Please critique my Intro - the more critical, the better! Thank you in advance!!!

[mk612165]

"Why don't you just finish school, get a job, find a husband, have 2.5 kids, a dog & a white picket fence, & grow old like the rest of us...?" This was my brother's exhasperated response when i divulged my life's aspiration - to become a PA and work with the underserved communities in our area and eventually serve as a humanitarian aid worker in internationally war-torn countries plagued by civil strife. We come from a family of immigrants; our grandparents sold everything they owned to leave their small island in greece to create a better life for their 9 children, & in turn, for my brother & I. How could I be surprised by his reaction? I knew he couldn't understand my disinterest in a comfortable lifestyle. Both our grandparents & our own parents survived poverty, assimilated to a new country where they knew not that language nor the culture, in order to offer us a better life. In my brother's mind, I was undermining their sacrifice by not furthering my own economic status. What he misunderstood is that I want nothing more than to honor their suffering, their struggle. The selflessness of my grandparents' sacrifice is the motivational foundation for my need to be of service & in caring for them as they aged & eventually passed, i've truly come to see that; to feel that genuineness in them & wanting nothing more than to carry on their goodness & to continue, what I have come to understand, as their legacy.

[UllrPrincess]

Honestly, I don't think you will get much of a response from the forum seeing as you didn't proofread this at all. Try fixing your capitalization, it's I not i, spell and instead of &, write out the numbers, not use abbreviations when no one knows what they mean.

[EMEDPA]

Just for starters msf doesn't use pa's. !@#$% french.....

[mk612165]

UllrPrincess, I appreciate the criticism, but I'm not looking for grammatical input... I'm not applying to PA school without the knowledge of basic capitalization. I'm asking about content. thanks anyway

[mk612165]

Just for starters msf doesn't use pa's. !@#$% french.....

 

Their website says they use RN's & Nurse Practitioners... why wouldn't they use PAs?

[EMEDPA]

their website says they use rn's & nurse practitioners... Why wouldn't they use pas?

supervision

[mk612165]

supervision

 

EMEDPA, I really do appreciate your input. I see that your specialty is emergency/disaster medicine. If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me a little bit about your line of work, if you work for a specific relief organization and how you decided this was the right specialty for you. I'd be really interested in any insight you would have about your daily work life or anything else you would like to share... it would be sincerely appreciated! Thanks again for that clarification

[EMEDPA]

My full time work is in emergency medicine at level 1, level 2, community and rural depts( yup, 3 jobs@ 4 sites).

I am also involved with 3 volunteer disaster medical teams; my state team, a federal dmat, and I am also a member of the nycmedics team( see nycmedics.org).

I have been to Haiti 4 times in the last 3 yrs( do a search for Haiti here for links with pix, etc). I have been doing most of my cme in global and tropical medicine over the last few yrs and recently started a doctorate program(DHSc) in health sciences & global health.

disaster and global medicine is wonderful becaue it is uncomplicated by administrative bs. you identify a problem and you deal with it. no emr, no procedural sedation checklist. you practice medicine. as I get older I hope to do more and more of this and less and less of the stuff that frustrates me about medicine in the u.s.

[IdahoPA]

Hi! This is just my opinion, but:

1.) the first sentence is too looooooooooooooong. Try reading that out loud and you see it's a mouthful.

2.) exasperated doesn't have an "h"

3.) You can't use "nor" if you haven't previously used "neither" so you could say, "...where they knew neither the language, nor the culture..."

4.) this has nothing to do with you personally, but I find phrases like, "I want nothing more than to honor their suffering..." a bit pretentious. I like all of the surrounding sentences, but when I get to that one, I cringe.

5.) the phrase "and in caring for them..." needs to be a separate sentence: "In caring for them until the passed, I've truly come to see that..."

6.) You could delete the entire last sentence from "...to feel that genuineness." It's a bit clunky and redundant and doesn't add any more than we already know.

 

Beyond all that, I thought it was an interesting start and I look forward to seeing where you go with the rest of your story. Good luck!!

[paprospect24]

Hi! This is just my opinion, but:

1.) the first sentence is too looooooooooooooong. Try reading that out loud and you see it's a mouthful.

2.) exasperated doesn't have an "h"

3.) You can't use "nor" if you haven't previously used "neither" so you could say, "...where they knew neither the language, nor the culture..."

4.) this has nothing to do with you personally, but I find phrases like, "I want nothing more than to honor their suffering..." a bit pretentious. I like all of the surrounding sentences, but when I get to that one, I cringe.

5.) the phrase "and in caring for them..." needs to be a separate sentence: "In caring for them until the passed, I've truly come to see that..."

6.) You could delete the entire last sentence from "...to feel that genuineness." It's a bit clunky and redundant and doesn't add any more than we already know.

 

Beyond all that, I thought it was an interesting start and I look forward to seeing where you go with the rest of your story. Good luck!!

 

Have to say I would agree on all points.

[mk612165]

Hi! This is just my opinion, but:

1.) the first sentence is too looooooooooooooong. Try reading that out loud and you see it's a mouthful.

2.) exasperated doesn't have an "h"

3.) You can't use "nor" if you haven't previously used "neither" so you could say, "...where they knew neither the language, nor the culture..."

4.) this has nothing to do with you personally, but I find phrases like, "I want nothing more than to honor their suffering..." a bit pretentious. I like all of the surrounding sentences, but when I get to that one, I cringe.

5.) the phrase "and in caring for them..." needs to be a separate sentence: "In caring for them until the passed, I've truly come to see that..."

6.) You could delete the entire last sentence from "...to feel that genuineness." It's a bit clunky and redundant and doesn't add any more than we already know.

 

Beyond all that, I thought it was an interesting start and I look forward to seeing where you go with the rest of your story. Good luck!!

 

l.a.lewis, I really appreciated all of your input... I'm definitely going to make some adjustments. Any input about what i should put instead of the "cringe" portion?