How to Improve Your Medicine Personal Statement Quickly
Most of you would have started 6th Form already: exam preparation, studying ahead, homework and the dreaded personal statement deadline for October 15th. There is a lot on your plate, and either too many characters or too little characters on your personal statement :(
Here are a couple of ways to quickly improve your personal statements to secure those interviews!
1) Link your subjects to the field of medicine
A very common mistake is simply describing your favourite subjects and what topics you cover in them. A very common example that I see often is: "I love A level Maths due it requiring me to problem solve through integration via reverse chain rule!". This is great and all but the admissions tutor reading this will simply ask why you should just study Maths a university instead. You do need to address your sujects but you should pick clear skills that it teaches you and link to the being a doctor e.g. A level Maths has helped me develop problem solving skills. This is important as doctors constantly require solving issues with patients will help them work through differentials when diagnosing patients.
As you can see this is way more specific and tells the admissions tutor that you also
understand some of the skills that a doctor needs to be a good one!
2) Utilise correct punctuation
I know I sound like your English teacher but correct punctuation is helpful making you sound more eloquent. It will help your writing flow better but is also my cheat code in reducing my word count - I have used it throughout me degree and publications to cut down words and to sound way smarter than I am!
The right semi-colon can remove the need for certain conjunctions like 'but', 'which' or 'and'. The correct en-dash can add just the right information All of this can help you stay within the strict character count of 4000. But please make sure you use them correctly, there is nothing more embarrasing or discrediting than using it wrong!
3) WORK EXPERIENCE
I have said this before and I will say it again. Please please please talk about your work experience. Describe what you have learned no matter how small, and remember, you do not need to have scrubbed into surgery for it to be a good work experience. For example, it can be as small as watching a receptionist dealing with a patient complaint. How did they deal with this? What are some of the good communications skills did they demonstrate and did this help with calming down a patient? All of these soft skills are vital in a career in medicine as you will be dealing with a lot of people day in and day out; easy and difficult.
This ensures that you demonstrate consistently that you were actually present during your work experience. It's no good just listing procedures that you have seen without actually expanding on them... you are not expected to know all of these special or rare procedures yet (realistically you would not be expected to know some procedures until you decide to apply for specality training at the end of your Foundation Year as a doctor qualified!!). So please stick to describing the importance of soft skills such as communication, active listening and reflection rather than the fancy technical ones. This will pay more dividends that.
These are a few tips that will help improve your personal statement rapidly! As always if you would like more tailored help specific to your writing please check out our Packages
or alternatively email us on enquiries@statementcraft.co.uk. for recommendations to a specific package.
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