Personal Statement

Typically when the “personal statement” of a medical school application is referred to, it refers to personal essays or essay questions that the applicant fills out to give the admissions committee better insight into who the applicant actually is.

Unfortunately for the applicant, there are a huge variety of personal statement requirements across Canadian universities, so applying to a lot of medical schools can become a lot of work.  This also means that different medical schools place a different emphasis on the importance of the personal essay.  For example, Queens, UWO, and UofA all do not require you to write any essay-like responses when you send your initial application.  However on the other end of the spectrum schools such as UofT, UBC, and Dal require you to write an autobiographical essay.  Other schools, such as McMaster, have something in between in that they require you to provide paragraph answers for a set of questions.  Lastly, other schools require you to write essays on-site on the day of your interview, such as UofC and Queens.

With such variety in personal statement requirements, the main point is that you need to carefully read the website of each medical school you are planning to apply to so that you know exactly how much essay writing is required and the topics they want you to talk about.

Fortunately we have done some of the work for you and have listed the personal statement/essay requirements for several different medical schools which are directly from their websites:

UofT - All applicants are required to submit an original personal statement, in an essay of 1,000 words or less. As a general guideline, the statement should address and discuss the applicant’s personal background, including particular interests and extracurricular experiences. Candidates should outline their choice of, and preparation for, a career in medicine. Applicants should also describe their premedical studies, expanding on what they have chosen to pursue and how this has prepared them for their future, including a career in medicine.

Dalhousie - The essay is very important and gives the applicants an opportunity to discuss their reasons for applying to medical school based on their own personal experiences. There is one essay required and included in the online application. The essay cannot exceed 1500 words in a 12 point font.  The essay will provide you the opportunity to discuss your strengths, weaknesses etc.

McMaster:

1) Ethics is considered one of the most important traits in a future physician. Describe an ethical dilemma that you have faced, how you dealt with it and what you learned from it.

2) Gauging that you have learned enough is arguably one of the more difficult aspects of a self-directed learning program. What strategies have you (or will you) use to ensure your learning is progressing at an appropriate pace?

3) Give an example of how you have been challenged around the issue of cultural competency and how you handled it.

4) What efforts have you made to determine whether a career as a physician is the right career for you?

5) What do you think has been the most important contribution that you have made so far in your life?

Note: The McMaster questions tend to change every year, so do not start working on your essay questions until they are released from McMaster.

Kevin's Opinion

Although not explicitly stated on school websites, I venture to say that it's probable that personal statements generall count to approximately 5-10% of your application. Of course, the weight vary from school to school (i.e the personal written responses for McMaster counts for 32% of the pre-interview mark). However for most school, it's difficult to imagine it to be worth more than 10%. At schools where personal essays are accessible to interviewers, they may play a much larger role as they can influence the interviewers' first impression of you and hence affect your interview mark. Whether it's 5% or 32% of your application, needless to say, you should tackle it with all seriousness.

Firstly, put your feet in the shoes of the admission committee. With all the GPA, MCAT, extracurriculars, research, and with the interviewing system shifting to MMI, how can admissions get an insight to who you really are as a person? The personal statement is as personal as it gets. Here is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your human qualities and make a case for your place in medicine. This essay is really about answering two questions - "why do you want to be a doctor" and "why will you make a good doctor". Before beginning your essay, you should carefully think about how you can address these two questions effectively, as all essay content should be tailored to answering these two questions. No matter what content you have, a good rule to follow is "show, not tell". Its easy to say what kind of a person you are and state why you want to be a physician, but without concrete examples, why should anyone take your word for it? If you say you are an honest and altruistic person, demonstrate it with personal examples! After all, it's a personal statement.

As for answering "why you want to be a doctor", ideally (but not necessarily) you would want to demonstrate:

• That you have experience in the healthcare field and have a good understanding of what medicine is.
• Clear understanding of yourself and what you seek in a career.
• A logical progression from your first exposure to medicine to how you've decided to commit yourself to a life in medicine.

As for answering "why you would make a good doctor", you would want to demonstrate a myriad of qualities such as maturity and altruism. Furthermore, you should keep in mind of what's known as "CanMEDS competencies" for physicians. This is a framework established by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada that describes the core competencies that a physician should possess. The seven core competencies are:

• professional
• communicator
• collaborator
• manager
• health advocate
• scholar
• medical expert

As you can see, being a good doctor is much more than simply being a medical expert with the sheer desire to help people. You must also be a collaborator who can work well in a team, a relentless advocate for the health of your patients, a manager who can manage and organize his/her surrounding resources, and much more. So take your time to think about what it means to be a good physician, and then evaluate yourself accordingly. By understanding the official criteria that is set up by the guys who actually license physicians (RCPSC) for what physician competency means, you can better tailor your sales pitch to the ears of the admissions committee. For an in-depth explanation of the CanMEDS roles, take a look at CanMEDS2005

If you can answer the two mentioned questions in a genuine and convincing way, then you've written a successful personal statement. Since each applicant has a different story to tell, there is no single preferred approach. However, two common approaches are chronological and thematic. The former is a organized chronological narration of important events that depict your life story, while the latter focuses on themes that you wish to discuss and are supported by examples from any time in your life.

After reading innumerable personal statements from friends and books, I found that the good essays always had a genuine tone, a personable story, a simple/elegant use of language, and a sense of maturity in the conveyed messages. Too many writers try to flex their vocab with impressive words, jampack the paragraphs with superflous literary devices, and make themselves sound like saints.  A word of advice - be genuine. The people who will be viewing these are professionals. The can smell BS from miles away, so don't even try it. Even if your content is 100% legit, if your writing has anything that sounds like it may belong to the realm of BS, your credibility will be destroyed.

Writing the personal essay is no easy task, so give yourself ample time for writing and editing. I gave myself about 3 weeks to complete it, and had friends and professors to edit them. If you have friends already in medicine or as physicians, definitely ask them to help you out. You might even want to invite them out for coffee so you can ask them for feedbacks. Whatever your story may be, I am sure that you have a interesting tale to tell. So don't be stressed about writing this mammoth of an essay. The hardest part is starting, so get to it!

Jerome's Opinion

So while I cannot give a specific approach to the personal statement/essay/questions, I can give some tips on how to write them.

Stand out – there is no point in giving a mediocre response, or a response similar to what other people are probably putting down.  You want the admissions committee to remember you after they have finished going through their pile of answers.  Take a bit of a risk, and show them your personality in your answers.

Make a connection – One really good way of getting the admissions committee member on your side is to make a connection with them.  One way that people achieve this is by telling a story. This is often more relevant for the personal essay, but can also be done to answer essay questions. Think of the last good fiction book you read.  Why were you so captivated by it?  Or what about that last fictional TV show you watched, why did you keep watching? It is because you made a connection with the story and the characters in the story.  You essentially want the admissions committee to be rooting for you, to want to know what happens next in the story, and maybe, just maybe, the only way to do that is to give you an interview.

Proofread, proofread, proofread! – This point should be self explanatory. You should proofread it, your friends and family should proofread it, and anyone else (professors, medical students, etc.) should proofread it too!