Lesson One: Medical School Essay Question Help

What "They" Look For?   The Why Doctor? Theme   The Why Exceptional? Theme   The Why Qualified? Theme     Editing Checklist

WhyQualified?

Theme 3: Why I Am a Qualified Person

The last major theme dealswith your experience and qualifications both for attending medical school andfor becoming a good doctor. Having direct hospital or research experience isalways the best evidence you can give. If you have none, then consider whatother experience you have that is related. Have you been a volunteer? Have you tutored English as a Second Language? Were you a teaching assistant? The rule tofollow here is: If you have done it, use it.

Hospital/ClinicalExperience

Direct experience withpatients is probably the best kind to have in your essay. But the importantthing to remember here is that any type or amount of experience you have hadshould be mentioned, no matter how insignificant you feel it is. Here is an exampleof an essay by an HIV counselor and one by an applicantwith ER experience.

Research Experience

A word of caution: Do notfocus solely on your research topic; your essay will become impersonal at bestand positively dull at worst. Watch out for overuse of what non-science typesrefer to as "medical garble." If it is necessary for the descriptionof your project, then, of course, you have no choice. But including medicalterms in your essay just because you are able to will not impress anyone. Thisapplicant, for example, delves into the use of scientific and medicalterms, but also also spends enough time away from them to reveal his ownpersonal, non-technical voice.

Unusual MedicalExperience

Even if you have notvolunteered X number of hours a week at a clinic or spent a term on a researchproject, you might still have medical experience that counts: the time you caredfor your sick grandmother or the day you saved the man at the next table fromchoking in a restaurant. It does not even matter if you were unsuccessful(maybe, despite all your valiant efforts, the man at the next table did notsurvive), if it was meaningful to you then it is relevant; in fact, these failedefforts might be even more compelling. Thisapplicant, on the other hand, deals with a fascinating success story:The writer was forced to become a doctor by default in a village in Honduras fora summer, even though she had no formal training, no experience, and her onlysupply was "a $15 Johnson & Johnson kit."

Non-medical Experience

Your experience does noteven have to be medically related to be relevant. Many successful applicantscite non-medical volunteer experience as evidence of their willingness to helpand heal the human race. In fact, almost every one of our essayists cited havingbeen either a volunteer or a tutor at some point in their lives.

SampleEssay One

Note: This essayappears unedited for instructional purposes. Essays edited by EssayEdge aresubstantially improved. For samples of EssayEdge editing, please clickhere.

High School Teacher with AIDS;SCID/Genetics Research Experience; HIV Counselor

Before I found out that my highschool Spanish teacher was HIV-positive, AIDS was not much more than a bunch ofstatistics to me. The disease, its course, and the people afflicted with itseemed alien to my life-as distant as the continent from which the virus wassupposed to have sprung. Then Mr. T. stopped coming to school. When hereappeared a few months later to wish us well on the advanced placement exam,his face looked sallow. His voice, once a thunderous bass that rumbled in classand reverberated down the hallway, was weak and thin. Seeing my teacher lookingso unfamiliar was my shocking introduction to AIDS. I felt as if I were in thepresence of a stranger, this mysterious disease, who was insulting Mr. T. rightin front of my eyes. I wanted to know who this stranger was.

I entered college, believing thatbiology could explain to me why life's processes went awry. I learned that thebody is exquisitely complex, but I was reassured by the underlying theme ofsystems. Even if I didn't know all the molecules and connections, there seemedno denying that a fundamental order existed.

From physiology to cell biology tomolecular genetics, my classes presented smaller and smaller systems to explainthe origins of diseases. Finally, in genes, with their innocuous four letteralphabet, I felt I was learning the foundation of it all. If biology providedthe keys to understanding life, then genetics must be the master key (if only wecould see some of the doors we were trying to open). During two summers in aresearch laboratory at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, I helped trackdown the gene causing X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).

Even though AIDS and SCID are verydifferent diseases (SCID is exclusively hereditary), each compromises the body'sdefense mechanisms against foreign pathogens. I felt this was a significantconnection. In SCID, I was meeting a distant cousin of AIDS. Learning aboutcommon themes of immunodeficiency disorders, such as the perils of opportunisticinfections, helped me to begin to understand what had happened to Mr. T. In theSCID laboratory, and in classroom seminars on infectious diseases, science washelping me demystify disease.

In the same year that Mr. T. becameill, my grandfather died during bypass surgery and my father underwentchemotherapy and radiation treatment for colon cancer. Since then, disease hashad a human face for me. To better understand how people deal with disease orthe fear of disease, I've become a volunteer counselor in an HIV clinic.

Speaking to people who come in forfree testing, I've found that discussing HIV, getting the scary words (andacronyms) out in the open, is a way for many people to release their anxiety.Through expression in their own words, they make the disease real, which helpsthem to see that it is also preventable. Then, they often take the next step,making specific goals to maintain their health, whether they are HIV-negative orpositive. What science in class and lab did for me in confronting the difficultissues of AIDS, talk does for my clients.

As an HIV counselor in an anonymousclinic, I feel both the potential of my role and its limits. I can't go homewith my clients to remind them to keep condoms under the bed, but I can helpthem make a plan-something that could stay with them much longer than theinformation I offer. At the end of one session, one client surprised me with hisresponse to a question I had asked: "What do you think you'll do with theHIV information?" There was a silence in the counseling room as the clientpondered, but I recall sensing the comfort of the silence. This was a sessionthat seemed to be producing the potential for a breakthrough (not every sessiondoes), and I waited patiently. He responded, "I think I'll ask mygirlfriend to use her own needles." Then, the client thanked me for havingasked the question.

I was thrown. My client proposed astrategy for reducing his HIV risk, but he didn't address what was likely hismain issue-heroin use. Should I validate his plan? In effect, that's what I did,because I didn't challenge the drug issue. When he left the clinic, Ipractically wanted to follow him out the door. I wondered if I would ever seehim again and be able to ask him how his plan was going. I wondered if he wouldultimately seek help for his drug use. My supervisor reminded me that I had donemy job as an HIV counselor. I had helped the client make a plan; he had eventhanked me for it.

And I can thank him in return. Hereminded me that although I have worked to understand disease in the classroom,the laboratory, and the clinic, I still have much to learn about caring for allaspects of a patient's health. I am eager to continue the learning process inthe New Pathway Program at Harvard Medical School.

SampleEssay Two

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Radiation OncologyVolunteer; Biochemical Lab Experience; Neurosurgery Research; ER Volunteer;English Language Tutor; Student Advisor; Community Service

"Carl, the womanwe're about to meet will receive her first palliative treatment today,"said Dr. A., an Attending in Radiation Oncology. He continued to explain hercase as we walked briskly down the hallways of the hospital. I followed him intothe radiation treatment room to meet the patient and learn about the procedurewhich, sadly, would not eradicate her disease. Since then, I have met with himweekly throughout this summer to learn about radiation oncology and medicine ingeneral. Through experiences such as these, I have learned much about theprofession of medicine. I want to become a physician for the intellectualchallenges and rewards that come from helping others.

I first became interestedin medical research by working in a biochemical engineering laboratory at MIT.For over two years I explored the medically related field, biotechnology. I haveled experiments involving fermentation bioreactors and trained two inexperiencedundergraduates. Recently, I presented a poster entitled "Effect of Antifoamduring Filtration of Recombinant Bacterial Broth" at a New England Societyfor Industrial Microbiology colloquium. Enjoying the biomedical rather thanengineering aspects of the work, I have shifted my career interests to medicine.

Last summer, I expanded myinterest in medicine by working for the Neurosurgery Department at Brigham andWomen's Hospital. After a short training period, I worked independently on threeresearch projects: Clonality analysis of schwannomas, clonality analysis of amultiple meningioma, and the loss of heterozygosity (LOH) screening of pituitaryadenomas. I developed a strong interest in my work when I observed my mentor,Dr. Peter Black, remove brain tumors in the operating room. After the initialshock and amazement of seeing the exposed brain of a conscious patient, Ithought more about the connections between this clinical work and my research.While my projects' objective was to gain a better understanding of tumors, theultimate goal is to prevent and cure tumors to save human lives-the very peoplewhom I had seen on the operating table! With this thought in mind, I found themotivation to complete the short-term objectives of my projects. I will be thesecond author of a paper, entitled "Clonality Analysis of Schwannomas,"which will be submitted to Neurosurgery.

This summer, as aparticipant in NYU Medical Center's Summer Undergraduate Research Program (S.U.R.P.),I am learning even more about research and clinical medicine. In my work, I amdetermining the effect of the absence of the N-ras protooncogene on inducedtumorigenesis. By conducting molecular oncology research for another summer, Ihave greatly expanded my knowledge and interest in the field. In addition,through my experiences in the Radiation Oncology Department with Dr. S., Iclearly see the greater purpose of medical research beyond personal intellectualgratification. In the case of cancer and many other diseases, research is theonly way to overcome the limitations of current clinical treatments.

I believe that one of thegreatest joys and privileges of physicians are their abilities to directly aidand affect a community. While becoming interested in the science of medicinethrough research, I have explored human service to understand the art ofmedicine. When I volunteered in the Emergency Room of New England Medical Centerduring my sophomore year, many physicians impressed me with their sensitivityand compassion. When not assisting the hospital staff, I took every opportunityto comfort patients who felt scared and vulnerable. During that same year, Ialso tutored a middle-aged woman in English as a Second Language. It waschallenging to teach her vocabulary and sentence structure since, initially,simple communication with her had been difficult. Helping her pass the highschool equivalency exam made all of my efforts worthwhile. In addition, I havebeen an Associate Advisor for freshmen for the past two years. In this role, Ihave helped first year students adjust to college life. Not only have I playedthe role of academic mentor, but I have also become an intimate friend andpersonal tutor to my advisees. For my efforts, I won the annual OutstandingAssociate Advisor Award.

Besides individualvolunteering, I have taken the initiative to help the local community on agreater scale. As Community Service Chair for the Chinese Student's Club for thepast two years, I established a new program to promote the interaction betweenMIT students and underprivileged teenagers. College students and childrenaffiliated with a local community organization, Boston Asian: Youth EssentialService, have become acquainted through regular activities. Through events suchas a scavenger hunt and a hands-on introduction to the World Wide Web, MITvolunteers help teenagers learn about the opportunities available at college.Along with several other undergraduates, I have become further acquainted withthe teens through individual tutoring. To establish this new service program, Ihave done intensive planning and budget management. I have refined rough,creative ideas into organized activities involving over twenty people. Duringthe planning stages, I have worked closely with professional youth counselors,other MIT participants, and the teens. While my involvement in this program hasbeen very demanding at times, seeing these teens learn and develop theirinterests has definitely made it worthwhile.

During college I havelearned many things outside of lecture halls and libraries. In research labs, Ihave refined my intellectual curiosity and scientific thought processes. In thelocal community, I have developed my interpersonal skills and a greaterunderstanding of others. Through it all, I have learned to treasure the simplepleasures of helping others. By becoming a physician, I will continue to developand apply these personal attributes.

SampleEssay Three

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Survivor of Anorexia;Emergency Medical Technician Training; Clinic Experience; Medical Volunteer inHonduras; HIV Test Counselor

I decided that I wanted tobe a doctor sometime after my four month incarceration in Columbia PresbyterianChildren's Hospital in the winter of 1986-87, as I struggled with anorexianervosa. Through the maturation process that marked my recovery, I slowly cameto realize that my pediatrician had saved my life-despite my valiant efforts tothe contrary. Out of our individual stubborn wills was born a kind of mutualrespect, and he is one of the people who make up my small collection of heroes.

I admire doctors whounderstand both what is said and what is held back, who move comfortably aroundthe world of the body, and who treat all patients with respect. I am luckybecause a few of them have become my impromptu teachers, taking a little extratime to instruct me in anatomy, disease or courtesy. During my Emergency MedicalTechnician training, one of the emergency room doctors took me to radiology topoint out the shadow of a fracture in a CT-scan and trusted me to hold a littlegirl's lip while he inserted sutures. The physicians in the Hospital 12 deOctubre in Madrid, Spain taught me to hear lung sounds and to feel an enlargedliver and spleen. They explained the social and medical difficulties associatedwith the management of pediatric AIDS until I understood the Spanish well enoughto begin asking questions; then they answered them.

I work now in the MayfieldCommunity Clinic, which provides primary care to members of the Spanish-speakingcommunity near Stanford University. My job as a patient advocate involves takinghistories, performing simple procedures and providing family planning and HIVcounseling. I try to use the knowledge I have gained from class and practice toformulate the right set of questions to ask each patient, but I am constantlyreminded of how much I have to learn. I look at a baby and notice its cute,pudgy toes. Dr. V. plays with it while conversing with its mother, and in lessthan a minute has noted its responsiveness, strength, and attachment to itsparent, and checked its reflexes, color and hydration. Gingerly, I search forthe tympanic membrane in the ears of a cooperative child and touch an infant'swarm, soft belly, willing my hands to have a measure of Dr. V.'s competence.

I first felt the need tobe competent regarding the human body when I volunteered with the Amigos de LasAmericas program in the town of T. in Lempira, Honduras. The hospital availableto the people of T. (at a day's ride in the bed of a truck) was "where onewent to die," so my partner and I, with our basic first aid certificationsand our $15 Johnson & Johnson kits, quickly became makeshift"doctors". The responsibility initially created a heady feeling; adistressed mother called on us to bandage the toe her eight-year-old son hadaccidentally sliced to the bone with his machete. I told him the story of Beautyand the Beast in broken Spanish while my partner and I soaked the dirt from histoe, and during the following week we watched him heal.

Then our foster-mother,who normally tended to the sick, told my partner and me to "check on thefoot" of D. The gentle-eyed, sixty-five year old man lay on his bed, hisleg encased in bloody bandages from mid-calf to toe. After performing surgery,the hospital had given him a bottle of injectable antibiotics and some cleanneedles and sent him home without bandages or further instructions. My partnerand I had not been trained to handle so serious a situation. We did not knowwhat had happened; we did not know what the antibiotics were (or if they wereactually antibiotics); we did not know if handling D.'s blood put us at risk fordisease. We wanted to leave, but leaving the house meant leaving D. andbetraying our foster-mother's trust. So we injected the antibiotics and cleanedand bandaged the wound every day for our remaining two weeks in Hondurasalthough we felt ill-equipped for the responsibility, crippled by our ignoranceand lack of supplies.

In T., I did not feelqualified to receive the trust the townspeople gave so willingly. As anHIV-antibody test counselor in California, I struggle everyday to win myclients' confidence. Somehow a twenty-one-year-old, Caucasian female must besincere, knowledgeable and open enough to earn the respect of afifty-five-year-old man who could be her father, a high school sophomore, anex-drug addict, and a pregnant Latina woman. My clients are black, white,straight, gay, Ph.D. candidates and illiterate; some choose to come to me whileothers have court-orders. Yet to communicate effectively, each client must haveenough confidence in me to engage in dialogue about his drug or sex life and tobelieve what I tell him, whether or not he chooses to act on our discussion.

Speaking with patients,doctors and community members has opened my eyes to some of the difficultiesinvolved with healthcare provision, and I hope I have given some inspiration orcomfort in exchange for the knowledge I have received. I want these lessons inopenness and compassion to shape my understanding of medicine and allow me tobecome the type of doctor I admire.

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Move on to Lesson Two: Brainstorming a Topic