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Interviewer: It can be the toughest job in the application process. It’s the dreaded physician assistant application personal statement. It's a hard to write essay by any other name, so how can you best highlight who you are in 5,000 words or less. We'll talk about that next on The Scope.

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Interviewer: Admission essays for a physician assistant school are tricky. Thankfully we’re going to get some inside tips from Doris Dalton. She's the Director of Admissions for the University of Utah PA program, going to give us some do's and don’ts of a good personal statement, some of the things she likes and some of the things that she doesn't. So, first all, in order to do anything you’ve got to know what its job, what's is its purpose. What, in your mind, is the purpose of the personal statement?

Doris: When you look at the entire application together, your academic background will tell us what kind of a student you are, your work background will tell us where you’ve been professionally, your references will tell us what other people say about you. This is you only tool to speak for yourself.

Interviewer: Okay, so who look at this, because a lot of times it's good to know the audience of who’s consuming what it is you wrote.

Doris: With any writing exercise, writing is a form of communication and when your communicating with anyone you always have to keep your audience in mind. The people who are reading your personal statement are bunch of PA’s.

Interviewer: Okay, how am I going to connect with that group of people?

Doris: What are you going to say about a PA that might be your future colleague about yourself and your desire to be a part of that profession, your fit for it, your passion for patient care? Communicating all of those things is very, very difficult.

Interviewer: What kind of person you might be to work with.

Doris: Some of that might come out in your references, but what would want to say about yourself?

Interviewer: Sure. Got you.

Doris: It's difficult to sell yourself without sounding arrogant.

Interviewer: Yeah, that is a challenge, isn’t it?

Doris: People don’t want to beat their chest.

Interviewer: What's your advice to somebody who says that?

Doris: I think the most difficult to approach to the personal statement is when people get into their heads too much, when they sit down in front of that keyboard and ask themselves, "What am I suppose to say and what do they want to hear?" and, “How can I do this in such a way that I sound like a compassionate future provider?”

Interviewer: Yeah.

Doris: Boy, I can't even imagine having to do that myself, so it is a tough, tough exercise.

Interviewer: But you should still talk about things that you accomplished because that's what you want to hear I'd imagine. Right?

Doris: You do, but there's where that self-reflection comes back in.

Interviewer: How am I going to do it in a way . . .

Doris: Your personal statement should not read like a paragraph form of the rest of your application. We've already found out something about you and your background. If you, for example, worked in a nursing home as a certified nursing assistant, you might want to take that opportunity to reflect on the vulnerable patient population that you care for on a daily basis. That's an opportunity to share something more than the day to day kinds of things that you've done to prepare yourself for graduate medical education and future practice.

Interviewer: It seems like something else you might want to keep in mind is that you want to be human. I mean, you want to reflect that humanity, which a lot of us tend to not want to because it makes us vulnerable.
Doris: I think vulnerability is a plus. We do want to have candidates who are able to share that they are very passionate about patient care, that they are compassionate people who are going to be a good fit for medicine.

Interviewer: What’s something in a personal statement that you look for that you’re like, “Wow, this is great”?

Doris: I like something that's really heartfelt. People think we don't like “touchy, feely” things, but it really contributes to a personal statement and makes it less generic.

Interviewer: How often do you just get in a paragraph into it and you just quit? Because I have long contended that you have to catch your listener’s attention or your reader’s attention right away. Is that crucial or does everybody always read through the whole thing.

Doris: We will read the entire thing. I have seen personal statements that didn't quiet start out and then had some really good stuff in the middle of it, maybe a strong, maybe not a strong conclusion. But what can you share about yourself beyond the fact that you are just as reasonably qualified as everyone else?

Interviewer: I'm going to say try to start strong, though. That’s going to be my advice, but it's nice to know you read the whole thing because that takes a little stress off that I start with the right thing.

Doris: We want to know who you are.

Interviewer: Structuring a narrative can be difficult because sometimes there's a lot of different ways to tell a story. What do you recommend?

Doris: Feedback from others. Your personal statement should be well structured and have a flow. Not everyone is a good write, and a lot of people will require some help and there's nothing wrong with that. But your personal statement really ought to be well written and have a flow, so that it's easy to read. You don't want your reader to lose interest.

Interviewer: The mechanics part is just as important as the content part.

Doris: It is and no one is judging the quality of your writing, but again . . .

Interviewer: It's still says something about you, though.

Doris: Making the effort to have a good personal statement that reads well, that's easy to read and really share something about yourself will certainly make a difference .

Interviewer: What are some of the pitfalls that applicants make, some of the common ones? Let's go with three.

Doris: Generic statements. “I really like to help people, I really love medicine, I'm fascinated by the human body,” those sorts of things.

Interviewer: All right. How about number two?

Doris: I think it's difficult when a candidate writes a personal statement and they don't ask themselves, “Does this sound a personal statement that just about anybody could have written?” Because we do see a lot of that. I would say that 70%, 80% of the personal statements that I review are fairly generic.

Interviewer: It could have been anybody.

Doris: Could have been anybody, anybody could have said that. Share something from your personal experience.

Interviewer: How about number three?

Doris: You don't want your personal statement to read like an essay of what is a PA. We know that. A bunch of PA's are the ones that are reading your personal statements. I know that candidates are trying to communicate that they understand the role of the PA and they would like to be it in the future, but that something that you're going to waste space on.

Interviewer: Okay, finally, any resources that you recommend books, websites when it comes to writing that personal statements or that essay?

Doris: There are some resources out there and you can certainly tap into books on how to get into medical school, advice on writing the personal statement regardless of what profession someone is going into in healthcare can certainly have very similar advice.

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