Example Medical Personal Statement
The experience which really made me want to be a doctor was my work with the Public Medical Services in Malm, where I was given the task of visiting elderly people in their homes and administering their medication, since many were physically or mentally incapable of maintaining their drug regimes for themselves. I was qualified to provide pain-killers, Warfarin and Insulin. What struck me very forcibly was that the drugs I was authorised to provide often only served to alleviate the effects of other drugs they were taking, nor did any drug have a permanent effect. This made me feel that I should like to find ways in which the body’s natural resources could be harnessed to deal with medical conditions, allowing the body to heal itself, and causing less trauma to patients. Modern medicine relies on chemical medication to a degree that has many undesirable side effects, and often seems to ignore the natural processes which can bring relief.
My interest in medicine, then, is principally humanitarian. It is impossible to become a doctor simply for reasons of professional and personal success. Always one is working for the good of others, for the welfare of one’s fellow men. Nevertheless I am also fascinated by the science in medicine. At school I studied the physical and electrical impulses in the workings of the nervous system and saw how maths and physics were involved in the medical field. I worked on a project with my maths teacher to examine the relationship between the area of a neuron that receives an impulse and the threshold of that neuron. During my degree course I undertook another mathematical project with my calculus professor investigating the working of computerised tomography scanners and how such body scanners can construct cross sections through the use of integrals and transformation equations. I am working at present on an investigation into the role of deficient gastrin production in type 2 diabetes reversion.
During an internship in surgery I was amazed at the skill and professionalism of surgeons, and was struck by the whole concept of using one’s hands to cure disease, and of treating the body as a type of miraculous machine, which can be repaired and tinkered with. As a practical kind of person, I found this inspired me to become a surgeon myself. My immediate plan after final qualification is to work with Mdecins Sans Frontires, to gain some experience of how medicine can be administered without the advantages of all the modern medical tools. I also hope to work in military medicine, dealing with the traumas of injury and wounds. I plan then to take up neurosurgery, because the nervous system has always been for me the most intriguing aspect of physiology.
My principal drive, however, remains the human satisfaction that can be gained from the medical profession. Other professional careers are inevitably focussed on economic success, such as business, or the achievement of positions of power, such as politics or law. Medicine offers great material rewards as a career, of course, but it ultimately is a matter of helping others and bringing relief to those who are suffering and it is difficult to think of any other area of professional life in which this is the absolute priority.
I am multilingual, having Arabic and Swedish as joint mother tongues, excellent English, and very sound spoken French and German, useful assets in an increasingly international world. Outside my medical interests I enjoy sports, particularly taekwondo, in which I am an instructor. I have also served in the Swedish military as a squad leader.
I believe that satisfaction in life comes form continuous effort and commitment and that there is no point at which one should simply rest on ones’s successes. Medicine can have no “end”. The doctor’s role is one of constant exploration and I hope to spend the rest of my life doing what will benefit others. I hope you will consider my application.
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