Third draft, hoping to only have to do one more revision!

[Dynamo24]

I want to say thanks for everyone reading over my statement, its been a great help and I know its rough to re-read the same thing over with minor changes. I used a lot of your suggestions and thanks to ppleavin as I stole the given suggestion verbatim, so credit where its due! My big questions are, is it PAs? I was not sure and it seems incorrect but I didn't know what else to put. Also, at the end of my second paragraph, I feel that the comment about my daughter is a little crammed in there "at the last second", any ideas how to possible work that in a little better or does that seem okay where it is? Same with the addition of my volunteering/tutoring. I'm at 4,754 characters so I have some breathing room to add more. Again once I get a final draft, I'm going to take it to my writing center for a solid grammar and punctuation check so no worries about commenting on that. Anyways, here it is:

 

 

As I was sitting in the exam room, the orthopedic surgeon said “You have what we call the terrible triad. This injury combined with breaking the same leg less than 8 months ago, you probably won’t be the same athlete you were before”. I didn’t know how to respond. Everything I had worked so hard for was slipping out of my hands. Coming from a poor background, being raised by a single mother, and where not one of my family members attended college, football was my way out. I never thought of attending college for academics; football was all I ever wanted to do. The physician walked through what to expect, the procedure, and recovery. It didn’t matter what he said, I was too devastated to care. He briefly introduced me to his physician assistant (PA) and then left the room. I had no idea what a PA was; I thought he was just there to take notes. The PA stayed behind to give me some further information about pre-rehab and how to prepare for the surgery so I would have a full recovery. He could see the pain in my face, the tears welling up in my eyes. As impossible as it may have seemed to console a 17 year old kid, he took his best shot. “It’s going to be okay, nothing is ever for sure”. It was obvious he was equally concerned about my well-being as a person as he was my knee as a patient. Each visit thereafter was a great experience. He would talk to my mother and I about how things were going, ask me about my favorite sports teams, and compliment me on the hard work I was putting in at therapy. Impressively enough he remembered nearly everything we talked about which truly did help with my self-esteem.

 

Unfortunately it wasn’t long after surgery I isolated myself and eventually dropped out of high school. I was convinced I didn’t stand a chance in college academically. I relegated myself to working for a lawn mowing company, then a pizza shop, and finally a window installation company. I thought this is what I was set out to be: uneducated and working jobs that didn’t challenge me intellectually. I quickly grew tired of this work. Having a love for fitness, I obtained my personal training certification and was hired at a local gym. I was 23 at the time and I was training motivated and educated people: physicians and successful business people. While training, my clients asked me some interesting questions: Why are you still here? You’re way too smart to be training for the rest of your life, why don’t you go to college and grow yourself? I took all of this in stride as people just being nice to a young kid who came from nothing. They could see I was hungry for more than just training; I needed more growth personally and intellectually. The one who saw this the most was my fiancé. She could see how I was unfulfilled and desired more out of myself. One day she sat me down and said “I want you to be the best you can. I support you in everything you do and I think you need to go to college to find what you love”. This was a sacrifice for us being that we would be heading into marriage with one less income for years to come. We decided as a couple to move forward, leave my training job, and enroll in classes. Now that we have a five month old little girl, my motivation to be successful grows every day.

 

I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I had developed an interest in medicine through my experiences as a trainer which gave me an appreciation for the resilience and intricacies of the human body. A friend recommended PA school and I remembered my experience with the PA at the orthopedic clinic. I went home to research all I could about the profession. I loved the autonomy, working with a team of healthcare professionals, the graduate school length, and the opportunity to work in many areas of medicine. I saw many schools required healthcare experience. With the various opportunities out there, I knew that becoming an EMT would be the best for me. I enjoy thinking on my feet, making quick and informed decisions, and the scope of practice of an EMT. As an EMT, the amount of patient contact I have is high and diverse. Even though my knee injury was over 12 years ago, every day I go to work and see patients I remember how I was treated by my PA. I put forth the effort to treat my patients with same compassion, care, and respect as I received. I am lucky to be involved with many PAs at work and every one I have come in contact with has been patient, informative, and personable. The relationships I have built through working as an EMT with PAs increased my desire to become a PA. I believe my life and work experience plus my relationships with PAs has not only exposed me to the PA profession but has greatly prepared me for the challenge of becoming and practicing as a PA.

[ppelavin]

Hey, I think this one reads a lot better, and thanks for the shout out, I'm glad that my suggestion helped :) I personally used "PAs" and "PA" once I defined the term, I think it's the right way to go, just don't say P.A. like I've seen some people do.

 

I think you're right that the comment about your daughter at the end of your 2nd paragraph seems a little thrown in there. I would either put the characters that you have left trying to incorporate that a little more coherently or remove it all together and try to include something about your volunteering. That being said, I'd only write about the volunteering if you feel that you have something you really want to say about that, if you just want to mention it for the sake of mentioning it, then I wouldn't waste your characters since it'll come up elsewhere in your application. If you wanted to keep the part about your daughter, you could also try it somewhere else further down in the essay where it might be more easily incorporated, or re-framing it to say something more like "since the birth of our daughter," as it is now it sort of sounds like you became inspired once your daughter turned 5 months.

 

It's sounding good, keep it up!!

[sstrell1]

I think it's very well written! I have a few suggestions, but don't feel obligated to change anything.

 

"He would talk to my mother and I about how things were going..." It would be me not I. That sounds weird, but if the phrase "my mother" is removed, you would say "he would talk to me" not "he would talk to I". In that sentence you are the object so you would use the objective pronoun, which is me.

 

There would me a comma after the word unfortunately.

 

I like ppelavin's suggestion. I think if it's reworded it would flow better. "Since the birth of our daughter, my motivation to be successful grows everyday. We decided as a couple to move forward, leave my current job, and enroll in classes."

 

In your last paragraph, I think you should mention how long you've been working as an EMT.

 

"Even though my knee injury was over 12 years ago, every day I go to work and see patients I remember how I was treated by my PA." I think you should reword this sentence somehow. "Even though my knee injury occurred over 12 years ago, the PA that treated me left an indelible impression. This experience inspires me to go to work and see patients every day."

 

"The relationships I have built through working as an EMT with PAs increased my desire to become a PA." Was there a specific experience that you've had as an EMT either with a patient or PA that reaffirmed your decision to become a PA? That might be something nice to add, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if you don't have enough room.

 

Overall I think you did a good job :) Good luck!

[Dynamo24]

Thanks for the tips guys! I am going to axe the volutneering thing because its just not worth trying to cram in there. If I can't figure out a way to incorparte my daughter, Ill leave that out. I didn't put how long I've been working as an EMT because that is on the application, they will know how long I have been working before they even invite me for an interview, so I didn't want to try to fill up space with that. I didn't put any experiences I have had with PAs simply because my initial experience was so profound. Plus it would easily put me over the character limit trying to explain the procedures, delegating, etc. I've seen PAs do. I'm more or less hedging my bet as to what is more important: the impact and influence a PA had on me specifically or the impact and influence a PA had on me via a patient treatment that I witnessed. I took the personal route obviously lol. I'll follow this post up with a new revision thread, hopefully it will be better!

[mhotsinp]

Last paragraph I would change my PA to the PA. Sounds like you own the PA using my.

Have you done anything else to learn more about the PA profession besides research so you understand that they are not the "note takers?" I would either take it out or mention that you know more about the profession by what you have seen.

 

Overall, looks good :)