Terry is one of the staff of writers for The Doctor Job. Do you need your personal statement edited, or do you need help in writing one from the beginning? Click here for more information.
One of the biggest problems I see with personal statements is that they are rather impersonal. All too often they read like a prose version of a resume instead of giving insight into the medical student or FMG behind the application.
When writing a personal statement for a residency program or a fellowship, take advantage of the fact that this is the one area where you can exercise a little creativity. You don’t need to give an account of your life’s history, but you do need to give the program director a sense of what makes you tick as a doctor and what makes you different from all of the other residency or fellowship applicants out there.
If you are worried about weaknesses in your residency application, then you may need to use the personal statement to really elaborate on your strengths, skills and experience. But if you feel you already have a strong residency application, then you should focus on conveying some of your personality and background through your personal statement.
One way to do this is through your writing style. While you don’t want to be too informal in your writing, it is OK to use a little bit of humor or to write in a way that reflects your personality. Can you imagine how bored residency directors would be if everything they read sounded like it was written by the same physician?
Another tip is to tell a story with your personal statement. A well-told account of an event that was meaningful to you can be a powerful tool and can also give the program director a sense of who you are. For example, one medical student client recently used her personal statement to talk about her experience as a child prodigy piano player. Hearing about the ups and downs of her experience not only gave me the sense that I knew her a little better, but it conveyed a lot of her strengths (perseverance, discipline, etc.) without her having to spell them out.
Residency program directors and fellowship program directors are looking for smart and skillful medical student and FMG candidates, but they are also looking for likeable individuals. Use your personal statement to say what your grades and test scores can’t.