Elephant<3R Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 Every personal encounter I have had reveals that everyone has a story to tell and wants it to be heard. I believe an important part of medicine is being both a good listener as well as a good teacher. As in any customer service job - whether in fast food, retail, or education - the employee will gain valuable insight and experience through the interactions with their customers or students. My motivation for becoming a physician assistant is to help people obtain optimum health while also providing more of a personal touch. The minimum work experience requirement of at least 1000 hours for a physician assistant applicant is one not shared by applicants to the prospective medical, dental, and nursing programs. Before starting my training, I thought this was excessive. Now I believe it may be inadequate- I've realized how essential this prerequisite should be to anyone seeking professional training. The physician assistant student begins with a foundation important to the field: exposure to clinical practice, contact with different types of patients' personalities, and working on a team with other medical and support professionals. I look forward to enhancing these skills and adding to these experiences. In preparation for the physician assistant program, I have obtained over 5700 hours of direct hands-on medical field experience and patient contact. During this time, I have had first-hand experiences with an ornery elderly gentleman, a grieving widow, and a drug addict seeking a way out of her destructive habit. And I can say without a doubt that I know what I am getting myself into. I have dealt gently but firmly with the belligerent person yelling in the waiting room, and have offered hope to a young man who recently lost his job. My one-on-one encounters have tempered the glamour of medicine with the reality that life is hard for some people. Fixing every problem in a person's life is unrealistic, but empowering and offering hope is not. Having grown up in a physician's home, I understand the commitment and dedication this profession requires; and my time spent working in this field has reinforced this. I am prepared and determined to fulfill the commitment of becoming a physician assistant, in order to work in a field I am passionate about and truly enjoy. Although I am choosing this as my career, I see my work as a way to help others to live life to the fullest by teaching them how to obtain and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I would appreciate feed back and advice on whether I should just use this one (as a reapplying applicant) or write a new one!!! Thank you!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beorp Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 I would suggest that you try for a new one. The two main things that jump out at me about this are: "My motivation for becoming a physician assistant is to help people obtain optimum health while also providing more of a personal touch." A more personal touch? Is this because you expect to have more time with your patients as a PA? This is what it seems to say and that is not a realistic view of the profession. "In preparation for the physician assistant program, I have obtained over 5700 hours of direct hands-on medical field experience and patient contact." What did you actually do? Since you don't list a health profession, it seems like you were a CNA or the like. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, but I would hope that many people applying would have at least a few years of experience as a paramedic, RT, RN, or that kind of thing so it may look bad if you are trying to play up a few years where you may have been in a patient care role but not in a health profession. That's just my opinion. Best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elephant<3R Posted June 8, 2011 Author Share Posted June 8, 2011 Thanks guys! I am actually astonished that PAMAC thought my writing was "preachy." I have never been told that before. My focus was to write something that was generic yet focused not on myself but my thoughts of the PA profession, but I guess that didn't come across. Beorp...good points, thank you! I was trained on the job as a MA. I know I want to be a PA so I don't want to spend more years going to school to be a RN or even a paramedic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Steve Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 My focus was to write something that was generic yet focused not on myself but my thoughts of the PA profession. Well.....this is a personal statement, right? Should it not be written about you? I think it's fair for the Adcom to believe you think highly of the PA profession. Otherwise, why would you go through all the work of applying to PA school, not once, but twice? Perhaps you can make the passage less passive by showing the readers what your motivation has led you to accomplish. A full time job of 40 hours a week puts a person working just a touch over 2000 hours a year. You are citing that you have almost three times that amount. Seeing how this is your second time of applying, I am going out on a limb and guessing that you may have had somewhere around 4000 hours last time you applied. (give or take) 4000 hours is at the upper end of required HCE for application to most programs. Not that it's horrible to have more, but I think adding another year of just work may not make the difference between getting in and getting passed over. What else have you done in the past year to strengthen/improve your application? I wonder if writing a new PS focusing more on your life since your last application might show how truly dedicated you are to the profession of PA. How did you learn from your past mistakes? What steps have you done to correct those mistakes/weaknesses? How much effort have you put into it? Wanting to submit your old PS gives the impression that your willingness to expend extra energy may be questionable. Don't give anyone the opportunity to call that into question. You can paraphrase your old one until the cows come home but at least sit down with a blank slate and start clean. Coming at it with a fresh angle/viewpoint may be a more polished tone to it all. Reading your current PS made me think you would be a great fit for nursing or pastoral care. A very caring, comforting soul who wants to help people find the sunny side of life. I do understand and believe that medicine needs more compassion but at the same time, there is more to medicine than empowerment and giving hope. I think showing the AdCom via your PS that you understand there are two sides to every coin will benefit you more than your current PS. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktalon Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Okay, this is a complete rewrite. I have some extra time so I am going line by line on this one. I'm not an english major so take my advice with a grain of salt. I say this is a rewrite because I think there is a total of two sentences that are worth keeping. It may sound harsh, but I am responding to each sentence as if I were an adcom. My only intention is to help you write the best PS you can possibly write. Every personal encounter I have had reveals that everyone has a story to tell and wants it to be heard. consider taking out "had." Is this the statement you want to use to set the theme of your PS? I believe an important part of medicine is being both a good listener as well as a good teacher. what does "teacher" have anything to do with your first sentence. Also, you switch from "an important part" to listing two things, which can technically be okay, but it comes off as if you just don't know where you are going with this PS. Pick the important thing you wish to talk about and stick with it. Or pick a couple of things to talk about, but establish those things. As it is, this PS just rambles. There is no organization around any central idea. As in any customer service job - whether in fast food, retail, or education - the employee will gain valuable insight and experience through the interactions with their customers or students. My motivation for becoming a physician assistant is to help people obtain optimum health while also providing more of a personal touch. Extremely vague. This sentence, the way it is set up, needs to be a slam-it-home sentence. You fell really flat. And again, you keep switching the subject. You talk about listening, being a teacher, customer service, optimum health, and personal touches all in a matter of 3 sentences. None of the sentences set up the next one. It is VERY easy to stop reading this PS. The minimum work experience requirement of at least 1000 hours for a physician assistant applicant is one not shared by applicants to the prospective medical, dental, and nursing programs. So what? I am not really sure what the purpose of this statement is. Before starting my training, I thought this was excessive. Now I believe it may be inadequate- so you are telling the school you hope to attend that their requirements are inadequate? you might want to rethink that approach. I've realized how essential this prerequisite should be to anyone seeking professional training. The physician assistant student begins with a foundation important to the field: exposure to clinical practice, contact with different types of patients' personalities, and working on a team with other medical and support professionals. In this paragraph you have not said ONE THING that the adcoms don't already know, except where you offended them for their inadequate requirements. I look forward to enhancing these skills and adding to these experiences. So you want to continue working as CNA? You establish HCE as the foundation and continue to say that you want to keep adding to this. If you mean that you want to expand your capabilities and your scope of practice then say what you mean and be specific. In preparation for the physician assistant program, I have obtained over 5700 hours of direct hands-on medical field experience and patient contact. This is the first sentence that you actually say something about yourself. Unfortunately this info is just a number that they could have easily looked up on your application, and doesn't say anything about YOU. Anybody can rack up 5700 hours of HCE. During this time, I have had first-hand experiences with an ornery elderly gentleman, a grieving widow, and a drug addict seeking a way out of her destructive habit. Anybody with ANY job can have a first hand experience with these kinds of people. Saying you had an experience tells us nothing of what the experience was and what your role was in it. And I can say without a doubt that I know what I am getting myself into. Okay, but you spent 3 sentences to set this sentence up and all it says is you "know what your getting into." It is one thing to know what you are getting into, its another to be able to handle what you are getting into. I have dealt gently but firmly with the belligerent person yelling in the waiting room, and have offered hope to a young man who recently lost his job. Finally, you get a little more specific about what your experiences have been and what you have done, but these are weak by any standard and I am pretty sure anybody that has any customer service skill can deal with a belligerent person. Saying that you offered hope to someone who lost his job is not only vague, but it also has nothing to do with health-care. It is okay to have non-health-care related experiences, but make sure there is a good reason why it is given importance over your health-care experience. My one-on-one encounters have tempered the glamour of medicine with the reality that life is hard for some people. Fixing every problem in a person's life is unrealistic, but empowering and offering hope is not. This is incredibly defeatist. You are correct that you can't fix EVERY problem, but this sounds like you are giving up on fixing medical problems and giving preference to offering hope. Your job as a PA is to do your damn best to fix their problems; not offer hope and say "oh well you can't fix em all." To be defeated already is not going to impress anybody. The adcoms would assume that you know that every problem can't be fixed, otherwise we would have a major population issue. Saying this makes you sound immature, not profound. Having grown up in a physician's home, I understand the commitment and dedication this profession requires no you don't. You were not in the home of a physician assistant, you were in the home of a physician. Don't use language that makes the adcoms think that you believe these two professions are the same thing, even if they both require commitment and dedication; and my time spent working in this field has reinforced this. expand on THIS part. Talk about your experiences you have had with physician assistants. But don't talk about what they do; talk about why it is you want to do what they do and why you'd be good at it. I am prepared and determined to fulfill the commitment of becoming a physician assistant very awkwardly stated, in order to work in a field I am passionate about and truly enjoy. For a conclusion statement, this has not been supported at all through the course of your whole PS and is not what you established the purpose of your PS to be in the first paragraph. How do we know that you are passionate about this other than you slipped it in the second to last sentence. Your PS does not reflect any PASSION for this profession. Don't say it, show it. Although I am choosing this as my career, I see my work as a way to help others to live life to the fullest by teaching them how to obtain and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Again, this has nothing to do with your PS. And why assume that a chosen career is somehow antithetical to helping people? Stop writing about your beliefs, opinions, blah blah blah. If you truly have those beliefs and opinions then you must have done something by now that reflects those beliefs and opinions. Write about how you have lived those beliefs. Write about what you have done that brings to life your philosophy. Don't say you have passion. Show us you have passion. Don't tell me that you have 5700 hrs HCE. Make me believe that you have 5700 hrs HCE. Writing about dealing with a man yelling in the lobby does NOT communicate to me that you are passionate about health-care and that you are experienced and mature enough to deal with the rigor and responsibility of PA school. Dig deep, write by example, and PM me your new copy if you want. Best of luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenM88 Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 I am a re-applicant and decided to not even look at my old personal statement but write a completely new one. I suggest you do the same. There was definitely a common theme between the two as I still have the same main points but it should also reflect your growth in the last year. I also suggest you add a paragraph about not being accepted last year. Instead of telling them what you have done (that is already apparant in your caspa app) explain to them how it has affected your decision to become a PA and why it will make you a good PA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Steve Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Instead of telling them what you have done (that is already apparant in your caspa app) explain to them how it has affected your decision to become a PA and why it will make you a good PA. I am curious about this theme. If I sat on an AdCom and had to read through hundreds of apps, I feel I'd prefer if a PS was written in a manner where I didn't have to take the time to hunt and peck back through the app to find the details. If I had the highlights in front of me, I think it would help me become more proficient. Telling a story of how something affected you aka: "explain to them how it has affected your decision to become a PA" is just lip service in my opinion. Sort of like swearing off of fast food after watching "Supersize Me" or promising to yourself to give some money to help the victims of some natural disaster. You can feel obligated, motivated, even dedicated to the cause but until you truly make good on the promise, it is only words. By telling an AdCom reviewer that you have increased your HCE by 1500 hours, increased your shadowing by 100 hours, re taken 6-8 credits of shaky grades, other words made hard genuine progress in improving yourself, I think that sets a higher standard. Of course this is all my opinion, just offering a different take on things..not meant to instigate or berate. Best of luck to ya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenM88 Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 I completely agree with you JustSteve, maybe I didn't explain what I meant. I don't think you should exclude what you have done in your PS, obviously this is a part of the overall flow. I just think examples and explanations are essential to support your PS. A good mixture of they two is probably most appropriate. But at the end of the day, it your PS and you have to like what it says and how it portrays you. I am not a wordy, dramatic person so I did not want my PS to reflect me as that. Opinions are always appreciated! Hopefully my PS from this years app becomes irrelevant and I get accepted of the waitlist. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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