From Russia with love - Harvard - Medical application essay help
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Undergraduate School: Private, Harvard University
Major: Chemistry II: Concentration in Biology
GPA: 3.79
MCAT: 515.
Medical application essay help
When I was sixteen years old and about to become a high school senior, my father had an unexpected stroke: a Pontine Hemorrhage. The bleeding in his brain stem was severe, forcing him into a coma for eleven days. I had an incredibly difficult time understanding the magnitude of what happened to him. Besides controlled diabetes, he had no serious health issues so his stroke was completely unforeseeable. He had just returned from visiting my grandfather in Russia when he suddenly fainted in the shower and was rushed to the emergency room. As the youngest in the family, I had always been his little girl and missed him immensely while he was away. I was expecting to come home, hug him and hear about his trip. Little did I know that I would never have the chance to hear him speak again. I was actually finishing the last days of my summer internship at Mount Sinai Hospital when this happened to my father. During my internship, I met patients battling difficult illnesses but I never imagined my own family in a similarly desperate situation. Despite my uncertainty and fear, I found courage in remembering the many obstacles my family and I had already overcome.
I come from a home that lived the plight of many immigrants, from struggling with language and cultural barriers to dealing with financial problems. Having experienced such difficulties, I always honored education as my main priority. Most of my inspiration came from my mother who, at only twenty seven-years old, packed her life and hurriedly left Russia with my father and three young children to settle in New York. With minimum English, she passed the exams necessary to reevaluate her nursing license from Russia. Before she became the superhero that I know, she battled strong anti Semitism in Russia, which denied her certain rights such as entry into medical school. Her passion for medicine inspired me to learn more about science and her triumphs taught me that with hard work I could aspire to become anything I want to, especially with the freedom I was given in America. I wanted to learn more and applied to Mount Sinai Hospital’s summer Hospital Placement Program for high school students. I shadowed an anesthesiologist in the two to three surgeries that I witnessed each day and once even saw a human heart beating during an open-heart procedure. I was standing at the forefront of medicine, discovering all of its beauty and how far it had advanced in helping people. However, I did not connect with the emotional side of my career choice until after my father had his stroke. In that moment, I was convinced there was nothing else in the world I wanted to become other than a physician.
I fell in love with medicine, feeling inspiration in the ability of a physician to shine a light of hope through the pure act of caring enough for patients’ lives in their darkest moments. I had a small taste of that gratifying feeling when I cared for geriatric patients in Mount Sinai Hospital’s emergency room. I felt privileged to be involved in and influence someone else’s care, even if it was in the smallest way. At both Mount Sinai and at Memorial Sloan Kettering, where I did clinical research in the neurology department, the teamwork and leadership that I observed was unmatched by anything I had seen outside of the medical field. I remember the admiration I felt for my mentor’s delicate manner in leading an end-of-life discussion with a family of a young patient dying from an incurable brain tumor. I was awed by her leadership in directing the conversation with a family stricken with grief, advocating for her patient’s quality of life despite much resistance. I was also impressed by the way her team of fellows, residents and nurses supported her through this difficult challenge, much like a team of sailors hoisting the captain through the dread of a heavy storm. They helped answer the family’s questions and used their own expertise to reassure my mentor that their ultimate decision for the patient was the right one. I also loved the creative thought process I witnessed when details of radiographic imaging and blood work were mapped to finalize a diagnosis and treatment plan. I could see myself in my mentor’s shoes, plowing through all odds to help my patient, even through tough decisions relating to palliative care.
When my father had his stroke, I struggled to understand why medicine could not restore him to the undefeatable person he used to be. The damage to his brain stem was obviously irreversible but, after spending a whole summer witnessing surgeries that practically “fixed” people, it was nearly impossible for me, at sixteen years old, to accept that he and life would never return to “normal.” It is still painful to recognize that his only way to communicate with me is to open or close his eyelids to signal yes or no, but my own direct exposure to medicine has helped me to come to terms with this. Having observed many interpretations of quality of life, I came to realize that although my father would not recover, he could still live out the rest of his life as joyfully and comfortably as possible with the help of his doctors, nurses and my family. Although I know the road is a long one, I feel excited to honor my father by embarking on a journey of constant learning, improvement and giving through medicine.
Analysis
Larisa chooses to begin her essay with a difficult but life-altering moment in her life: her father’s stroke. The impact it has on her becomes evident as she writes: “I was convinced there was nothing else in the world I wanted to become other than a physician.” It is in this pivotal emotional and personal moment that she furthers her commitment and love for medicine.
The theme of Larisa’s father’s stroke continues to play out throughout the essay, but she does not lose focus of herself. Rather, she successfully delivers a compelling narrative that shows how his stroke has enabled her to view medicine in a different light and to further appreciate and admire the role doctors play in the patient experience. As she redefines for herself what it means to be a physician by drawing on her variety of experiences and mentors at Mount Sinai, she leaves the reader with a resonating portrait of not only her character and the values she embodies but also the empathetic and dedicated physician she hopes to one day be.
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