Draft of Personal statement- looking for comments

[akfiddlegirl]

     The radio tones sounded for a three-wheeler accident with injuries a half mile from my home.  I grabbed my responder bag and radio and raced out the door.  As I approached the scene I recognized a vehicle and bystander.  A friend’s teenage son, on the ground, holding his brothers’ head, looking at his face, watching his chest rise as he told me what happened-  “I saw him crash!  The bike flipped and Levi went flying and landed funny.  I stopped and he was not breathing!  I moved his head a little and got him breathing again!  Hurry!”  The ambulance is 30 miles away.  As Roman held his brother’s head I did a quick survey for injuries.  He is lucky- only neck pain and a possible head injury.  As other responders came with equipment, I moved to take his head. I directed the others in my team to work together to package our patient.  I had to maintain his airway, keep his spine from moving and let him know we were there.  I held his head all the way to the hospital.  Every bump of the ambulance on the rural road had me hoping he was stable enough.  Levi survived a “hangman’s” fracture of the cervical vertebra.  His spinal cord was intact and it was awesome to see him come home from the hospital many weeks later- in a halo but walking.  He would be all right.  I watched him grow up into a fine young man. 

     As a young, working parent with a terminally ill spouse, I had not been serious in my studies.  My early college GPA reflects that.  I worked for many years volunteering in Emergency Medical Services and inpatient hospital care seeing a variety of trauma and medical patients.  The hardest thing I have ever done is holding my husband in my arms as he died.  After his death, I took a break from medicine.  I did not realize how much I missed it until a drunk driver hit a young family in front of my house on a winter day.  While caring for 3 patients in the winter cold I knew I had to go back to medicine!

      The first PA I worked closely with was Natalia.  An older Alaska Native, she was the fishing season PA in one of the villages I go to work in the summer.  In 3 weeks we see at least 300 patients together in the tiny clinic.  Normal in the off season in this clinic is 15 per week. From minor injuries, to life threatening accidents and illnesses, medivacs and non-English speaking patients- we see it all.  We have no X-ray and minimal lab tests we can perform but we have a well-stocked pharmacy and plenty of sutures!  We learned to work together as a team in the short “sprint” of fishing season every year.  When needed we would consult the Dr. in Dillingham via telephone or Telemedicine cart.  As fishing slowed down there was time to review cases and she taught me more about a particular injury or illness.  One day we had a patient that was a mental health risk who had torn up the clinic the year before.  Since there was no local law enforcement we called in our husbands to be our back-up in the office.  Safety is always our first priority.

     I am passionate about well-woman care and maternal-child health. In the 30 village clinics in Bristol Bay there are over 23,000 visits by Community Health Aides and Practitioners (CHA/P) every year.  The CHA/P is the person on the care team that is usually closest to the patient.  We work closely with the assigned village Dr. or PA, case manager, pharmacist and others to make sure we provide the best possible care for our patients. 

      It can be as much as 9 months between Dr. Visits to the villages and it is very expensive to fly to Dillingham to the hospital for care.  As a result, many women are not current with well-woman exams, pre-pregnancy care is limited and prenatal care for non-native residents is expensive.  The young teachers that come to the villages often have to travel by air many miles to the nearest facility that can bill their insurance.  Even though many CHA/P’s provide care nearly to the PA level they are not billable for most insurance companies so non-beneficiary patients have to pay out of pocket.

     I also look forward to volunteering with a medical mission group to work with traditional midwives and to train midwives. Over 60 million women give birth at home with no skilled birth attendant.  Thousands of women and children die every year many of these deaths could be prevented with better care and sharing of knowledge and skills.

     I have been the primary health care provider for my village of over 75 people for over 6 years.  While I have served the people of Pilot Point, I finished my Certificate and Associate Degree and Community Health.  Since my first interview for PA school I have finished 3 additional science courses and adopted an 8 year old son.

       Through my years of training I have discovered I am a didactic learner.  The PA training program fits me well.  After moving to a rural village and starting this new adventure in health care, I have not looked back- rather I am looking forward to an awesome future as a Physician Assistant in Rural Alaska!

[nguim21]

Make sure you are using correct tenses...did vs. do, saw vs. see...etc.

What was it about your husband's death was so hard (seeing the future slip away, watching him suffer, thinking about how you'd move forward?

"while caring for 3 patients...." what about that made you "know you had to go back to medicine"? 

It's good, but needs some tidying-up, as well as some grammatical corrections! 

Nice work!

[waky02]

kinda disjointed

good work on realizing that the committee wants to read a story/narrative

but there is no flow and it has a incoherent quality

 

I would suggest mapping a essay skeleton, and reformulating what you have

[akfiddlegirl]

Thanks for your input.  After reflection and recent events I may change my essay quite a bit.  Thank so much for your comments!  Rough drafts always need work!