help, but without hesitation, I ran to the aid of the injured child and comforted her. I knew, somehow innately, how to keep her calm, and the importance of keeping her injury still until help arrived. I felt excited and honored to help in that moment. For the months that followed, many parents complemented me on my composure and expressed how mature I was when all the other children cried and panicked. To me, it only felt natural to be a helper in my community, and to take charge of a situation, so that was when I realized not everybody felt so automatically inclined—or fascinated with—helping injured and ill people. I knew then what path I had to take, and began looking for opportunities to learn more about health care at my school, and in my community. My community is one that is historically underserved, and members of my community are underrepresented in the medical field, and after years of volunteering at various pop-up clinics and detox centers, I’m eager help to change that.

Attending X University Medical School, means I’ll be learning and getting clinical experience in my own community, and will be able to take part in community outreach programs, and eventually, propose my own ideas for outreach. I know first-hand the medical and mental health care support this community surrounding X University is lacking, and, I know the wonderful people who reside in it that make it the incredible place it is. I would be elated to be a part of a renowned learning environment where I could enhance and develop my technical skills, partake in initiatives throughout my program and beyond, and give back to my community by providing compassionate care.

Throughout my time in secondary and post-secondary, I immersed myself in life sciences and sociology—my other favorite subject, which I will receive a double-major in. I started volunteering in various groups and shadowing with other pre-med students in my second year of study, most notably, the local women’s health facility and shelter. There, I learned the importance of accessible care, and came to understand the systemic inequity that exists in healthcare, especially for women and minorities in underserved communities. I was also able to put my understanding of sociology and social systems to use as I helped women navigate next-step programs, whether they were escaping abusive partnerships or recovering from an addiction. As an eager and accomplished self-started, I feel I could bring forth my existing knowledge and passion to help people, and would excel in X University’s interdisciplinary, self-directed components of the medical program. I also look forward to learning alongside a team of likeminded professionals in your clinical, team-oriented experiences offered as both a part of the program, and as extracurricular opportunities. I feel that although there are many medical schools in the state, X University offers the most comprehensive, appealing program to professionals like myself who want to learn the from the best faculty, and apply what I’ve learned throughout my time in your program, and bring the best care to our budding and evolving community when I one day become an MD.”

"Why This Medical School?" Sample #2, 250-500 words

“Attending X University as a medical student means that I would be able to immerse myself into a community renowned for its supportive culture, research alongside incredible faculty, and attend one of the top programs in the country. Because I have a special interest, and experience working with patients with, XYZ, a notoriously under-researched and underfunded area of medicine, I know that X University will provide me with the opportunity to flourish as a future medical professional, and as a future clinical researcher. I have many ground-breaking ideas to explore, and because I’ve followed X University’s research for nearly a decade, I know I would be among like-minded individuals at your institution. Last year, my lab team was awarded the University of Newtown Award for Excellency in Biology and Life Sciences for our project that explored the relation and co-existence between celiac disease and sickle-cell anemia. I enjoyed this extensive research project, and partaking in it only affirmed my dedication and passion for this field of medicine.

My goal as a future medical student it to absorb all learning materials in every form, and take each moment of field experience as both a challenge and an opportunity to shine. Not only will I learn how to best provide care, but to also make the current system better for patients. Whether I do so through my combined passion and knowledge obtained through X University’s program, or through my future research on diseases like XYZ, I will strive to make a difference, and feel the inclusive, non-competitive, supportive learning community at X University is the best place for me access the tools and gain the experiences in order to do so. Because X University has a wonderful reputation for making breakthroughs in the field of medical research, specifically with auto-immune diseases, I am eager and prepared to relocate across the country and begin my professional journey as a member of a prestigious medical school community.”

It might sound like a basic question, but the “why this medical school” essay prompt carries a lot of significance and your response must be well thought out! This prompt is asking you to explain why you want to attend a particular institution, and your response will let the admissions committee understand you, your goals, and get a deeper sense of who you are. This essay will be used to help them assess whether or not you’re worthy of consideration based on your interests, passions, personality, and goals as they relate to the particular medical program you’re applying for.

It isn’t uncommon for students to apply to several medical schools. You likely have one or two ‘top’ choices, but in order to secure a chance of admission, you may apply to your ‘plan B’ schools as well. You should never communicate that a school is not your top choice, but rather, focus on what each school and program offers, what you’ll gain from the experience—should you be accepted and attend—and what makes them unique from other schools. Admissions teams know that many students apply to several schools, so be honest in your answer to the extent of why you want to attend the school, but never state that you are applying because a particular school is “close to home”, “is known for easy admittance”, or “because it’s an option”. Take the time to research and get excited about each school individually before you write each essay.

When drafting and writing your “why this medical school?” essay, and any secondary essay, it’s important that you:

• Stick to a legible, professional and consistent format and font (no colors or creative fonts)
• 1.5-2.0 spacing is always preferred
• Adhere to any specific instructions outlined on your application
• Ensure that you proofread and edit your essay several times to ensure it’s error-free
• This is a personal, professional essay. That means you should write in your own authentic voice, portray yourself as a professional, and include an introduction, body section with appropriate details, and a brief conclusion that reiterates and wraps up your response and prompts the admissions committee to—hopefully—proceed with next steps in your application process.

This can vary by school, and every application is different! In general, most admissions and secondary essays span anywhere from 250-1000 words. Always double check your application/essay instructions and stick as closely to the word count as you can.

Your essay should outline what personal experiences, goals and values you have that align with a particular aspect of the school’s program, culture, reputation, and/or curriculum. You should highlight specific aspects of the medical program that are appealing to you and unique to the school, and detail why this is important to you! This is a brief essay, so it’s best to research and decide on a few key points about the school that are relevant to your interest, and detail them, along with a bit about who you are as a prospective medical school student.

As noted above, this is a brief essay, and schools are trying to get a clear idea of who each applicant is, and why they are interested in their specific medical school program. Avoid detailing irrelevant events, as well as going in-depth about your experience, grades or GPA accomplishments, as a lot of this information was likely already reviewed in your initial application. Along with this, don’t simply regurgitate information from the school’s website! They already know what they offer, so if you’re opting to discuss a specific point, such as a unique curriculum, get specific and detail why it matters to you and aligns with your goals! Finally, it’s important to remember that the admissions team is looking to select candidates with a genuine interest and passion for medicine, and for their school. It’s crucial that your essay is written in your voice, and includes honest details about what entices you about the chosen school specifically.

You may benefit from seeking help from a medical school admissions tutor . The application process, as well as the interview process, for medical school can be extensive and overwhelming! BeMo Academic Consulting can help you prepare for various components of your medical school application by offering 1-on-1 preparatory consulting services to guide you through every step of the application process!

Not always! Although it’s a good sign that the admissions committee has reviewed your initial application and would like to learn more about you, some schools send secondary essay prompts to every applicant, and others opt to send them to applicants whom they have interest in. Because it varies by school, it’s important that you prepare and submit your secondary materials as soon as you can to show that you’re eager and interested in the school!

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Why Us Medical School Essay Example with Writing Tips

Our team of editors have put together a step by step process on how to approach the most common secondary essays . Below is a why us medical school essay example along with the steps to take when writing an effective “why us” response. 

Writing Tips for the “Why Us” Essay

Why Us Essay Example Prompts 

Why Us Medical School Essay Example

Introduction .

While one of the most common medical school secondary prompts, it is also one of the most important. This is your opportunity to convince admissions committees at the med schools of which you applied how or why your values align with theirs . As you can imagine, a well-written essay can potentially influence admissions committees to accept an applicant while a poorly written essay may persuade the reader otherwise. Here are a few tips in order to meticulously demonstrate your medical school candidacy:

Tip #1 Answer the Why Us Prompt

Not all “Why Our School” secondary prompts are created equal. Some prompts will ask how you will contribute to their school while others ask about qualities you have that would further their medical school’s mission. Similarly, while you may have prepared a response for the “Why Our School” question for another school, you must tailor it to what the school is asking specifically . If you do not do so, the school does not have answers to the question they are explicitly asking. Remember, they are asking the question for a specific reason! Also, a general response may lead admissions committees to assume you have one response you use for “Why Our School” secondary essays, forcing them to believe you are not as interested or knowledgeable about their med school.  

Tip #2 Do Your Research and Brainstorming

It is one thing to know what interests you about this school but another to pinpoint the specifics of the school that make it unique . Doing so can show your genuine interest in that school and that you have correspondingly done your research. You may use their website but do some deep digging as well – use YouTube videos, alumni or medical student outreach, or research the geographic location/community for aspects that interest you. Consider the following questions when doing your own search:

• What aspects are important to you when considering a medical school?
• Is there a particular learning structure or curriculum that benefits your learning style? If so, why?
• Is this school near home or family? You might articulate how or why this is important to you and your future medical education.
• What unique aspects interest you about this school? Why?
• Why do you perceive an education at this school would be best for your training? 

Tip #3 Be Specific 

Commonly, students fall into the pitfall of discussing  how the mission statement resonates with them . If the mission statement does, in fact, resonate with you, be sure to discuss why as well as show evidence or examples for how this is true . Often, it is important to be specific about what interests you about the school to demonstrate your enthusiasm and interest. Doing so will increase your likelihood of acceptance as admissions committees are interested in accepting students knowledgeable about the school and willing to represent their school enthusiastically. Is there a club or aspect of the curriculum that interests you? Talk about it! 

Tip #4 Reference Aspects of The Medical School (but do not tell them about their own institution!)

There is certainly a difference between the following:

School X values underserved populations and commitment to community health.

Of particular interest, School X emphasizes underserved communities which has been a passion of mine, evidenced by my involvement in Healthcare for the Homeless.

As you can see, this latter example emphasizes what interests the student about the school while avoiding outright telling the admissions committee a fact about their school.

Takeaways Surrounding the “Why Our School” Medical School Secondary Prompt

Therefore, like any other written aspect of your application, it is important to demonstrate additional details about you as a candidate to paint a vivid picture of who you are. As a result, it is essential to marry what interests you about the school and your own personal qualities or characteristics as opposed to solely discussing one or the other. Here, we want to strive to have the best of both worlds. Be honest and genuine – this is the key. Allowing the reader insight into who you are will give them more information to make a decision about your candidacy for acceptance into medical school. 

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“Why Us” Secondary Essay Example Prompts

Example 1: “Why have you selected the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine for your medical education? Please be as specific as possible.” ( Miami Miller School of Medicine )

Example 2: “Why do you wish to attend Meharry Medical College, School of Medicine?” ( Meharry Medical College )

Example 3: “If you are not a Kansas resident, what is your specific interest in applying to the University of Kansas School of Medicine?” ( KU School of Medicine )

Example 4: “In 500 words or fewer, please explain your reasons for applying to the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine. Please be specific.” ( Jacobs School of Medicine )

Example 5: “Why have you chosen to apply to the Georgetown University School of Medicine and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future? (1 page, formatted at your discretion)” ( Georgetown University School of Medicine )

Example 6: “ How will you contribute to the diversity of your medical school class and the University of Virginia School of Medicine?” (Virginia School of Medicine)

Example 7:  “Why have you chosen to apply to CNUCOM? (250 words maximum)” ( California Northstate University )

Example 8: “Please write a s hort essay about why you are applying to the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. We suggest that you limit your essay to about 550 words.” ( Pritzker School of Medicine )

When I signed up for the trip, I never imagined that I would hold a human heart in my hands. My high school field trip to the Hackensack University Medical Center in 2013 was a unique experience to tour different departments in the hospital and ultimately learn about medicine. After setting foot in one of the best hospitals in the New Jersey / New York Metropolitan area, I knew this one-day visit was not enough, and I longed to continue learning here. Six years later, I found myself without a job after the scribe program was closed at Englewood Health by the end of August 2019. However, it was this initial disappointment that led to me finding my current job at Hackensack University Medical Center and returning to an excellent learning environment. By working as a scribe at Hackensack University Medical Center and rotating in the surgical ICU and surgical step-down unit, I was able to work with and learn from top-ranked physicians such as Dr. Sanjeev Kaul, Dr. Javier Martin Perez, and Dr. Saraswati Dayal. What draws me to the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine is the opportunity to learn at some of the best hospitals serving northern, central, and southern New Jersey and from one of the most diverse populations in the nation. By beginning my medical education through Hackensack Meridian Health, the largest healthcare network of the state, and being exposed to an extraordinary range of patients, disorders, and challenges, I believe I can develop the ability to serve and provide high-quality care to patients from different backgrounds and with a variety of needs.

In addition to the excellent clinical opportunities, I am also interested in the unique curriculum of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. During high school, I developed an interest in preventive health and became more mindful of aspects such as nutrition, posture, sleep hygiene, and physical activity. I want to train to be a physician who can effectively educate others to also take control of their own health. For this reason, I am especially interested in the Human Dimension course. Through building relationships and interacting with families in the community, I will better understand the social, socioeconomic, and environmental determinants of health and ultimately learn how to proactively improve others’ lives.  I am also excited about the special 3+1 curriculum that will enable me to customize my fourth year with many possibilities, including research projects, additional clinical experience, early entry into residencies, community service initiatives, and several dual-degree options. Additionally, the smaller class size will cultivate a close-knit community and enhance my learning experience and training overall. I am fortunate that the school is only a 20-minute drive from home, which would enable me to remain close to my support network and thrive in a familiar environment while attending medical school.

Through this response, the student ties in personal experiences and interests initially within not only Hackensack University but the location. Needless to say, the student does not just include the experience or facts about the school without also making it personal to their journey. The student then progresses to discuss specific elements of the curriculum and class size as well as why it interests them. Therefore, from this response, it is immensely clear why this student is applying to this school specifically as well as what unique aspects interest them about this school.

View more Medical School “Why Us” Examples Here.

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