Medical School Admissions Essay

Against the better wishes of my advisor, I chose to take the risky path of laying everything on the line and making my admissions essay extremely personal and revealing. I am ashamed of nothing that has made me who I am, because it has all made me this person I am proud to be today. This wasn't the final version, but this is the one I chose to publish. The final version was edited for length.

I have watched films of Shakespeare plays with my mother since I was four. The words of Polonius to his son Laertes in Act I of Hamlet have been echoed by my mother, “Suzanna, be strong, 'to thine own self be true.'” Four might seem young, but these words launched my personal odyssey. Looking for inspiration at the age of four (and having an art teacher for a grandmother), I found Leonardo da Vinci and admired his efforts to unify everything as a science. Art, anatomy, engineering-- they all blend into a single, concentrated endeavor. From this I learned greatness exists in balance, experience, and fulfilling one's potential. This would be my journey.

In the spring of 2008 I began studying art and mathematics at the University of Central Arkansas. Interested in contrasting disciplines, it was imperative to focus my studies toward a single career goal. My family doctor, Dr. English, has encouraged me since the age of twelve to pursue medicine. Hippocrates said, “wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.” For me, I feel this statement worked in reverse-- my love for humanity generated an unprecedented enthusiasm for healing. I fully committed myself to finding balance in a life devoted to my fellow man through improving and preserving life.

My academic and work histories uniquely qualify me to take part in medical training. Math classes have sharpened my problem-solving skills, helping me see that oftentimes there is more than one way to correctly solve a puzzle. My professors encourage me to visualize problems in new ways that my art training has provided me. Art courses have sharpened my hand-eye coordination, made my fingers more dexterous, and given me an intense attention to detail. Being skilled with my hands will make me a good physician, but being a doctor requires more than the head and the hands; it requires the heart. My work for a year and a half in a pharmacy exposed me to patient care. I am confident in my abilities of interpersonal communication. Working as a server in a restaurant has also helped with my communication skills. Interacting with so many different people has given me a fierce love for humanity. This love drives me to heal. My heart, my hands, and my mind have been prepared through my education and work experience to make me a great candidate for medical school.

My own humanity has also been motivational. I have experienced many of the obstacles life creates-- death, divorce, moving, breakups, and graduating. For me, all these happened in rapid succession just before I graduated high school in May of 2004. Before I accepted my full scholarship to Hendrix College that August, I visited Dr. English for depression. During that visit, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As it turns out, I am probably not bipolar, but various cocktails of drugs are enough to alter the body and mind. Dr. English and I worked diligently on my medication levels over the course of three years with little success. Either from the depression or drug side effects, in those three years I ended up losing my scholarship, transferring schools, failing classes, and taking a year off to work in a pharmacy-- a far cry from the straight-A honor graduate bent on being the world's next Leonardo da Vinci. After performing poorly my first semester at UCA, as a last-ditch effort I asked my doctor if we could try taking me off my medication over winter break. On Christmas of 2007, I got my life back. I felt happy, literally, for the first time in years.

Since I was twelve, Dr. English has been an encouraging force in my life, always telling me what a great doctor I would make. Even during the struggles he saw me through over those three miserable years of my life, he never ceased to encourage me, and my trust in him never failed. He has been constant in my constantly changing life. Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to do with my life, I only recognized my skill set. At this time I began to see not only the great impact of doctors, but also the great importance of patient interaction. This experience helped me to see that Dr. English had been right all along-- medicine is my calling. Medicine is my clear path to be a whole person. I acknowledged my own strength and the power of my perseverance and decided to answer the call.

Becoming a doctor is the pinnacle of humanitarianism, unifying both sides of the brain, the hands with the heart. To feel I have become the person I have relentlessly encouraged to be, the person I have wanted to be since the age of four, I must be a physician. I am a scientist, a dreamer, a planner, and a creative mind, true to those undertakings of da Vinci. I am all these things in balance, the person I knew I would be all along. To be a doctor would be an answer to my calling, and going to medical school is the first step in this journey. Healing is not something I simply want to do, it is who I want to be. This is my journey, and I was born to be this person. I was born to be a doctor.

 The risk I took worked out, so I can't say much other than I'm relieved.