PA school

[poky]

I don't have any anecdotes or stories. My story is so grossly intertwined with his story, I can barely separate myself.

I don't even know if I have what it takes to get in, and I really doubt my ability to finish, so I don't know. The truth is, I don't know what I want for sure. Well, I do, but I can't have that.

How can I talk about myself when I think I'm worthless, lazy, tactless, and negative? Hi, I have no friends in my real life cause people don't want to be around me, so I'd make an excellent PA?

I need to step away for a bit. This is too hard. I'm supposed to talk about me, but this is me. I'm nothing. I've lived my whole life for my husband and my kids. I'm just empty.

I get it, I do. I *hatehatehate* trying to talk myself up. HATE it.

FWIW, none of that self-doubt comes through in the essay, and it's very clear you really want to be a PA. As I said, I LOVE that last paragraph. You *do* know your stuff, and you *can* do this. I wish I had some advice for you for what to add to fill it out.

[Sheherezade]

I think I'd add in the benefits of being an older student. You already KNOW how to work, how to prioritize and manage your time. You are intimately familiar with the demands of medicine and discovering how hard it can be will not change your mind. As an office manager you know what YOU would want in a PA, and you will be that ideal PA when you are done training. You could also talk about the expanding need for physician extenders in the new world of health care and how much a practice relies on a PA --- this would be off the topic of you and might stroke the program's ego a bit.

There's no shortage of things you can add in if you'd like. I think you have covered a bit of the "why I'm better than your typical student" stuff, but I think you could make it stronger. You ARE better, Heidi. A kid going in to a program has a lot of bumps in the road to hit that you will not encounter.

[BonBon]

Heidi, your self-image is so distorted. I wish you could see yourself as we all do. You are so kindhearted, compassionate, helpful...you will bend over backwards to do nice things for people. Smart as a whip to boot.

I like Angie's suggestions about selling yourself with the advantages of being an older student. They are many! I've found in my own studies that the old people like us don't dick around and have a laser-like focus. You have to, really.

You've GOT this.

[PrincessFiona]

I'm not amazing. I'm not cut out for talking about myself. I hate myself. The two essays barely differ. Only one paragraph is changed, and that's cause I hadn't written it yet.

I don't know how to do this.

What? Well that just makes me mad! How dare you talk so badly about someone I care about so much!!!!

I think, Heidi, that those of us who struggle with depression and low self-esteem sort of have a radar for finding our mistakes/weaknesses to sort of prove to ourselves that we aren't worthwhile. We tend to overlook our accomplishments and strengths and readily see the negative. I hope you'll take some time to expand your own narrative about your life and who you are by sorting through the evidence in your life that suggests that you are amazing and worthwhile. I can come up with a multitude of support efforts here that you have spearheaded, your support of Chad, how you help your children ... my list would be long. I think if you sit down and really think about some of the things that you have accomplished through the years, how you supported your husband, raised your children, and provide encouragement and support to iMSN peeps (and have through the years) that you may experience a shift in how you feel about yourself.

Kris

[Cleave]

More suggestions...

Hi –

Here are a handful of thoughts. I haven't read all the PP....Please use what’s helpful…

These are really impressive first drafts – they show a clear commitment to medicine and provide a detailed look at how you got to the place you are now (applying to PA school).

Because you’ve asked for advice, I’m going to provide my suggestions for how this essay could be stronger. Mostly, my suggestions will be about organization, sequence, and proportion. Again, please use what’s helpful and ignore the rest.

I had a fantastic editor tell me once that chronology is often the least interesting way to tell a story. Over the years, I’ve largely found him to be right. More often, the most interesting way to tell a story is to begin with what’s most important and move through points from most important to least. This strikes me as especially important in medicine, where it’s critical that healthcare providers sift through large amounts of information and identify what’s important and what’s noise. If the essay can show your skills at beginning with what’s most important, I think it will effectively show the critical thinking that you are capable of and can bring to a medical practice.

As a reader, I was struck by a couple of things in the essay draft. One, you’ve managed a medical office. Wow. Most people applying to schools don’t have the foggiest idea about the BUSINESS of medicine; they only know the medicine part of medicine. I read you app and thought, man, if she knows the business side and learns the medicine part, she’ll be unstoppable. Not many people have the skills that you do. I’d highlight that – and put it waaaaay up front – maybe the first or second paragraph. It seems that important.

Thinking about proportion – One of the ways a writer tells the audience what’s important is by how much time she spends on a given topic. If I am writing a novel and I spend 4 pages describing a place, the readers are going to think that place is important. Basically, more words spent on a subject = more importance. This draft spends 131 of 634 words – 20 percent of the total – on your illness as an explanation for poor grades one year. Spending so much time on you poor grades signals to your readers that you think this is important. I’d argue that while it is important, it’s not 20 percent of your essay important. I think it’s like 2 percent of your essay important. My suggestion is that that section gets knocked back to a sentence or two, with an emphasis on the present: ‘In my last year of college, I had complications with a pregnancy and endometriosis; my grades suffered. However, as an adult, I have taken XX and YY pre-requisites and have a ZZ GPA in those classes, as well as a ZZZ score on the GRE.’

That’s all I’d suggest saying; otherwise, I think you run of the risk of someone misreading the essay and thinking it sounds defensive or like you’re worried about your grades. Truthfully, as long as you provide a quick and understandable explanation about a grade blip a long time ago, the committee is not going to worried about that blip – they’ll be much more interested in how you’ve done recently. So emphasize how you’ve done recently. That’s mostly what they care about.

In terms of the opening – I think beginning with a play on “physician’s assistant” runs a few risks. While humor/playfulness is too sadly rare in application essays, it’s rare because it’s risky. Someone is likely to misread that and see it as you demeaning yourself and the work you’ve done and then dismiss you (ie ‘if she doesn’t value herself, and her work why should I?’). I don’t read it that way, but I am not on the committee. You have to make the call about whether being playful about “physician assistant” brings enough value to the essay to outweigh the risks of misinterpretation and being seen as demeaning yourself. (The italics and quotation marks usual signal irony – which here would mean ‘I know I’m not a real PA…” which while true, is risky. At the very least, if you decide to keep it, I’d suggest removing the italics and quotation marks to soften the irony and make it more playful.)

One last thought: right now the essay is essentially a process essay: it tells HOW you got from point A to point B. Ideally, a personal statement will be a persuasive essay, explaining WHY the school should effectively hire you. The process (or HOW) details are often important to understanding WHY, but they’re secondary. They should be used as evidence to back up the reasons WHY you’re a great PA candidate and why you’ll be a great PA.

To my mind, after reading your essay, the reasons you’ll be a great PA candidate are: 1. You understand the daily business of medicine and can bring that knowledge to the program, and later to your practice of medicine. 2. To progress in your medical career, you need to become a PA so that you can provide patient care beyond taking blood pressure, etc. PA is the next logical step for you. 3. Now is the right time for you to go to PA school because you’ve put your husband through med school, residency and fellowship and your kids are older now. (With non trad candidates especially, schools love to know ‘why this program and why now?’)

So essentially, all my suggestions are about organization and proportion. If you’ve got any questions (I’m not always as clear as I think I am), feel free to shoot me a line. And good luck and congratulations! How exciting to be moving on to the next step in YOUR medical career. (I also sometimes sound more cheerleader-y than I meant to, but really, this is an exciting thing to do…) Congrats again.

Cleave

[Deebs]

Heidi, I'm sure you're overwhelmed, and I do agree with Angie that you probably need just a couple of people to really help you sort out the nitty gritty. One thing that hurt Howie in his initial medical school application was focusing too much on being a paramedic (because everyone told him he was a shoe-in because he already understood medicine so well). The schools also need to hear how you'll be a great STUDENT. They want to admit people that will do well in their school and make the education they provide look excellent. You need to share that , while you know a ton about different aspects of health care, you need to learn to become a PA and why you'll be successful (and pointing out how much growth you've had and your recent school accomplishments are a great way to do this). I think you do have good bones in what you've already written. It's just going to be a labor of love.

Also, some reasons I think you should be a PA
you enjoy caring for people. Whether it's an offer of hospitality to anyone, or to help a friend when her daughter has to go to the ER (thanks), you are a caretaker.
You also have a great intellectual curiosity. Not all med spouses do help their SO study and get through school, beyond doing laundry and providing food an emotional support.
You WANT to be on the flip side of medicine, and you see an avenue to do that that makes more sense than becoming a physician. You "get" the role of the PA.
You've also been on the "wrong" side of medicine, and have the empathy to understand what might help a patient endure medical care

Most of the other advice you've received is SO much better than mine. Since having kids, I absolutely loathe writing (which is why I write in list format, frequently). I just wanted to give you the perspective of a medical professional, changing professions, going into this process.
I know you don't know you're awesome, but you are.

[Sheherezade]

Hi –

Here are a handful of thoughts. I haven't read all the PP....Please use what’s helpful…

These are really impressive first drafts – they show a clear commitment to .....



... all my suggestions are about organization and proportion. If you’ve got any questions (I’m not always as clear as I think I am), feel free to shoot me a line. And good luck and congratulations! How exciting to be moving on to the next step in YOUR medical career. (I also sometimes sound more cheerleader-y than I meant to, but really, this is an exciting thing to do…) Congrats again.

Cleave

That was a very impressive bit of editing advice there, Cleave. BRAVO. If you aren't doing that professionally, you certainly could at any time. I would have hired you for advice on my kid's college essay in a heartbeat.

[corn poffi]

Agreed! Cleave, you're kind of my new hero!

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

I just want to say that we all love you and I wish you could see you as we do. Since that's really hard, take a look at the number of people lining up to help you.

No one likes talking about themselves but you owe it to yourself, the kids, and Chad to psych yourself up for this one.

You've motivated me too. Once DH is done, I will probably apply. I so desperately wanted to be a doctor but instead I am just paying for M to become one. I'm inspired that you're doing this.

[Cleave]

That was a very impressive bit of editing advice there, Cleave. BRAVO. If you aren't doing that professionally, you certainly could at any time. I would have hired you for advice on my kid's college essay in a heartbeat.

I do it professionally. I have a split life: I am a writer and a writer teacher. I used to teach essay writing at Texas State University and Johns Hopkins University CTYOnline. Moving around for med school and needing to support us meant I left those gigs (loved 'em but needed a higher-paying gig). I had done test prep tutoring for a long time to support myself through grad school (I have an MA and MFA in writing), so, given all my experience in essay writing and knowledge of college applications, I just naturally migrated over to college application essays. I mostly do college, but have done some med and law applications too. It's really really fun for me...I still miss teaching in colleges, but I do love this.

[Sheherezade]

It had that "Move over people - let me show you how this is done" quality to it. Truly stellar advice. Very professional.

[Vanquisher]

Cleave, I'll send you $250 to write my essay. Only kinda, maybe not, kidding.

[Cleave]

I do it professionally. I have a split life: I am a writer and a writer teacher. I used to teach essay writing at Texas State University and Johns Hopkins University CTYOnline. Moving around for med school and needing to support us meant I left those gigs (loved 'em but needed a higher-paying gig). I had done test prep tutoring for a long time to support myself through grad school (I have an MA and MFA in writing), so, given all my experience in essay writing and knowledge of college applications, I just naturally migrated over to college application essays. I mostly do college, but have done some med and law applications too. It's really really fun for me...I still miss teaching in colleges, but I do love this.

And also, despite my detailed, nuanced understanding of English and how to use it, I am a crap typist. Apologies for *all* the typos...

[Cleave]

Nah, you don't want to do that. Then it will sound like me, not you. And your story is only going to be persuasive coming from you.

It take s a LOT of drafts to get this stuff right. You should ask my husband sometime about how I pushed him on his med school application essay. He still winces to recall it (and he's great writer). Residency statements too -- though he got through those a little faster. (Everywhere he went, people were like "Oh my God, your essay was amazing." Then he realized that writing all those drafts and really pushing through mattered. And I did a little mental happy dance and didn't say a word.)

Part of what's hard about this process is that writing personal application statements speaks to deep places within a person -- what they dream about and hope for. It can be helpful to remember that it's essentially a job application, not a referendum on who you are. Thinking about structure and organization can also help take the essay out of the "This is my life and someone will judge it" dark place and bring it back to the everyday, "I know I need this degree for the next step in my career" place in the ordinary daylight.

FYI: Every professional writer I know believes that first drafts are basically vomit on the page. (I myself call first drafts brain dumps.) EVERYONE needs a couple drafts. It's just how the process works. And if you ever get a chance, look at how Ezra Pound edited TS Eliot. Eliot's famous poems -- which went through a ton of drafts -- would have been nowhere without Pound's edits. And Eliot won a Nobel Prize, for heaven's sake. If it's that much work for him, there's no way the rest of us are going to get it right the first or second time.... You are doing everything right. Just keep going, knowing it's a nuisance but worth it. After all, med/PA school is full of hoops to jump through. Might as well start by jumping through this one... Good luck, congratulations, and let me know if I can help at any point along the way.

[Vanquisher]

Son of a bitch! I don't have enough time OR therapy appointments. Sigh.

Caspa opens Wednesday.