Middle ground - Duke - Sample medical school essay
Sample medical school essay
1.
If my path to medicine were an actual road, supportive mentors would be the wind at my back and a love of biology the sneakers on my feet. My reason for walking, however, would trace back to my father. My father had a stroke when I was four years old. He came through far better than he might have, but was put on medications that made him overweight, irritable, and above all exhausted. Illness became omnipresent in my life, to the point that it faded into the background. His illness was just a fact of life, another thread woven among many. As I grew older and began looking towards medicine, I started to pull at this thread.
I sifted through memories, pulling out his illness and its subtle effects. My mind landed first on near-daily trips to the supermarket. My father would rest in the car while my brother and I went in with his list memorized. It felt very adult, checking the date on the milk carton, carrying out heavy bags without complaining. Another memory: starting in elementary school, I reminded Dad every night to take his 9pm pill. For weeks after I left for college, I still called him every night with that reminder.
It became clear that my relationship with my father was built incorporating illness, not despite it. From an early age, I became attentive to the small ways that people need help. Moreover, I came to think of it as a privilege to provide that help. Specific, relationship-based care became a way to strengthen bonds, and affirming to someone that his difficulties were not his to shoulder alone made me feel responsible and adult. Writing now, I see that this relationship fostered within me an ethic of care. For me, this means that a full life is realized through giving oneself to others. This mindset has guided my actions and activities, and it will ultimately help to make me an excellent physician.
In college, this ethic guided me towards nurturing activities. As Vice President of Child Education for Duke’s English as a Second Language club, I made a point of teaching to the individual. The same kids came in weekly, and as I got to know them, I tailored my attention to each. Marco needed one-on-one time without distraction, so I moved his desk to the hall. Luisa wanted to finish her work herself, so I was tactful in offering help. Dealing with individuals as such requires active effort, but it’s more rewarding for all involved when that effort is made. This insight is even more true when guiding a patient towards wellness than it is when guiding a third grader towards better reading comprehension. Whatever the context, people respond if they feel themselves known and heard.
At the Durham VA hospice my senior year, I again emphasized the importance of making people feel valued. As important as time spent helping patients to eat or lie comfortably were the hours I spent gently chatting with them. I asked them about their lives, their service, their children. My follow-up questions showed my genuine interest and I made sure that they knew I was grateful for my time with them. It’s easy to think of care as a one-way street, and I wanted these veterans to know I was benefiting from our relationship. Over years with my father, I have learned that excellent care doesn’t make people feel reduced to dependency. Instead, it reminds them that they have something to give to others despite and because of illness.
In my current role as a clinical research assistant, I have built on these insights. Working in the Colorectal Surgery Service of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I spend most of the week in clinic approaching patients about studies. In these conversations, I express gratitude for their time and attention. I listen actively and visibly, learning patients’ cases, but also their backgrounds and values in helping them to decide if a study is right for them. Indeed, my role provides many opportunities to act on my ethic of care. In my interactions with patients, I am respectful, professional, and upbeat. Even in aspects of the role that do not involve patients directly, like tracking and screening, my ethic motivates me. I know that my work will lead to improvements in patient care, so I draw from that same commitment to the good of others. This is what drove me, for example, to update one study’s screening protocol to leverage MSK’s bioinformatics capacity towards catching patients we previously had been missing. It is clear to me, in fact, that my years of research -both clinical and basic science- have always been driven by an awareness of the eventual human benefit.
Now, as I look towards medicine and a life devoted to others, my mind circles to the conviction that care does good for both the recipient and the giver. From intimate beginnings between me and my father, my ethic of care has given substance and meaning to my life. I see it in all of my interactions, from friends and family to tutoring and volunteer relationships. More specifically, it is apparent in clinic, where I feel challenged and fulfilled working alongside doctors and nurses who share my commitment to others. Thinking back to my childhood, my time at Duke, and my role at MSK, I project forward to a future informed by a lifelong ethic of care, and am confident that I will thrive as a physician.
2.
One of my favorite novels is Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” which takes place in the early twentieth century. A climactic scene centers on Sissy Rommely, who is beset by a series of stillbirths over the course of the novel. Sissy and her sisters view physicians with suspicion, but she eventually consents to using a physician instead of a midwife for her eleventh pregnancy. Lying in her hospital bed, she despairs as another child comes out silent and blue. But then, a miracle: the doctor applies oxygen, and in minutes Sissy is holding a wailing baby.
I pull out that scene from “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” because, for me, it has always encapsulated the quintessential role of a physician. Physicians prevent unnecessary tragedies, and are constantly pushing back the horizon that defines “unnecessary.” By acting on a medical innovation, this novel’s doctor bridges cultural anxieties to open up new possibilities of health and well-being for his patient and her family. Essential characteristics that this doctor embodies are the ability to provide care, a focus on scientific innovation and its application to patients’ health, and, significantly, the ability to work with patients from all backgrounds and walks of life.
My ability to work comfortably across cultural divides has been nurtured by a life of avid reading. Growing up, I read incessantly. In middle school, I remember that I walked between classes with my head buried down in an open novel. To me these books served not as an escape, but as a context that made the world more dynamic and tangible. I gained perspective that helped me to empathize more easily, and not merely with the friends and family in my own life. The wealth of stories that I’ve read has helped equip me to productively interact with people different than myself, to respect the legitimacy of others’ backgrounds and understand why someone might hold views I disagree with. I’ve continued this habit into adulthood, and am still actively pursuing a greater understanding through books such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me” and J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy.” My understanding of medicine in particular has been shaped by works such as Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air” and Arthur Frank’s “The Wounded Storyteller.”
As I look towards medical school, I see how valuable a supplement books can be to my real world experiences with diverse populations. I appreciate their insight into the human experience and am thankful to have them as an enjoyable means of continuing to broaden my awareness and deepen my sensitivity. Informed by the mindset of a life-long reader, I hope to rise to the standard of service set by the physician who gave Sissy Rommely the miracle of a living child.
3.
I grew up in Caldwell, a fairly homogenous town in Northern NJ, 90% white. The town’s most notable quality, as revealed by a middle school project, was the startling amount of pizza places and nail parlors we had per capita. When I was very little, my mother walked me to the library, wheeling my younger brother in a stroller. The librarians were always welcoming, and the more I came back, the bigger the books they would recommend. At school, teachers urged me to read above my grade level. From an early age, I learned that more challenging material was usually more engaging. In a somewhat hokey way, the community valued kindness- I once won a gift card to a diner after holding the door for someone who entered my name in a “random acts of kindness raffle.” I tried out most sports: Soccer, tee-ball, basketball, no-tackle football, and in middle school I even tried lacrosse. I ate oranges on the sidelines and tried to respond to parents shouting to watch the ball and be aggressive. I was taught to value being a team player. In high school, I took up the only sports that would stick, track and cross country, and found a lot of fulfillment in competing against myself.
My junior year of high school, my family moved. I was upset and scared, as I had loved my town and the friends I had made therein. Chatham, the town to which I moved, was less dense and more affluent than Caldwell had been. The preppy aesthetic which dominated was new to me. In Chatham, too, I suddenly felt keenly atypical as a Jew. Initially, I felt isolated, a fish out of water. The first couple of months, I focused on my studies and ate lunch alone, feeling proud and vulnerable. The few friendly overtures I received were lifelines, though, and as time went on I began to thrive. To a much greater extent than Caldwell, Chatham took ambition for granted. The school provided opportunities to engage and stood aside while students rushed to take advantage. In this atmosphere, I learned to value the hustle needed to stand out from the crowd. Another difference: during track at Caldwell, we complained about running. In Chatham, we spoke about how much we loved it. If running at Caldwell taught me to compete against myself, running at Chatham taught me how much more effective it was to compete against yourself amongst others doing the same.
I look back on my upbringing and think it a solid foundation for medical school. Always there is room for improvement- less Jewish jokes in Chatham, greater competition in Caldwell, and more diversity in both towns. However, through both the highs and lows, I think of my childhood and its communities as largely idyllic. These communities and my experiences therein molded me into someone who values kindness, education, and initiative, who is quick to seek camaraderie within a culture of academics and innovation.
I look towards medical school eager to build on these areas of focus. I will become a compassionate and capable physician. Moreover, I will be a doctor driven by a core realization: the opportunities that shaped me into the person I am today- the crafts in kindergarten, debates in high school English classes, personal records in cross country- were all predicated on my health and wellness. As a physician, I will work to promote and protect that foundation for my patients and communities, giving them the best opportunity to realize the joys life has to offer.
4.
“I just can’t let this happen,” I remember thinking as I strode across the blacktop. It was third-grade recess, and in the distance I saw Colby was crouched against a wall, head in his hands. Another boy, Zachary, was standing over him red-faced. Colby was a sweet, shy boy and I grew increasingly angry as I came up behind Zachary and swung him around by the shoulders. “Leave him alone!!” What followed was a textbook playground tussle; a lot of pushes and posturing. Judging by the scrapes on my knees and wobble in my lower lip, Zachary walked away the victor. As I turned around and helped Colby up, however, I knew that I’d won a victory more meaningful.
Much more recently, I was in class watching a girl give a presentation when she was interrupted with a question, I forget exactly what. For the sake of this anecdote, the interrupter asked what color the sky was. The gracious presenter said it was blue and then made to move on. The questioner, though, seemed dissatisfied and looked around to the room at large. Another student chimed in, intending to be helpful. “It’s sort of a dark aqua,” he said, at which point the initial student responded, “Oh, I get it!” I could see the presenter at front bite her lip, trying to stifle her frustration. I gave her a beat before pointing out to the class, “That’s exactly what she said! She said it better, even! Let’s not interrupt the presentation, especially to retread ground she’s already covered.” She gave me a brief smile and continued on.
My idea of what constitutes effective advocacy has changed since the third grade. Often it’s tempting to look at the issues in the world around us and seek opportunities to be the sort of advocate I was on the playground. It can be so satisfying to swoop in, exert some brief effort, and receive thanks for a job well done. Opportunities of this sort are few and far between, though, and frequently the desire to fit conflicts into this template ends up doing more harm than good.
Good advocacy instead is more complicated. It takes diligent effort. It involves consciously divorcing oneself from the savior complex. A good advocate is firstly an ally, one who recognizes that even well-intentioned attempts to “lead the mission” sap agency from those whose voices are already being marginalized. In the second example above, I noticed a subtle but common example of sexism that I did not want to let slide. I purposefully waited a moment before pointing out the injustice in what had occurred, though. While the presenter was under no obligation to speak up, it was her place to well before it was mine. When I did speak, I took care not to strike an indignant tone, not to further derail her presentation. A good advocate plays a support role, always keeping as paramount the safety and comfort of the group or person for whom they are advocating.
A physician needs to be a strong advocate. Doctors are positioned to see the effects of discrimination and inequality, the impacts both mental and physical. With passionate conviction and a calm demeanor, doctors need to leverage their trusted position in society to effect progress. Blowback, both from those you’re advocating to and those you’re advocating for, is a real possibility. This cannot preclude action, though. Instead, informed both by the justice of their cause and an awareness of intersectionality, physicians need to be dedicated, diligent advocates.
5.
Growing up, my parents always taught me to count my blessings. My health, my brains, my family- all were gifts that I should consciously appreciate. Raised on this ethic, I have always enjoyed a bit of pride at the cautious gratitude with which I approached life. My junior year of college, however, I participated in a diversity retreat that brought together students from a variety of different backgrounds and identities. We had candid, probing discussions about how these differences informed or did not inform our day-to-day lives. It was humbling and eye opening to realize on this retreat that I took many facets of my identity completely for granted.
The example was given of walking back to your dorm from the library after a late night of studying, an action I wouldn’t think about twice. Listening to the female-identified participants, though, they discussed how this process would be infused for them with a fear of being alone at night. They’d wait for a friend to walk with, or even call a friend to come escort them. They’d take the time to review what they were wearing. Never mind that it might be the peak of a sweltering summer, many would put on a sweatshirt for fear that someone might take their tank top as an invitation. On the walk itself, I’d probably listen to music. They, instead, would prioritize staying alert, walking in silence and keeping a hand on their phone in case they needed to quickly dial 911. Strangers I wouldn’t even notice, they’d cross to opposite paths to avoid walking near. The omnipresent possibility of violence, sexual or otherwise, guided every decision. Even more heartbreaking, as the women discussed this mindset, rifts appeared within their group. Black women spoke up, describing how layered over all of this was the fear that if something did happen, the color of their skin rendered police more suspicious of their claims and that the justice system had shown itself systematically unconcerned with their community. What for me would be a simple, refreshing walk would for so many people be fraught with stress and reminders that they constituted a vulnerable “other.”
Even more damning, it was argued convincingly that my lack of thought on these matters contributed towards the environment that necessitated this caution. It’s easy for me to recognize that a lack of action is actually a form of action if, for example, you see someone being attacked on the street and do nothing. It’s somewhat harder to conceptualize that crossing the street to avoid a black man when you wouldn’t if he were white, or standing by as a sexist joke is told both similarly perpetuate a culture of inequality. Change happens on both the macro and the micro level, and we all shoulder individual responsibilities to do better.
Since that retreat, I struggle daily with my actions and inactions, with what constitutes justice and what qualifies as reasonable, and with what the appropriate course of action is when those two boxes don’t seem to overlap. These are extremely complicated issues demanding introspection, conversation, and respect. I’m grateful now to be actively grappling with them, to have been made better aware of these facts and more sensitive to the experiences of those unlike myself. Especially looking towards medicine, I know that an appreciation for those experiences will help me to better understand patients and to create a genuinely safe environment for them. As both a person and a future physician, I’m much better for this humbling experience.
6.
My sophomore year of college, after much inner turmoil, I came to terms with my homosexuality. Looking back now, almost more important than the revelation itself was that I decided to tell people individually. I ended up having more than fifty of these one-on-ones. I did a lot of rambling, apologizing, and crying. Surprisingly, as I finished talking, my friends would often open up back to me. Emboldened by my vulnerability, they shared so much that I would never have guessed: struggles with mental health, inner conflicts about sexuality and identity, tales of abuse and financial issues. The talks became reciprocal. Sitting with each friend, we’d counsel and commiserate over the intractable contradictions of the human experience.
In my memory, this period stands as one of my life’s most meaningful not primarily because I came out, but because I learned to use my own pain and fear to connect with others. When asked about the qualities I will bring to medicine, my mind thus jumps first to something fundamental: when it comes to the struggles of others, I am interested and I care. Even when listening to people who are dissimilar to myself, or whose issues are dissimilar to my own, I feel a sense of kinship that makes me want to give comfort and assistance. As a sincere person myself, I am solicitous of and sensitive towards sincerity in others. This means that I listen patiently and attentively, providing advice or a receptive ear without judgment. I simply am grateful when people involve me in significant or emotional facets of their life, a feeling that will make me a conscientious and eager physician.
Beyond that, I bring a number of other useful characteristics. For one, I am jocular and personable. Upon graduating middle school, I won the superlative “Most Friendly.” When I graduated high school, I won “Most Likely to be Remembered” despite only having moved to the district my junior year. In my role as a research assistant at MSK, I enter patient rooms with a genial smile. As discussions go on, I respectfully ask patients where they are from or how their commute was, innocuous openers that help me to gauge the appropriate level of friendliness to strike. Whether interacting with patients or collaborating with clinicians, I am naturally a convivial presence, and I anticipate this quality serving me well as a physician.
Another important trait I bring is a hard-nosed work ethic. Balancing a demanding course load with research for virtually my entire tenure at Duke required that I be disciplined and methodical in my studies. During my second summer of research at the Icahn School of Medicine, I would come in some nights at midnight to hit time points for my experiments, and at Memorial Sloan Kettering I work overtime more days than not. I take pride in my work and recognize that time and focus are often required to do a job right. In medicine, I know that strenuous hours will be asked of me and I am not cowed by that prospect.
It’s difficult to pull together all the traits that I believe would make me an excellent physician. I hope my grades and scores indicate that I am intelligent, that my research experiences show me to be committed and flexible, and that my letters of recommendation speak to my being personable and competent. Above all, though, I want to stress my passion and humanism as the fundamental characteristics which will focus these other traits towards making me an exceptional physician.
7.
There has been tension in my household ever since my brother hit puberty. An anxious child, I’ve always given him credit for becoming an opinionated and outspoken young man. Talking to him about it in years since, he says he recognized that he was scared and unhappy and so he deliberately cultivated changes in his habits and outlook. Unfortunately, his empowerment led to a protracted conflict between him and my father. Perhaps informed by his own success in self-transformation, my brother always felt strongly that my Dad did not do enough for his health. My dad protested that the pills he was put on following his stroke left him exhausted, but my brother interpreted these explanations as excuses and a lack of resolve. Over the years, they would butt heads with increasing vitriol and frustration.
Faced with this dynamic, I viewed my role as peacekeeper. Where my brother was combative, I was nurturing. I spent many protracted conversations trying to get them each to see things from the other’s perspective. I started many a rationale with the acknowledgment that they each had a point. For a long time, I succeeded in tamping down overt hostilities, and I felt sensitive and rational as a result.
In May of this year, as I was preparing my medical school application, my family received a nasty shock. I was at work when I got a call from my brother, whose voice quavered as he informed me that Dad had dropped Mom off at work that morning and gotten lost on the way home. After driving about confusedly, he had called my brother, who had to Uber over and drive him home. Three weeks later, an MRI revealed that my father’s brain had shrunk. Years of high blood pressure had slowly starved neurons of oxygen, and he was in the early stages of vascular dementia.
Immediately, I recontextualized years of skillful diplomacy as shortsighted. I had addressed the more superficial issue of their relationship while ignoring the fundamental one of Dad’s health. My brother had been right; we should have been doing more for our father's health. Efforts to be impartial in the disputes between my father and brother had skewed my viewpoint, blinding me to the full logic of his arguments. I felt, and still feel, guilty.
This failure has taught me (and is teaching me) some important lessons. I see that, especially around loved ones, the best intentions can warp one’s perspective. Because I focused so much on finding the middle ground, I did not push my father to exercise his body and mind with an urgency that was obviously needed in retrospect. Now, I am untraining myself of a habit of defaulting to the middle ground and am pushing myself to be more decisive. Arguments are not just opportunities to negotiate détentes, but instead require me to impartially examine facts and objectively make decisions as to how best to move forward.
My home life remains a difficult situation to navigate. I am wary of seeking middle grounds going forward, but there are bridges that still need building. My brother feels righteous, my father feels isolated and babied. With my father, I have become gently but persistently forceful, urging him to establish healthy routines and holding him accountable when he fails to stick to them. With my brother, I acknowledge his insight but encourage him to speak from a place of love instead of condescension. My challenge going forward is to marry my conciliatory nature to a fearlessness and firmness in pushing for what I judge to be the objective right.
8.
Research has prepared me for medicine by teaching me that persistence is the only sure means of achieving success. It is the rarest of experiments that proceeds smoothly right from the start. My first summer at Mount Sinai, I spent the majority of my time troubleshooting my cDNA library preparation technique. For my senior thesis, I ended up completely throwing away the initial cross-linking experiment that I had planned. Research trains you to be resilient. In medical school, resilience is needed to surmount exhaustion and information overload. As a physician, a well of doggedness is used to advocate for patients and communities.
Research has prepared me for medicine by teaching me to constantly search for opportunities to improve. As a researcher, you are trained to constantly be questioning. It’s not just about coming up with hypotheses, but about evaluating risk vs reward and continually updating that calculus. Is this a worthwhile subject and a plausible hypothesis? Do I have the resources to explore it, and can I answer this same question somehow by spending less time or money? I acted on this impulse in utilizing MSK’s bioinformatics capacity to make screening for our registry study more expansive and efficient. As a doctor, you have to handle analogous calculations. Am I pursuing the best course for my patient? Are there new options or is there new information for me to consider? Am I weighing appropriately the time, expense, and hardship that the patient and I are each putting in? In research and in medicine, resources are finite, and you need to be savvy about this reality to navigate to the best possible outcome.
Research has prepared me for medicine by giving me a healthy skepticism. Even as we should constantly be looking to innovate and improve, we have to be deliberate about accepting new claims and integrating new practices. Sensationalist claims need to be interrogated. It’s not enough to skim the abstract or even the results section of a paper. Pay attention to sample sizes and p-values- the methods matter! This is true generally, but especially in medicine, where lives are literally on the line.
Research has prepared me for medicine by teaching me to collaborate. It’s possible sometimes to go it alone, but why would you? In research as in medicine, you have available to you a wealth of colleagues and mentors who can give you advice as to how they have handled the challenges you are facing. When I was struggling to get results for my thesis, for example, it was my mentor who helped me plan the alternate method that yielded data. More than that, collaborating is one of the joys of each field. The medical and research communities are both scholarly in nature, filled with passionate and creative individuals eager to help one another.
I have done research in a variety of contexts for years now. In Dr. McCafferty’s lab, I studied an epigenetic enzyme implicated in multiple disease states. During two summers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, I studied genes involved in the innate immune response. As a clinical research assistant, I am working on multiple projects centered around the treatment and characterization of colorectal cancers. All of my research has been done with an eye towards the eventual human benefit that would come from my work, and these experiences have given me the perspective to be a leader in the medical field. Indeed, just as my medical aspirations have informed my research, my research experience will inform my medical care.