Hometown: Laramie, Wyoming, USA

Undergraduate School: Brigham Young University (Private), transferred to University of Wyoming (Public), post-baccalaureate premedical program at Johns Hopkins University (Private)

Major: English and Spanish

GPA: 3.98 out of 4.0

MCAT: 35. PS: 11, V: 12, BS: 12.

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I have not always known I wanted to be a doctor, romantic though it may be to say otherwise. As a young Wyomingite boy who spent his days roaming the vast expanses of prairie that were my backyard, I wanted to be an Egyptologist who worked outdoors digging up the ancient past or a veterinarian who traveled from ranch to ranch, vaccinating cows or delivering foals. It was not until my related curiosities about both the world of ideas and my fellow humans emerged as a teenager that I realized how nicely the vocation of medicine would pair with my developing interests. My favorite merit badge that I had earned at a Boy Scouts summer camp was First Aid, and I cherished my cheap microscopy kit for which I had scrimped and saved as a boy. By high school, medicine began to feel like a natural professional decision, and to that end I took a course to become a certified nursing assistant my senior year and continued my studies in science and math. I was naively but enthusiastically poised to begin my premedical studies at the university level and hoped that, with good fortune and perseverance, I would one day become a physician.

I also had the jejune confidence to assume that other aspects of my life would go according to my desires. As the fourth child of a Mormon family of nine, I had envisioned a very particular life for myself. I had always wanted to attend Brigham Young University, a private Mormon school in Utah and the alma mater of my parents and three older sisters. When I matriculated there as a freshman, I imagined completing my premedical courses, serving an evangelical mission like men of the Church were required to, marrying, and beginning a family of my own. Despite my strongest wishes, however, life had other plans in store for me. Doubts that I had long harbored in lonely silence about aspects of Mormonism—namely the long, racist history of denying the priesthood to black people and the blatantly misogynistic teachings about women—continued to rear their head in my life. After pensive reflection and assiduous investigation over more than a year, I ultimately saw the decimation of my formerly staunch faith. Also compounding my confusion at this stage of my life were my persistent feelings of attraction to other men, feelings about which I had been cognizant for years and that I had confessed to my parents at age 16. We all agreed then that therapy with a Mormon counselor and adherence to the principles of the Church would be the surest way to overcome these feelings, yet they did not subside despite valiant efforts. When I ultimately decided to leave the Mormon faith and transfer to a public university where I would be less encumbered by the academic and religious restrictions of BYU, the dream of medicine got lost somewhere in the tumult.

Medicine, however, was not content to be abandoned, and returning to my intention of becoming a doctor felt akin to coming home after an exodus away. It was auspicious to find that my meanderings in the interim between my original dream of becoming a physician and its rebirth years later had actually brought many unique gifts to my life to be used in medicine. First, my degree in English and Spanish and then the year I spent working in Spain as a Fulbright scholar honed my skills in both my native tongue and the language of the Latino community. It was my ability to speak Spanish that allowed me to work as an interpreter in a primary care clinic for the homeless in Portland, Oregon. There I was able to witness firsthand the power of medicine as a human service profession and to experience the joy of meeting the needs of those whose needs are often the gravest. Second, the process of accepting my sexuality as an indelible part of my being that is neither sinful nor pathological has helped me to understand people whose voices have also been dismissed or misunderstood. My longstanding interest in minority rights, coupled with my own experience of fighting for self-acceptance against cultural mores and years of indoctrination, have helped to galvanize my identity as a social activist, an identity that will inform the scope and nature of my medical practice one day. In addition to serving the Hispanic community at home and abroad and further developing my French skills to do international service work, I intend to continue my exploration of women’s healthcare as part of my desire to address the needs of minorities. After designing and implementing a system of tracking cytopathology reports of Pap smears at the clinic in Portland and then shadowing a perinatologist for a year at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, my passion for women’s health and wellbeing has increased exponentially, an interest which germinated many years ago when I first recognized gender-based disparities in my childhood religious community. In medicine, I will use my skills to advocate for, empathize with, and heal the disenfranchised.

All of my curiosity about how the world works and who the sundry players on the stage of life are has continually been nurtured in my premedical education, both academic and experiential. I cannot wait for the chance to put my life experiences, passions, and quirks to good use in the vocation that I now confidently state I want to profess: that of a physician.

Analysis

Robert begins his essay by stating he did not always know that he wanted to become a doctor, a rather uncommon statement that captures the reader’s attention as well as sets up the rest of the essay. He explains how he initially became interested in the medical field as a teenager, whereafter he demonstrates tangible measures he took to pursue his budding passion, like becoming a certified nursing assistant.

However, he shows that his path to medicine was not a smooth one by discussing his doubts about aspects of the Mormon faith as well as experiencing confusion with his sexuality that ultimately led to his transfer to a public university. Parallel to this pivotal change was a distancing from his initial aspirations with medicine. Nevertheless, his passion for medicine reemerged, something he likened to “coming home after an exodus away.” By showing how he came back to medicine despite some distancing, he illuminates just how special his connection to the field is.

Beyond establishing his unwavering commitment and passion to the field, Robert’s personal experiences and knowledge of marginalized groups that have shaped him as an activist highlight his empathetic quality that would make for a great physician.

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