Sister Act - Harvard - Free example medical personal statement
Hometown: Torrance, California, USA
Undergraduate School: Private, Columbia University in the City of New York
Major: Biological Sciences / Art History
GPA: 3.8 out of 4.0
MCAT: 34. PS: 11, V: 11, BS: 12.
Free example medical personal statement
My interaction with “ Sister” one afternoon in summer 2012 at Terence Cardinal Cooke (TCC), a 600+ bed skilled nursing facility, imparted me with the gravity of palliative care at the end of life. Sister was a Catholic nun who had served abroad, had a sharp sense of humor, and loved Diet Coke. As for most of our medically complex and disenfranchised long-term residents, TCC would most likely be Sister’s last home. I knew from talk of “Sister’s decline” that she was imminently dying from cancer. One afternoon, I discovered mail at a nurses’ station addressed to Sister. When I saw that it was two months overdue, I told the nurse that I would deliver her envelope.
I arrived to find Sister in bed, thin and frail. Her nun’s black habit sat awkwardly upon her bare head. Sister could no longer speak. I called her name and she slowly turned her piercing blue eyes to me. I showed her the envelope and moved it into her hand, asking if she wanted me to open it. Her look told me, “Yes.” I showed her the enclosed greeting card and $5 bill. I read it aloud: “Dear Sister, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Here’s $5 to buy a Diet Coke.” Sister did not move but she managed a small grin. I took her hand in mine and she held it with strength and warmth that defied her frail condition as she closed her eyes. Sister passed peacefully in her room the next week.
The thought that Sister might not have received her envelope before she passed tortured me and fueled my commitment to improve palliative care at facilities like our nursing home, where resources are stretched thin by falling reimbursement rates and other difficulties of our healthcare system. I see that the physicians and nurses are so overworked that they prescribe medication and monitor vital signs without always stopping to deliver mail to those dying in our midst. Dr. Anthony Lechich, our facility’s Medical Director and my mentor, has always challenged me with this question: “How can doctors sufficiently address a patient’s spiritual and existential pain in addition to the body’s ills at the end of life?” Not yet a doctor, I searched for a practical and meaningful solution to help TCC fill unintentional gaps in palliative care.
My solution was to found the “At Your Service” volunteer program in my senior year. During its first year, thirty Columbia University undergraduate volunteers performed four hours of service each week in the realm of palliative care. They assisted in responding to call bells and keeping patient morale high on the units and during recreational therapy events. Each volunteer also spent two hours each week building a lasting companionship with a long-term resident with few family or friends. To date, my volunteers have read aloud “Sherlock Holmes” and “On the Road,” played guitar, and shared conversations on politics and religion with their companions. Some accompanied their long-term resident until the resident’s death. I am working during my gap year to solidify, improve, and expand on the program’s first successful year.
At this time I can only hold Sister’s hand and recruit student volunteers to accompany other dying patients but I hope to improve delivery of palliative care as a physician in the future. The physician plays a crucial role in making difficult decisions for their dying patients that can be, as Dr. Lechich describes, “literally life or death.” Patients and/or their surrogate decision-makers base their end-of-life treatment decisions on the doctor’s prognosis, which is more uncertain at the end of life than in earlier stages. Dr. Lechich has shared with me his frustration at how often physicians do not deliver a terminal prognosis in the delicate manner that lets the patient and their loved ones understand its uncertainty. Having shadowed such conversations at TCC, I have witnessed how a single conversation about prognosis and advance directives can make or break the trust between doctor and patient that is absolutely essential for effective palliative care and medically appropriate end-of-life treatment. In addition, only their physician can determine if a patient has “capacity to make his or her own medical decisions.” Whether or not a patient has “capacity” may control their autonomy in how they die, especially when earlier efforts fail to secure those decisions for end-of-life treatment that will best respect a patient’s own wishes. As is often the case at TCC, two concurring physicians share the responsibility of enacting advance directives for a patient without surrogate decision-makers when that patient loses “capacity.” To do what is right by a patient at the end of life, a physician must master what my mentor calls the “art forms” of determining “capacity” and delivering prognosis. My time at TCC has shown me the increasingly urgent need for physicians to master the intersection of bioethics, medicine, and compassion necessary for attending to a dying patient. This need drives me to attend medical school.
I feel a powerful calling towards the unique ethical duties and decisions of the medical profession. For Sister and other patients dying in hospitals and nursing homes, and for all patients throughout their lives, I aspire to dutifully perform the physician’s crucial role in preserving human dignity.
Analysis
Ashley begins her essay with a deeply emotional and powerful encounter with Sister that enables her to recognize the troubling reality of palliative care. The encounter was a transformative experience for her, and she successfully conveys the frustration and profound internal strife it instilled in her. From there, she brings readers through her thought process as she ponders how she can leverage change and find a way to practically fill the gaps in care within her nursing home. Right off the bat, she demonstrates to be someone who is critical, aware, and willing to take initiative. She further impresses the reader as she describes her active pursuit to influence change in the nursing home by creating a volunteer organization that supports TCC doctors in filling these gaps. She provides readers with strong insights into her commitment to improving palliative care and her action-oriented nature.
Her final two paragraphs reaffirm her passion for palliative care as she expresses the responsibility doctors hold when engaging with dying patients. She demonstrates her careful and nuanced understanding of the complexities that must be considered in every interaction and then compellingly states exactly what she hopes to gain from medical school. Finally, she leaves readers with a powerful declaration as she asserts, “I aspire to dutifully perform the physician’s crucial role in preserving human dignity,” validating her as a promising candidate.
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