Personal Statement AMCAS
Uploaded by kikigrooves on Aug 29, 2007
To become a physician is my life’s aspiration. Taking responsibility for people's health and well-being requires first a medical student who is serious about learning, and I am just that. I have good study habits and time management skills, as well as a strong academic background in science. A career in the medical field will give me the unique opportunity to utilize my current and future abilities while benefiting human life and society.
One of my most rewarding experiences has been volunteering at the Guild Home for the Aged and Blind. Working with elderly patients at such a young age has opened my eyes to the delicacy of life. I can recall a fellow volunteer conceding defeat when she found the aromas of some patients, as she put it, “intolerable.” I, on the other hand, smelled not the age of the body but the decay of life, and held the hands of these patients, some of whom had been forgotten by their families. Henry David Thoreau once said that “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly” Primary health-care physicians today need to be both strong and sensitive for their patients, and these are both attributes that I possess.
During my study abroad in Cairo, I was exposed to the ailing healthcare system in Egypt, which has further fueled my passion to practice medicine. A program entitled “Doctors Without Borders” was mentioned to me once and since has had growing appeal for me. It is astonishing to learn how in such a system as Egypt’s, only minor regulative adjustments need be made that could possibly save hundreds of thousands of lives. I cannot change the healthcare system, but I can obtain a medical license and possibly save hundreds. There is no monetary value to be placed on that. A license to practice medicine will provide me with the necessary means to travel across the globe and put to service my abilities in remote regions; an underlying passion of mine.
My cultural background and constant interactions with those of various ethnicities and religious extractions will be a great contribution to any medical school. Through my schooling, work experiences, home environment and volunteering, I have been afforded the opportunity to assess many similarities and differences amongst diverse cultural and religious groups,...