Hometown: Edmond, Oklahoma, USA

Undergraduate School: Private, Emory University

Major: Religion and Biology

GPA: 3.94

MCAT: 526. CP: 132, CARS: 132, BB: 132, PS: 130.

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My passion for caring for others began with my mother. Growing up in a working-class family in Oklahoma, my two siblings and I took pride in caring for her. My mother had become quadriplegic years before our births, and opportunities to assist in her care were numerous. Over time, the three of us grew into our various responsibilities, including filling water bottles, emptying leg bags, and transferring my mother from bed to wheelchair and back. That our family could not afford at-home nursing care made our coordinated efforts all the more consequential. Despite our obvious lack of professional training, we understood from experience how to make my mother feel comfortable. When she said “dys,” for example, we were not aware of the science behind autonomic dysreflexia but nonetheless knew the steps to relieve the potential causes of her symptoms.

Visits to the neurologist with my mother and subsequent conversations with her about her disability kindled my interest in the nervous system. I diligently cared for my mother but still wondered, “Could there be a cure?” To me, neurology and neurosurgery were salvific powers that might someday allow my mother to carry on like the more able-bodied parents of my friends. This is the context in which I became interested in medicine.

In the summer leading to my senior year of high school, I was granted a scholarship to take two college-level classes at Harvard Summer School. I used this opportunity to explore a topic that, due to my experience as a caregiver, had interested me for ages—neurobiology. Stories by the professor, a physician-researcher in Boston, fed my interest in medicine by humanizing both its practitioners and science. His jokes about the role of the autonomic nervous system in sexual function, in addition to filling the auditorium with laughter, helped destigmatize spinal cord injury. This program allowed me to envision what it might be like to be a doctor and emboldened me to commit to pre-med on my college applications that year.

When I got to college, the relationships I formed with my friend Zoe’s parents—both doctors—helped me see how medicine is an art that privileges care just as much as science. Zoe’s mother, an internist, was radically perceptive of the needs of her patients, which heightened her ability to make decisions about their care. Her compassionate interactions with patients resonated with my experience taking care of my mother. Throughout college and still today, my continued appreciation for her style of care has validated my sense of calling towards medicine and provided a model I could strive to emulate in my future career.

My work with adolescents with disabilities further shaped my interest in medicine. In my first year out of college, I was a special education co-teacher in D.C. In this role, I collaborated with teachers, families, and social workers to ensure students received their prescribed educational and therapeutic services. Many of these families had appealed to the school system for years to increase their children’s access to specialized education, occupational therapy, and other services mandated by federal laws. My job was to help them navigate bureaucratic structures to gain access to these resources.

Three months into my new role in D.C., the issue of disparities in access to public health services took on a new immediacy in my life. One Tuesday at school I learned my mother had unexpectedly passed away. I was shocked and devastated. As I grieved over the following months, I reflected on the significance of my mother’s life. I was unsettled that my mother’s last months involved her seemingly fruitless struggle with the state welfare system to obtain more than a handful of hours per week of nursing care. Having gone through high school uninsured, I had always felt pangs of injustice at the weakness of our health system to provide for the needs of minors and persons with disabilities. These feelings stimulated my interest in the role of public health in medicine and motivated me to pursue a degree in public health before medical school.

As a public health student, I study how behavioral sciences can be leveraged to reduce health disparities. Currently, I am making forays into sexual minority health by serving as an HIV counselor and providing free HIV testing through a clinical trial on condoms. In addition, I have served as staff supporting the prescribing clinicians in a pilot project to assess the feasibility of prescribing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis through a telemedicine portal. As a gay man, I have found these experiences incredibly meaningful and hope to continue working in this research area in medical school.

As I use this essay to chart my journey towards medical school, I feel humbled by the people who have enriched my life so far. Their generosity made it possible for someone of my background to attend college and graduate school, which gives me hope and determination to use my education in the service of others. From caring for my mother to advocating for students with disabilities to working in sexual minority health, my experiences inform a unique perspective that will aid in both the study and practice of medicine.

Analysis

Grant’s strength lies in his ability to effectively tie together several seemingly different life experiences into a compelling and insightful narrative about his journey to medicine. He details his story chronologically, beginning with his early exposure to medicine through his mother’s health issues before bringing readers through his undergraduate and graduate years. However, he doesn’t bog readers down with too many details; rather, he strategically selects key moments that not only reveal his multidimensional interest in medicine but also provide readers with insight on his compassionate character.

The final paragraph of this essay is particularly strong. Though it is only three sentences long, Grant succinctly connects his past experiences to a future he envisions in medicine. The distinctive tone the paragraph carries also allows for his humility and his dedication to service and to others to shine through. He leaves readers with a clear sense of his accomplishments and his values and his aspirations and consequently ends with a memorable conclusion to an already strong essay.

From 50 Successful Harvard Medical School Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2020 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group