How to Write About Your Interest in Medicine
by Sarah M.
If you already know going into your applications that you’ll be focusing on the health sciences, and perhaps a pre-med program, then you should incorporate this into your essays. You don’t have to know exactly how your career will unfold yet, but health and medicine are tracks of study that often take considerable planning and stamina, and so it is helpful to let your readers know that you are prepared for the challenge and have some ideas already about how to tackle it.
That said, your essays should still tell unique stories about you, in interesting ways that avoid generalities and cliches. (In other words, steer clear of any long tangents about why medicine is the most noble career, or how you plan to cure cancer.) So, how do you do both of these things at once? Here are a few ideas:
- If you have any significant experience working in these fields, even obliquely, it is probably a good idea to use it. This could be about an amazing internship you were able to snag in a medical practice, but it could equally be about a pretty normal after-school job.Were you a summer lifeguard, for example? How did you think about your responsibilities in that role, and were there any times when you had to perform rescues or use medical skills on the fly? Or did you ever have to kiss a scraped knee while babysitting? How did you convince a toddler having a total meltdown about a tiny papercut to feel better?
- If you have done research in the health sciences, this is also a good time to explain what draws you to this field intellectually. Is there a particular mystery or condition that fascinates you?Are you motivated by socioeconomic, ethnic, or gender-based discrepancies in healthcare? Why specifically? Do you hope to create or participate in a change in the field? If any of this is relevant to you, feel free to show your familiarity with the field, and your ideas about it.
- If you don’t have significant work or research experience that’s fine – but be sure to think hard about what draws you to the field, and how you feel you’ve been preparing yourself for the challenge.Are there healthcare workers in your family, or people with notable health issues? Do you have an extreme phobia about going to the doctor? Have you spent an inordinate amount of time watching hospital procedurals like Grey’s Anatomy or ER? You don’t have to be experienced to make a good candidate, but you do need to show that you are thoughtful and authentic in your interest in a personal statement for medicine.