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When I was 10 years old and seven years into my cheerleading career, I fell doing a front handspring, my first of 17 injuries. Upon telling my parents about the accident, they did not believe anything was wrong and thought I was being dramatic. So I suffered for almost two weeks before receiving medical attention; at which point my wrist was placed in a hard cast for six weeks due to a fractured growth plate.  Once the day came to get my cast taken off, I was excited to be free, but terrified at the sight of the saw. A young woman who worked in the doctor’s office took the saw and ran it across her arm to ensure me it was harmless. Then, she removed my cast and showed me my x-rays. I later found out this woman was a physician assistant. Ever since this visit my life changed forever; I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life helping to heal others.

 

Many more visits with her over the years confirmed my ambitions of wanting to be a PA.  During those visits we not only discussed my various treatment plans, but also details about her profession. After one of my appointments with her, I rushed home, grabbed my laptop and began researching what it meant to be a PA.  I came to realize this was a profession I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I was so happy she was able to introduce me to the idea of having such a meaningful career. This profession will allow me to establish a deeper relationship with my patients, which is very important to me, while also being able to treat their medical conditions.

 

A little over a year and a half ago, I began to work as a patient transporter at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. My job allowed me to see inside of every department including: Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Intensive Care, Surgery, Cardiology, and Pediatrics to name a few.  It was then that I realized I was fascinated and interested in every field of medicine and wanted to be able to explore the many different departments once I become a PA.  While I do have a passion for orthopedics, my health care experiences in other fields including pain management and emergency medicine have also been very appealing to me. I have shadowed PAs in numerous specialties as they practiced medicine, performed procedures, and assisted with surgery all of which assured me that this is the path I want to take.

 

In my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. From what I have seen the PAs seem to spend more time with patients, explaining everything in a way they can understand, comforting them, and ensuring their minds are at ease before leaving the room. Many patients have told me they feel more comfortable being treated by a PA because they are able to form a stronger personal relationship with them. This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patient but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

 

My personality and life experiences have led me to my professional decision of becoming a PA. I intend to approach this new journey the same as all of my past endeavors; I will do everything in my power to achieve my goals. I have experienced numerous personal hardships throughout my life, including my mother walking out on me, the death of my best friend, and my own medical treatment. Once my medical condition was under control I was able to better focus on my studies, as shown by the improvement of my grades seen on my transcript. I learned that everyone faces hardships, the difference is how one deals with those obstacles. I have never let anything stand in the way of reaching the goals I set for myself. Those hardships instead became another source of motivation to keep pushing harder towards my dream. I want to dedicate my life to helping others get through treatment of their various medical ailments while establishing a comforting, yet professional, relationship with them. 

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Hello,

  • You say a lot of general/vague statements about what you like about being a PA that I don’t’ see are backed up with concrete evidence; I pointed out those moments in your essay.
  • Also I know you have health care experience as a scribe, transporter, and PCT but throughout your essay, you only reference your experiences to explain how they’ve helped you learn more about the healthcare field. Even though this is good in providing support for your understanding of different fields of medicine, I think you should expand more on how those experiences have helped primed you to become an excellent healthcare provider. Talk about the skills you’ve learned or any difficult/emotional situations you’ve dealt with during you experience.
  • The content in your conclusion is good, but I don’t think it works well as the conclusion.  You talk about the hardships you have faced and how it will help you fight towards your goal of being a PA, but you never once mentioned hardships throughout the rest of your essay. Also, prompt is basically “Why PA?” and your conclusion doesn’t focus on answering that question.
  • I think you have a good outline to work with, you just need to add more detail and to “show, not tell” I know you said you were submitting soon, so if you don’t have time to change everything, I think what you have so far good enough, but I wouldn’t say it’s a personal statement that stands out or seems actually “personal”.
  • But then again I am also pre-PA and don’t really know what makes or breaks an essay.

 

 

When I was 10 years old and seven years into my cheerleading career, I fell doing a front handspring—my first of 17 injuries. Upon telling my parents about the accident, they did not believe anything was wrong and thought I was being dramatic. So I suffered for almost two weeks before receiving medical attention; at which point my wrist was placed in a hard cast for six weeks due to a fractured growth plate.  Once the day came to get my cast taken off, I was excited to be free, but terrified at the sight of the saw. A young woman who worked in the doctor’s office took the saw and ran it the saw across her arm to ensure assure (Hmm.. I feel like “assure” is a more appropriate word than “ensure” assure = to tell someone everything's ok; ensure = to make certain,) me that it was harmless. Then, she removed my cast and showed me my x-rays. I later found out this woman was a physician assistant (PA). Ever since this visit my life changed forever (I find this a bit dramatic); I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life helping to heal others. (“young age + accident + treated by PA = decision to be a PA” is a VERY cliché story… even if it’s true that you committed yourself to working in medicine as a 10y.o. after an accident, I strongly suggest you change your intro.)  

 

Many more visits with her over the years confirmed my ambitions of wanting to be a PA.  During those visits we not only discussed my various treatment plans, but also details about her profession. After one of my appointments with her, I rushed home, grabbed my laptop and began researching what it meant to be a PA.  I came to realize this was a profession I could see myself doing for the rest of my life (what exactly did you learn about being a PA that made you realize this?). I was so happy that she was able to  introduced me to the idea of having such a meaningful career. This profession Being a PA will allow me to establish a deeper relationship (compared to what?) with my patients, which is very important to me, while also being able to treat their medical conditions.

 

A little over a year and a half ago, I began to work as a patient transporter at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. My job allowed me to see inside a glimpse of every department including: Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Intensive Care, Surgery, Cardiology, and Pediatrics to name a few.  It was then that I realized I was I became fascinated and interested in every field of medicine and wanted to be able to explore the many different departments once I become a PA.  While I do have a passion for orthopedics (What exactly led to your passion in orthopedics?), my health care experiences in other fields including pain management and emergency medicine have also been very appealing to me (what about your experiences in these fields were appealing to you?). I have shadowed PAs in numerous specialties as they practiced medicine, performed procedures, and assisted with surgery all of which assured me that this is the path I want to take.

 

In my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. From what I have seen the PAs seem to spend more time with patients, explaining everything in a way they can understand, comforting them, and ensuring their minds are at ease before leaving the room (I am not sure that stating “PAs spend more time with patients” is an accurate statement, though it seems to be often addressed in personal statements. Personally I would avoid saying that. ). Many patients have told me they feel more comfortable being treated by a PA because they are able to form a stronger personal relationship with them (I would avoid putting this in here; I’ve heard that some PA school staff are MDs, and if they are reading you essays, they might find this offensive). This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patient but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

 

My personality (you never described your personality and how it relates to you wanting to be a PA… do you mean your “interests”? ) and life experiences have led me to my professional decision of becoming a PA. I intend to will approach this new journey the same as all of my past endeavors; I will do everything in my power to achieve my goals. I have experienced numerous personal hardships throughout my life, including my mother walking out on me, the death of my best friend, and my own medical treatment. Once my medical condition was under control I was able to better focus on my studies, as shown by the improvement of my grades seen on my transcript. I learned that everyone faces hardships, the difference is how one deals with those obstacles. I have never let anything stand in the way of reaching the goals I set for myself. Those hardships instead became another source of motivation to keep pushing harder towards my dream. I want to dedicate my life to helping others get through treatment of their various medical ailments while establishing a comforting, yet professional, relationship with them. 

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I appreciate your feedback and have taken a lot of it into consideration. Below is my new version if you'd like to see :)

 

 

When I was 10 years old and seven years into my cheerleading career, I fell doing a front handspring-my first of 17 injuries. Upon telling my parents about the accident, they did not believe anything was wrong and thought I was being dramatic. I suffered for almost two weeks before receiving medical attention; my wrist was placed in a hard cast for six weeks due to a fractured growth plate.  Once the day came to get my cast taken off, I was excited to be free, but terrified at the sight of the saw. A young woman who worked in the doctor’s office ran the saw across her arm to assure me it was harmless. Then, she removed my cast and showed me my x-rays. I later found out this woman was a physician assistant (PA). I had always known I wanted to spend my life helping others, but was unsure in what capacity. However, after this visit to the orthopedist I began to realize my interest in medicine and the level of compassion I received from the PA.  

 

Many more visits with her over the years confirmed my ambitions to be a PA.  During those visits we not only discussed my various treatment plans, but also details about her profession. After one of my appointments with her, I rushed home, grabbed my laptop and began researching what it meant to be a PA.  I came to realize this was a profession I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. It had every aspect I wanted in a career: the ability to practice medicine, help others, and explore different fields. I was so happy she had introduced me to the idea of having such a meaningful career. Being a PA will allow me to establish a deep, personal relationship with my patients, which is very important to me, while also being able to treat their medical conditions.

 

My adolescent years were filled with much more than the typical bad hair days, blemishes, and boy drama. Throughout my childhood I was constantly moving because my parents, who were never married, could not afford to pay our rent- they were always fighting over money. Starting at a very young age I can remember my parents asking me if they were to ever separate who I would want to live with, this was a joke to them. One night the summer before my freshman year of high school I came home from my aunt’s to find that cruel joke had become a harsh reality. My parents were separating, but my mother told me I was not welcome to go with her and walked out of my life. Several months later I lost my 19-year-old cousin to suicide and had to put my childhood dog to sleep. Then the worst hit, my dad was laid off and could no longer afford to pay rent on his own. I had to go live with a friend for my junior and senior year of high school. Early in my senior year a very dear childhood friend passed away in a car accident. After moving away for college I was diagnosed with depression, which at first affected my grades because I did not know how to manage it on my own. Once my medication and treatment was under control my grades improved and I started doing more to pursue my dreams. All of these events devastated me and posed possible obstacles in my path towards my dream. However, I refused to let them stand in my way, I never lost sight of my end goal, instead I used these hardships as motivation. Every trauma I went through was another reason I wanted to become a PA and help others so they would not have to go through these horrible experiences.

 

A little over a year and a half ago, I began to work as a patient transporter at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. My job allowed me to see a glimpse of every department including: Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Intensive Care, Surgery, Cardiology, and Pediatrics.  I became fascinated and interested in every field of medicine and knew I wanted a career that would allow me to explore the many different departments.  While my personal experience with injuries has left me with a passion for orthopedics, my health care experiences in other fields including pain management and emergency medicine have also been very appealing to me. I loved the adrenaline and exhilaration in the Emergency Room and seeing the relief that pain management provides those with chronic medical aliments. I have shadowed PAs in numerous specialties as they practiced medicine, performed procedures, and assisted with surgery all of which assured me that this is the path I want to take. From these experiences, watching abscesses be drained, lacerations be repaired and even surgeries I know I am prepared to be exposed to all the sights and smells one may seen in the medical field.

 

In my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. I have learned first hand that every day in the medical field is an easy one; patients will pass away, be rude, uncooperative, and seem ungrateful. My first experience in a code blue situation hit me hard; I even shed a tear for a complete stranger. Since then I have been in numerous codes without shedding another tear. I have learned it is important to always remind myself we did all that we could for the patient and they are no longer suffering. Just a few weeks ago I had a patient get in my face, screaming, and cursing. This makes for a hard day at work, but I know that everyone has been through different experiences in life affecting their behaviors. While it may not have been easy, I let it go and continued caring for that man just as I would any other patient. For every difficult patient I have come across there has always been at least one who makes all the stress of being a full time student with two part time jobs worthwhile. Last week, I was caring for this elderly woman who kept experiencing set backs in her recovery. I spent a lot of time comforting her and her family to ensure her stay was the best it could be. When she was finally discharged from the hospital she hugged me and told me how much she appreciated all I had done for her during such a hard time. This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patients but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

 

My compassionate personality and life experiences have led me to my decision of becoming a PA. I will approach this new journey the same as all of my past endeavors; I will do everything in my power to achieve my goals. I have never let anything stand in the way of reaching the goals I set for myself. Those hardships instead became another source of motivation to keep pushing harder towards my dream. I want to dedicate my life to helping others get through treatment of their various medical ailments while establishing a comforting, yet professional, relationship with them. 

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n my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. From what I have seen the PAs seem to spend more time with patients,(The interactions I have witnessed are of the PAs spending more time. Or something like that) explaining everything in a way they can understand, comforting them, and ensuring their minds are at ease before leaving the room. Many patients have told me they feel more comfortable being treated by a PA because they are able to form a stronger personal relationship with them. This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patient but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

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Wow you are way over the 5000 character limit! I tried to help you with that by deleting unnecessary words and sentences; condensing things. Not sure if it’s below 5000 with my edits, though. I moved your "hardships" paragraph to be before the conclusion.. And… I made a bunch of other edits and comments, too. I hope I helped. Overall I think you’ve made good improvement with your essay. Good luck!

 

When I was 10 years old and seven years into my cheerleading career, I fell doing a front handspring-my first of 17 injuries. Upon telling my parents about the accident, they did My parents not believe anything was wrong and thought I was being overdramatic about my accident, so I suffered for almost two weeks before receiving medical attention. (period inserted in place of semicolon) My wrist was placed in a hard cast for six weeks due to a fractured growth plate.  Once the day came to get my cast taken off, I was excited to be free, but terrified at the sight of the saw. A young woman who worked in the doctor’s office ran the saw across her arm to assure me it was harmless before Then, she removing my cast and showing me my x-rays. I later found out this woman was a physician assistant (PA). I had always known I wanted to spend my life helping others, but was unsure in what capacity. However, after this visit to the orthopedist I began to realize my interest in medicine and the level of compassion I received from the PA (You realized the level of compassion you received from the PA? Doesn’t make sense).  

 

Many more visits with her over the years confirmed my ambitions to be a PA.  During those visits we not only discussed my various treatment plans, but also details about her profession. After one of my appointments with her, I rushed home, grabbed my laptop and began researching what it meant to be a PA.  I came to realize this was a profession I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. It had every aspect I wanted in a career: the ability to practice medicine, help others, and explore different fields. I was so happy she had introduced me to the idea of having such a meaningful career. Being a PA will allow me to establish a deep, personal relationship with my patients, which is very important to me, while also being able to treat their medical conditions.

 

A little over a year and a half ago, When I began to work as a patient transporter, at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. My job allowed me to see I saw a glimpse of every various department including: Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Intensive Care, Surgery, Cardiology, and Pediatrics.  I became fascinated and interested in every field of medicine that I encountered and knew I wanted a career that would allow me to explore all of them the many different departments.  While my personal experience with injuries has left me with a passion for orthopedics, my health care experiences have sparked my interests in other fields including pain management and emergency medicine have also been very appealing to me. I loved the adrenaline and exhilaration in the Emergency Room and seeing the relief that pain management provides to those with chronic medical aliments. I have Shadowing PAs in numerous specialties as they practiced medicine, performed procedures, and assisted with surgery all of which further assured me that this is the path I want to take. From these experiences, watching abscesses be drained, lacerations be repaired and even surgeries I know I am prepared to be exposed to all the sights and smells one may seen in the medical field.

 

In my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician, I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. I have learned first hand that not every day in the medical field is an easy one. patients will pass away, be rude, uncooperative, and seem ungrateful. My first experience in a code blue situation hit me hard; I even shed a tear for a complete stranger. Since then I have been in numerous codes without shedding another tear. I have learned it is important to When patients pass away, I always remind myself we did all that we could for the patient and they are no longer suffering. Just a few weeks ago I had a patient get in my face, screaming, and cursing. This makes for a hard day at work, but I know that everyone has been through different experiences in life affecting their behaviors. While it may not have been easy, When patients are rude, uncooperative, or seem ungrateful, I let it go and continued caring for them that man just as I would any other patient, knowing that everyone’s behaviors are affected by their unique experience in life. For every difficult patient I have come across there has always been at least one who makes all the stress of being a full-time student with two part-time jobs worthwhile. Last week, I was caring for this an elderly woman who kept experiencing setbacks in her recovery. I spent a lot of time comforted her and her family to ensure her stay was the best it could be. When she was finally discharged from the hospital, she hugged me and told me how much she appreciated all I had done for her during such a hard time. This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patients but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

 

My adolescent years were filled with much more than the typical bad hair days, blemishes, and boy drama. Throughout my childhood I was constantly moving because my parents, who were never married, could not afford to pay our rent- they were always fighting over money. Starting at a very young age I can remember my parents asking me if they were to ever separate who I would want to live with, this was a joke to them. One night the summer before my freshman year of high school I came home from my aunt’s to find that cruel joke had become a harsh reality. My parents were separating, but my mother told me I was not welcome to go with her and walked out of my life. Several months later I lost my 19-year-old cousin to suicide and had to put my childhood dog to sleep. Then the worst hit, my dad was laid off and could no longer afford to pay rent on his own. I had to go live with a friend for my junior and senior year of high school. Early in my senior year a very dear childhood friend passed away in a car accident. After moving away for college I was diagnosed with depression, which at first affected my grades because I did not know how to manage it on my own. Once my medication and treatment was under control my grades improved and I started doing more to pursue my dreams. (WOW you throw everything at us at once.  I know in my last feedback I mentioned how your introduction of this topic within the conclusion was a bad idea, but clumping it all together in one sudden paragraph still doesn’t work. I suggest you take out the topic completely, as it doesn’t flow well with the rest of your essay. If there is a supplemental/secondary question about diversity or experiencing hardships, you should definitely talk about how these experiences have helped you become a person able to handle difficult situations. However, the way it is now doesn’t flow with the rest of your essay at all. If you really want to include this topic, I strongly suggest you condense it to something like this:

 

I never lost sight of my goal to become a PA despite facing many adversities throughout highschool and college. My mother walked out of my life after my parents divorced, my dad lost his job and could no longer afford our rent, close friends and family members suffered unexpected deaths, and I was diagnosed with depression. All of these events devastated me and posed possible obstacles in my path towards my dream. My grades suffered, but once I controlled my depression with medication, I was able to maintain an upwards trend on my transcript. However, I refused to let them any hardships stand in my way, I never lost sight of my end goal, instead I used these hardships them as motivation. Every trauma I went through was another reason I wanted to become a PA and help others so they would not have to go through these horrible experiences. (You want to be a PA so that others would not have go through the horrible experience of divorced parents, suicides, depression, and losing their jobs? That doesn’t make sense how you can help people with those situations as a PA, except maybe depression.)

 

My compassionate personality and life experiences have led me to my decision of becoming a PA. I will approach this new journey the same as all of my past endeavors; I will do everything in my power to achieve my goals. I have never let anything stand in the way of reaching the goals I set for myself. Those hardships instead became another source of motivation to keep pushing harder towards my dream. I want to dedicate my life to helping others get through treatment of their various medical ailments while establishing a comforting, yet professional, relationship with them. 

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I agree with Toasty to just get rid of hardships. If you are still over characters I suggest getting rid of this paragraph as well. It's not also not necessary.

 

In my experience as a medical scribe and patient care technician, I have seen countless interactions between patients and doctors or PAs. I have learned first hand that not every day in the medical field is an easy one. patients will pass away, be rude, uncooperative, and seem ungrateful. My first experience in a code blue situation hit me hard; I even shed a tear for a complete stranger. Since then I have been in numerous codes without shedding another tear. I have learned it is important to When patients pass away, I always remind myself we did all that we could for the patient and they are no longer suffering. Just a few weeks ago I had a patient get in my face, screaming, and cursing. This makes for a hard day at work, but I know that everyone has been through different experiences in life affecting their behaviors. While it may not have been easyWhen patients are rude, uncooperative, or seem ungrateful, I let it go and continued caring for them that man just as I would any other patient, knowing that everyone’s behaviors are affected by their unique experience in life. For every difficult patient I have come across there has always been at least one who makes all the stress of being a full-time student with two part-time jobs worthwhile. Last week, I was caring for this an elderly woman who kept experiencing setbacks in her recovery. I spent a lot of time comforted her and her family to ensure her stay was the best it could be. When she wasfinally discharged from the hospital, she hugged me and told me how much she appreciated all I had done for her during such a hard time. This is the way in which I wish to practice medicine; I want to help treat the patients but also ensure their comfort throughout the intimidating process.

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