Writing an Effective Personal Statement
Written by Elizabeth Bashian, MD
Of all the components of the ERAS application, the personal statement is one of the most difficult parts to complete—as med students, we’re generally uncomfortable with situations with no “right” answer. That said, you’re not writing the great American novel. In general, 2% of personal statements are good enough to set applicants apart in a good way, 3% set applicants apart in a bad way, and 95% don’t make a huge difference either way. If you’re reading this looking for advice, you’re probably aiming for that 95%. Make sure your personal statement is well-written, but don’t lose sleep over it—there are plenty of other stressors during application season. The hardest part is getting started so we have a basic, yet highly effective, formula that will get you past your empty Word doc.
- Paragraph 1: an anecdote about why you fell in love with your specialty of choice. This can usually be a patient story: you were rotating on peds and had the chance to tell the parents that their child was cured, when you scrubbed in on a Whipple and followed the patient throughout their recovery, the time you got to catch the baby during your OB/GYN rotation. It can also be a personal experience: after you tore your ACL in high school soccer, you realized you wanted to be an orthopaedic surgeon, etc. This story should be interesting enough to draw someone in but succinct enough that they keep reading the rest of your personal statement.
- Paragraph 2: what you ~love~ about this specialty. As a general surgery applicant, I talked about how surgeons demonstrated leadership both in and out of the OR, how much I liked the technical aspects of working with my hands and being in the OR, and how general surgery specifically allowed you to be involved with both medical and surgical aspects of care. While there is a lot of overlap between specialties, try and identify a few characteristics unique to that specialty.
- Paragraph 3: what traits/experiences/skills do you have that make you well qualified for this specialty. The key here is that these should not necessarily be skills you’ve learned on your 1 month AI; instead, try to come up with something that will set you apart from every other applicant. For example, your role in student government has taught you leadership and communication skills; training for marathons has helped build resilience; your activism work has taught you how to advocate for patients, etc. While there’s some variation between specialties, most programs are looking for people who are hard-working, compassionate, efficient, resilient, and good communicators, so these sorts of traits are a good fallback
- Paragraph 4: Conclusion—in 1-2 sentences, sum up your greatest strengths and how those will make you a resident they want to work with. Very briefly touch on your intro anecdote—“and the patient makes a great recovery, teaching me the power of effective communication”—but don’t get bogged down in details. This can also be a good area to include program-specific information if you’re sending unique applications to any program.
A few other considerations: grammar and spelling mistakes are a major red flag. Also, if you’re including medical information, keep it general but make sure it makes sense—ask an upper-level resident or attending to review it for accuracy. Keep it concise: about 1 page. My biggest advice is to start early (like today) and have a draft you can come back to a few times. I asked a lot of people to read mine; some gave me great feedback, and others were not so helpful, but starting a draft early gives you more time to get feedback as well.
