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Very very rough draft. Any advice appreciated.


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Again, this is a very very rough draft. Just wanted to see if I was on the right path and if anyone has opinions. Thanks so much!!

 

I asked my 7 year old nephew if he had a girlfriend at school. He looked at me, with this serious look on his face and said “No! I don’t need a girlfriend. I have grandma and she is my best friend!”. I couldn’t help but laugh and think about my relationship I had with my grandmother. Growing up I would spend countless hours with my grandmother, and as with my nephew and my mother, she was my best friend. My grandmother had been in and out of the hospital throughout the years, as she had been diagnosed with emphysema, most likely caused by her years of tobacco use. I remember asking my mother every time my grandmother was in the hospital, when my grandmother would be coming home.  As a child I did not understand the seriousness of her condition.

As years went by, my grandmother’s conditioned worsened. She was unable to care for herself.  Soon, my grandmother needed a home health aide to care for her. The home health aide’s name is Annie. Annie by far exceeded our expectations of a caregiver for my grandmother. This position of taking care of my grandmother was clearly much more to Annie than just a job.  She was extremely caring, patient, empathetic, and trustworthy. I believe she had increased the quality of my grandmother’s life in her last years, not only by taking care of her physically but also taking care of her by emotionally comforting her.

After seeing what one person can do to change another person’s life so drastically, I had the ambition to do the same.  I was indecisive on which direction in the medical profession I wanted to pursue, so I began college as a Liberals Arts and Sciences major.  While attending school and working 2 full time jobs seemed exhausting at times, I knew I had to keep going. Unfortunately, during this period of time while trying to balance everyday life and school, I did not excel academically; as I know I could and should have. I feel that this was also caused by my lack in an exact career goal, which caused me not to push myself to exceed past the minimum requirements.

As the saying goes, “Everything happens for a reason”, so happens my career path to becoming a Physician Assistant.  While going to my primary care physician’s office for my annual physical, I had got into an in depth conversation with my “Doctor” whom I had been going to for years.  Turns out after all these years of thinking she was a Doctor, she was actually a Physician Assistant.  I had picked her brain about the profession and what she actually did. After I had left my appointment, I had gone straight home and researched everything I could about Physician Assistants.  After taking in all this information, I decided that a career as a PA was for me.

After researching the requirements I needed to take to become a PA, I took my first steps by getting direct patient care hours as a medical assistant. After trying many outlets to get these hours I was offered a volunteer position as a medical assistant in the Bronx. Since I did not have prior experience in this area, I was trained for this position by the staff.  Not only was this a great experience for me to work directly with patients, but it also allowed me to get a different view of working with patients that come from under privileged homes.  It gave me great feelings of fulfillment being able to help these patients and give them comfort when need be.

Working as a medical assistant, I now understand how important it is to work as a team with other medical professional to provide top care for our patients. This was also shown to me while shadowing a PA.  I shadowed Marissa, a PA at the family practice I was volunteering at. As I observed Marissa, I noticed her confident yet humble nature.  Not only was she incredibly proficient in clinical problem solving, she was never insecure about asking for a second opinion from her colleagues. This is a perfect example of the different between a PA and a Medical Doctor. PAs work better within a team setting, while doctors are said to work better alone.

In addition to obtaining direct patient care hours while being a medical assistant, I have also obtained a job as a physical therapy aide. While being an aide, I have been able to work with patients who have had previous surgeries and/or are recovering from an injury. Many of these patients have a difficult time doing exercises prescribed to them by the physical therapists because of the pain they are in while doing them. I love to help these patients persevere through these difficult times. When they come back after weeks of physical therapy, boasting about how much better they feel, it proves that the effort becomes well worth the reward I feel for being able to help them.  I have learned to work through those challenging situations in order to provide quality patient care.

After becoming a PA had solidified to me as what my future goal was, my grades have improved tenfold. I have always had the ability to succeed academically, I just needed to find my goal that I was striving for to push me to be the best that I could be. I have always embraced a challenge, for life would be boring without a constant need to adapt and think swiftly and effectively. I have learned a great deal about myself on this journey and know that my need to better those around me pose many challenges to which I embrace.  So my desire to attend your PA program means much more to me than pursuing a career as a healthcare professional, but an inherent need to help and change those around me and to lead altruistic lifestyle.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's not awful, but I'm going to be blunt.  Reading only this and knowing nothing else about you, it comes across as someone who has sort of skated by in life, not motivated to excel.  Then, you found out about the PA career and thought, "hey, it's a decent job and it's easier than med school!"  Whether that's true or not isn't really relevant as that's how it reads to me.  If you worked as both a MA and PT aide, you have some good experience.  Build off that and tell me more about YOU.  What did you learn in these positions that would make a good fit for the PA field?  What qualities that you possess did you hone there?  

 

Also, you can't tell us you didn't do well in the 3rd paragraph because you didn't have an exact goal, then end your paper with how much you always embrace challenges.  

 

Lastly, the first two paragraphs of your paper are about other people, not you.  If you really need to use that as an intro, find a way to condense it.

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Again, this is a very very rough draft. Just wanted to see if I was on the right path and if anyone has opinions. Thanks so much!!

 

I asked my 7 year old nephew if he had a girlfriend at school. He looked at me, with this serious look on his face and said “No! I don’t need a girlfriend. I have grandma and she is my best friend!”. I couldn’t help but laugh and think about my relationship I had with my grandmother. Growing up I would spend countless hours with my grandmother, and as with my nephew and my mother, she was my best friend. My grandmother had been in and out of the hospital throughout the years, as she had been diagnosed with emphysema, most likely caused by her years of tobacco use. I remember asking my mother every time my grandmother was in the hospital, when my grandmother would be coming home.  As a child I did not understand the seriousness of her condition.

As years went by, my grandmother’s conditioned worsened. She was unable to care for herself.  Soon, my grandmother needed a home health aide to care for her. The home health aide’s name is Annie. Annie by far exceeded our expectations of a caregiver for my grandmother. This position of taking care of my grandmother was clearly much more to Annie than just a job.  She was extremely caring, patient, empathetic, and trustworthy. I believe she had increased the quality of my grandmother’s life in her last years, not only by taking care of her physically but also taking care of her by emotionally comforting her.

After seeing what one person can do to change another person’s life so drastically, I had the ambition to do the same.  I was indecisive on which direction in the medical profession I wanted to pursue, so I began college as a Liberals Arts and Sciences major.  While attending school and working 2 full time jobs seemed exhausting at times, I knew I had to keep going. Unfortunately, during this period of time while trying to balance everyday life and school, I did not excel academically; as I know I could and should have. I feel that this was also caused by my lack in an exact career goal, which caused me not to push myself to exceed past the minimum requirements.

As the saying goes, “Everything happens for a reason”, so happens my career path to becoming a Physician Assistant (I would remove this).  While going to my primary care physician’s office for my annual physical, I had got into an in depth conversation with my “Doctor” whom I had been going to for years.  Turns out after all these years of thinking she was a Doctor, she was actually a Physician Assistant.  I had picked her brain about the profession and what she actually did. After I had left my appointment, I had gone straight home and researched everything I could about Physician Assistants.  After taking in all this information, I decided that a career as a PA was for me.

After researching the requirements I needed to take to become a PA, I took my first steps by getting direct patient care hours as a medical assistant. After trying many outlets to get these hours I was offered a volunteer position as a medical assistant in the Bronx. Since I did not have prior experience in this area, I was trained for this position by the staff.  Not only was this a great experience for me to work directly with patients, but it also allowed me to get a different view of working with patients that come from under privileged homes.  It gave me great feelings of fulfillment being able to help these patients and give them comfort when need be.

Working as a medical assistant, I now understand how important it is to work as a team with other medical professional to provide top care (I would say best care istead of top care) for our patients. This was also shown to me while shadowing a PA. (I would re-word) this) I shadowed Marissa, a PA at the family practice I was volunteering at. As I observed Marissa, I noticed her confident yet humble nature.  Not only was she incredibly proficient in clinical problem solving, she was never insecure about asking for a second opinion from her colleagues. This is a perfect example of the different between a PA and a Medical Doctor. PAs work better within a team setting, while doctors are said to work better alone. (I would re-word this to avoid suggesting that MD do not work better as a team brcause they do)

In addition to obtaining direct patient care hours while being a medical assistant, I have also obtained a job as a physical therapy aide. While being an aide, I have been able to work with patients who have had previous surgeries and/or are recovering from an injury. Many of these patients have a difficult time doing exercises prescribed to them by the physical therapists because of the pain they are in while doing them. I love to help these patients persevere through these difficult times. When they come back after weeks of physical therapy, boasting about how much better they feel, it proves that the effort becomes well worth the reward I feel for being able to help them.  I have learned to work through those challenging situations in order to provide quality patient care.

After becoming a PA had solidified to me as what my future goal was, my grades have improved tenfold. I have always had the ability to succeed academically, I just needed to find my goal that I was striving for to push me to be the best that I could be. I have always embraced a challenge, for life would be boring without a constant need to adapt and think swiftly and effectively  I have learned a great deal about myself on this journey and know that my need to better those around me pose many challenges to which I embrace.  So my desire to attend your PA program means much more to me than pursuing a career as a healthcare professional, but an inherent need to help and change those around me and to lead altruistic lifestyle. ( I would re-word this to summerize that your abilities and attributes and health care experience has prepared you for the challeging yet fulfiling career ).

 

I like it but I agree with l.a. lewis about the first too paragraphs. I put some comment/suggestions in red. Best of  luck.

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This is a perfect example of the different (difference*) between a PA and a Medical Doctor. PAs work better within a team setting, while doctors are said to work better alone. (I would re-word this to avoid suggesting that MD do not work better as a team brcause they do)

I agree with realtreky...get rid of this. Understand that you will be working in collaboration with a physician, and a statement like that is sort of saying "do not hire me, a PA, because you work better alone as a MD."

 

Try to show some positives as why PA and not MD without claiming superiority over another profession. You have to dig deeper for that special reason :)

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