My Personal Statement

One of the reasons I began this project about a year ago, was to prepare myself for writing the most difficult thing I would ever have to write: a personal statement.

Medical school applications require a 5,300 character (spaces included) statement that summarizes your entire life, and convinces them why you would make a fine doctor. Of course, seeing as how they read thousands of these every application cycle, they want to be entertained, intrigued, and touched as well. 5,300 characters works out to about 1.5 pages, not very much space to do justice to a lifetime of experience, or to sell yourself to a skeptical audience. That's one reason it's so difficult to write.

Below is my rough draft, and my purpose for posting it is that, hopefully you who read it can give me some valuable feedback about how this could be better arranged, better spoken, and better illustrated. It's too long, that I know, so I'd also like you to let me know what things can be let go. But don't worry, it's not THAT long. Like some of my other posts...

Here it is!


I was born in Mesa, AZ, to a young single mother. When I was still small, we moved to the White Mountains of Arizona. My first white Christmas was also hers, and we shared many other “firsts”. We moved often, over 30 times by my eighteenth birthday, but lived mostly in rural, northern Arizona. I attended a different school every other year, and I never saw the same doctor twice. Whenever I was sick, which was often, we went to the emergency room. That was our only option. During one of those emergency room visits, I met a kind doctor who told me fun jokes, and made me feel comfortable and forget my illness, but I never saw him again. Sometimes I wonder how my childhood might have been different, healthier, and more secure had I been under the ongoing care of a doctor like him.

When I was 5 years old, my mom began schooling to become a nurse. She was the first person in her family to receive any post-secondary education. During her first year at the community college, I often asked her what she was reading. She would then teach me, in simple terms, about biology, anatomy, and medicine. I began to feel wonder about the unseen world inside the body for the first time, and I surprised her by saying, very seriously, “I’m going to be a doctor.” For the remainder of my childhood, whenever I thought about the future, I never wondered what I would be. I already knew.

During her nursing career, my mom worked in hospice, and frequently brought me along on her home visits. At first I was afraid of her patients, older people who were missing teeth, spoke loudly, smelled badly, and were often grumpy. But sometimes they were delighted to see me, asked my name, and told me their stories. I came to see them as surrogate grandparents, and I grew to love them. One of my friends, a woman named Martha, had large, expressive, sometimes frightened eyes. She lived in a floral print recliner with her cats. When my mom told me she had died, I thought of her empty recliner and lonely cats. I didn’t cry because I was content that I had known her and been her friend. As a current CNA in hospice, when my patients and friends die, I am glad I was able to know and serve them.

At age 14, I developed a pre-cancerous lesion on my chest, the result of severe sunburns. We didn’t have insurance or access to modern medical treatment, so we settled upon an alternative method using a salve. The treatment hurt terribly. I became an invalid, suffering pain and boredom for an entire summer. We took a gamble with my life, but happily the treatment removed the lesion, which hasn’t resurfaced, leaving me with a large keloid scar. This gave me an appreciation for alternative healing, and an understanding of suffering; however, I wish I had been given the choice to receive traditional treatment instead of being obligated to the alternative path. As a physician, I would work to make traditional health care more available and affordable for those who have financial problems, as my family did.

After high school, I served a two-year religious mission in southern Brazil (2005-2006), where I took the opportunity to do humanitarian work. I taught English to adults and school-aged children, I rebuilt burned homes, delivered handmade linens to local hospitals, and helped assemble and distribute 250 wheelchairs to disabled adults and children. During my first summer in South America, I developed a severe ear infection and was treated at the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo. The doctors and the care I received there were on par with any hospital in the United States. My church paid the bill. Over those two years, however, I realized that most of the medical care available to the poor in Latin America is woefully inadequate. I stood in crowded waiting rooms in summer with sick kids (a feast for diseased mosquitoes) carried by helpless parents. I have witnessed the need for medical services in under-served areas of the world, similar to where I grew up, and want to alleviate some of that need.

Upon returning home to northern Arizona, I found work at a small mortuary serving the White Mountain Apache Tribe. This provided my first real test at comforting and serving people (the families of the deceased) who are in the midst of difficult times, and learned about cultural issues surrounding death. Embalming the dead, I learned first hand the anatomy of the cardiovascular system.

I lost sight of my childhood dream, began my higher education at the local community college as a nursing major instead, and married my sweetheart in the summer of 2007. I began working as a psychiatric aide in the local behavioral hospital, where I met people afflicted with serious mental illnesses, and people struggling with substance abuse. That summer, I took a course to become a CNA, to gain clinical experience and test my desire to work in health care. I am glad I did!

During my first week as a CNA in hospice, we got a frantic call in Spanish from the wife of Eduardo, one of our patients. I helped save Eduardo's life by giving his wife translated directions from the nurse over the phone. Because I can speak and understand Spanish, I have been able to serve immigrant families in rural Arizona, and in downtown Phoenix at the Maricopa County Hospital. I have also served the upper-class as a CNA on the campus of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ.

In the summer of 2008, my wife and I had a son. As a defining moment in my life, this gave me pause to consider what my true desires and goals in life really were. I realized that my reason for changing career paths from medicine (my original goal) to nursing was based on a lack of confidence in myself, not aptitude or even convenience. Holding my newborn son reminded me that I was once as small as he, and one day, like Martha, I too will die. This gave me the courage and urgency to change my plans, and the resolve to pursue my dream, until I can hold it in my hands.