shao Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 During the recent recession, I had moved three times and was laid off from two banking positions. However, that didn’t discourage me from continuously seeking a rewarding career. Due to my hard work with supportive mentors, I cannot be any happier with where I am today, venturing off on this incredible career path to become a physician’s assistant. The lessons from my work and life experiences had given me the insight and motivation that I need to overcome this challenging career path ahead of me, and I have nothing but confidence and affirmation that being a physician’s assistant is absolutely the right career for me. While working in finance, I enjoyed assisting people with their important financial decisions. I felt it necessary to be helpful not only with their current goal, but also in their long term financial health. In other words, I loved improving people’s lives. Whether it was doing an addition for their house in preparation for newborns, to help pay for their children’s college tuition, or to fund their medical bills, I felt best when I could make a beneficial change. Thus, when I decided to explore a career other than finance, I decided to find a career that focuses on improving people’s physical health. With that in mind, I decided to volunteer at the Los Angeles County Hospital emergency department. To my surprise, I felt an even more fulfilling sense of satisfaction while volunteering at Los Angeles County emergency department. The opportunity to impact people's lives by meeting their health care needs is the most rewarding job I’ve had the privilege of doing. My experiences at Los Angeles County Hospital solidified my desire to become a physician assistant. Initially, I was drawn to physician’s assistant profession for its job stability, career outlook and most importantly job satisfaction. However, I didn’t expect to develop such a passion for this profession! It was a privilege to watch physician assistants like Lee Slajer, Michael Roux and Anthony Taylor put almost 90 years of experience and insights to work for their patients. It was clearly evident that the physician assistants all genuinely love what they do. From hands-on suturing, reduction and casting, to diagnostic and preventive care services, these seasoned professionals worked independently, with the trust and support of the attending physicians. I especially enjoyed the team atmosphere, with the ultimate goal to achieve the best patient care possible. I was also impressed with the range of patients the physician assistants were able to care for, and the level of responsibility expected from them. This is definitely the career environment I want to be a part of. At one point, I had the opportunity to assist a physician assistant in caring for an injured bicyclist, brought in by helicopter. The physician assistant calmly explained all the upcoming procedures with the patient and assured the patient he will be taken care of. As a volunteer, my function was limited, but I recognized that health care was more than putting what we learn in class into practice. Simply, holding a patients hand or whispering everything will be okay, reassured patients during fearsome procedures. I now understand that physician assistants are true patient advocates who utilize every opportunity to care and improve patient health. My time at the hospital has helped me better appreciate and be familiar with physician assistant’s scope of practice, where does Physician assistant fit in the whole healthcare team, and how to communicate with patients and to take the time to listen to their needs. I am inspired to follow in the footsteps of the physician assistants I’ve met, not only to ensure the utmost care for the patients I will have the opportunity to encounter, but to be a direct line of communication to the community we serve. To be honest, up until now, I had always chose to follow a path of least resistance. I made easy choices hoping for an easier life. I cannot say that I had ever felt more pride and self-worth than the time spent volunteering with the physician assistants. I wasn’t as fortunate as some others whom had always knew what they wanted to do with their lives, but I recognize my purpose when I encounter it. I don’t regret the scenic route I took. I realize now that my true calling is to be a physician assistant. I am fully committed to doing whatever I need to excel in your physician assistant program. This is my passion; what I want to do with the rest of my life. With my finance background, emphasizing on effective communication and the physiologic and scientific knowledge gained in class, I want to be the best physician assistant I can be with the guidance of your program. I know the road to becoming a physician assistant is a challenging one, but I am confident in my abilities, assured of my choice, and ready for a career as a physician assistant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktalon Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 This may sound mean but I seriously can't tell whether or not this is a joke. If this is serious then you need to put in a LOT more time into your essay. If this is a joke then let us in on it so you don't waste people's time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shao Posted August 29, 2011 Author Share Posted August 29, 2011 what do you think needs work on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nweston Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 You should probably start off by changing physician's assistant to physician assistant. I know it seems like a trivial thing, but everytime I see that in a PS posted here, I cringe and just stop reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktalon Posted August 29, 2011 Share Posted August 29, 2011 It needs work on everything. I think that to even be taken serious for an essay review, you have to put in a lot more time on your own. If this is the very best you can do on your own then, in MY opinion, you are simply not ready for graduate level work. As mentioned before, you use "physician's assistant" and then "physician assistant" interchangeably. It's one thing to have a few grammatical errors; but the extent that you have shows that you just haven't put in any time and want other people to do the leg work for you to show you all your mistakes. I am not even going to address the content in your essay that would cause any sensible adcom to enthusiastically decline your application. I am not trashing you for the sake of trashing you. You have a ways to go to get to the point of being ready for graduate level work and somebody has to tell you that otherwise you won't take the necessary steps to get there. For you, I would suggest you hit the grammar books, read some books on how to write professional essays, and also try to gain real experience in the process to actually write about. All I know about you from this essay is that you have lost a number of jobs and you "up until now" were very lazy (which by the condition of this essay I even doubt the "up until" part). Put some real effort into this and you will then deserve to have real constructive criticism. Until then, do what I have suggested and you should be at least started the right course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GatorRRT Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I'm going to try to put this nicely, I had to stop reading after the second sentence in the first paragraph. This PS is overly wordy, and poorly written. It seems that you write as if you were talking to someone. This style works great for facebook......not so much for admittance to a professional program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IdahoPA Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 Can I guess that the OP's first language isn't English? To me, the sentence structures and grammar issues seem like someone who is able to speak a second language well, but perhaps hasn't grasped all of the rules for written texts. (And I can totally understand that, having made up more than a few Spanish words in my time.) Or I'm completely wrong and laziness (or something else) is to blame, as has been suggested. That being speculated on, I would suggest making a few huge changes: 1.) physician assistant or PA 2.) when I got to the last paragraph, I literally cringed. The PA profession is difficult and I really don't want my personal PA to be someone who professes to constantly take the easy route; makes me wonder how you did in the pre-reqs and how you would do in a rigorous program. and 3.) I'd like to see a little more on why you made such a drastic switch from finance to PA. From the sound of it, you just woke up one morning with a desire to work in medicine. Is that true? Probably not. I know several people in the accounting world and many more PAs; I can't imagine their career paths overlapping so I'm curious how yours did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktalon Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I just want to make clear to the OP that I am not suggesting that you are lazy just because I want to be mean. I said it in those terms because you explicitly said that you were lazy in your PS. I don't know you and certainly can't really judge your character by one little essay. But essentially that IS what adcom's are supposed to do; completely judge somebody from 5000 characters. My intention wasn't a personal attack. It was an attempt to put myself in an adcoms position reading this essay and say exactly what I would be thinking if I were reading this to determine whether you should be admitted. I said exactly what my initial impression of you was, based on what was written, and I think that is the most honest critique I can give. I am not giving specific advice about how to change your essay because I believe that the essay is a HUGE part of how an applicant is judged and the quality of the work should only reflect the applicants own skill level and effort that they put in. I offer a general critique to let people know if, in my opinion, they have a good essay or not. But if I corrected every grammatical error, told you all the content that should be taken out, and told you content that should be put in, I would be helping you write an essay that is beyond your own skill level. What I suggest is that you put the effort into increasing your writing skills and rewrite your essay. Read up on proper grammar, read about what professional essays should look like, and put some real thought into whether you want to include lines that suggest you are lazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Steve Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 It reads like they the OP has been convinced by the Yahoo! News report that PA is a hot career with job stability, good wages, and doesn't require college degree (which is true, despite the norm). After reading the essay I envisioned a disgruntled laid off worker staring at their computer trying to think of a way out of their current situation and they were "enlightened". I can't swallow the story that they know PA is THE thing for them just by some volunteering in an ER after working in finance. That is akin to me giving up medicine after going to the bank a few times and reading the stock market page in the newspaper for a few weeks. As for the grammer...I agree with l.a. lewis...I am betting English is not this person's first language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shao Posted August 30, 2011 Author Share Posted August 30, 2011 Thanks for your help. You guys are right on the money about my background and language. English is actually my third language. I will take your criticisms and work on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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