Personal Statements

Personal Statements

RHETORICAL AUDIENCE PURPOSE

INTRODUCTION 10% BODY OF PAPER 80% CONCLUSION 10% INTRODUCTION 60% BODY OF PAPER 15% CONCLUSION 50% EFFORT-vs- READER

ABSTRACT/SUMMARY 100%

PERSONAL STATEMENT FIRST PARAGRAPH 100%

RESIDENCY PROGRAM DIRECTORS SPEND LESS THAN 2 MINUTES ON INITIAL READ OF PS. HOURS OF EFFORT EVALUATED IN LESS THAN 120 SECONDS.

FIRST PARAGRAPH • I CHOSE THIS SPECIALTY BECAUSE…

LAST PARAGRAPH • I WOULD BE GOOD AT THIS BECAUSE…. • TELLING WHAT YOU HAVE SHOWN

ME ME ME ME ME ME I KNOW I THINK I FEEL I BELIEVE

DEFLECTING “I” STATEMENTS • TEXTS READ US • WRITERS CREATE READERS

Growing up on a farm in the Red River Valley, I did not have to look far to find mechanical problems to stimulate my young mind. As my father or grandfather’s first assistant, I watched and learned as they built sheds, crafted furniture or fixed machinery. PERSONAL STATEMENT #1

ORTHO SURGERY I enjoyed working with my hands and learned lessons by following their example…I would rediscover this same feeling over two decades later while fixing an inter-trochanteric femur fracture under the careful guidance of my chief resident at HCMC.

PERSONAL STATEMENT #2 Tears of pain filled the eyes of the twenty-year-old Ecuadorian women who desperately held on to my hand. The physician hastily and without local pain medication, had performed an episiotomy, despite the fact that the head of her infant was almost fully delivered.

I’LL BE GOOD AT THIS BECAUSE • IDENTIFY YOUR STRENGTHS • MATCH TO WHAT THE SPECIALTY NEEDS

CONCRETE AND EMPIRICAL I am involved with an organization called MN Orienteering. The object is to race through dense forest and following your topographical map reach the check points throughout the woods…Judging from the closeness of the lines you can gauge the steepness of the terrain and pinpoint your location.

RADIOLOGY Radiology also requires being able to pinpoint locations, see visual relationships and think three-dimensionally – all things I do now for enjoyment.

ORGANIZE AROUNDPATIENT Recently I watched a young blind girl “see” without eyes down a hallway by stomping her foot and listening for the echo to tell her what lay ahead. As I watched her, I recognized that we share the same curiosity for the unknown. I too like exploring beyond what can be seen.

There are no population-based prevalence data for extracranial vertebral artery stenosis. Studies to date have been of small numbers in specialist cohorts.15 The largest published series are from the New England Medical Centre posterior circulation stroke registry.16 Of 407 patients who were symptomatic from either posterior circulation stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or both, 80 (20%) were found to have >50% stenosis of the first part of the vertebral artery. Posterior circulation stroke was defined by imaging studies and vertebrobasilar TIA was diagnosed by experienced stroke neurologists using Caplan's criteria.17 Stenosis was demonstrated either by conventional or magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). Just under half (37/80) had an occluded vertebral artery, and 15% (12/80) had bilateral involvement. A quarter (22/80) of these cases also had intracranial vertebral artery or basilar disease, which may have been the cause of symptoms. In almost half the patients (38/80), however, the vertebral origin

LAYOUT • ONE PAGE ERAS ALLOWS 5 • WHITE SPACE • NO HEADERS • USE TRANSITIONS

STRUCTURE THE INTERVIEW Additionally, I love to golf, travel and read. And as is customary if one grows up in Green Bay Wisconsin, I love Packers football and anxiously await the start of the season each fall.

INTERVIEW + EVIDENCE Outside of medicine, my interests are wide-ranging and involve some of the same processes required for surgical skill acquisition. Hobbies such as sea kayaking and Latin dancing provide balance and rejuvenation. Moreover, they have provided insight into the process of motor skill attainment.

RESIST MINNESOTA HUMILITY ALTHOUGH MY LIFE SOMETIMES SEEMS LIKE A STRING OF BLOOPERS…… I WOULD LIKE TO CONCLUDE BY ACKNOWLEDGING A DISSAPOINTMENT. I WAS DISSAPOINTED WHEN I WAS NOT ACCEPTED INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL…

DON’T TRIVIALIZE WHAT I ONCE IMAGINED MYSELF TO BE WHILE WATCHING ER, IS NOW ABOUT TO….

ALL RITING IS REWRITING ALL WRITING IS RE-WRITING

PASSIVE VOICE THE MOON WAS JUMPED OVER BY THE COW. THE COW JUMPED OVER THE MOON.

PASSIVE VOICE THE BOY WAS BITTEN BY THE DOG. THE DOG BIT THE BOY. EXPERIMENTS HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS.

DANGLING MODIFIERS Having been thrown in the air, the dog caught the stick. When the stick was thrown in the air the dog caught it.

DANGLING MODIFIERS RACING TO CATCH THE LAST BUS, I SAW DORA ONE LAST TIME. 2008 PERSONAL STATEMENT

EXERCISE • I CHOSE …………BECAUSE • I WOULD BE GOOD AT THIS BECAUSE… • AT THE INTERVIEW YOU CAN ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT...

Subj: Personal Statement westx005@umn.edu

Personal Statements