medicine personal statement

My format is as follows:

1) Introduction and motivation for medicine (58 words). Should I worry about sounding cliche?

2) Work experience - I talk about what I saw in the hospital, but mainly reflected on what it taught me (ie, the personal/professional qualities a doctor must have). (172 words)

3) Community service - two main voluntary experiences where I reflect on how they made me more compassionate and how I can apply this to treating patients. Also one sentence on gap year plans. (135 words)

4) School activities - how these gave me useful transferable skills that have better prepared me for the field. (121 words)

5) My hobbies and how these help me cope with stress. (65 words).

6) A conclusion restating my motivation with reference to my experiences. (55 words)

This gives me a total of 606 words, whereby I've used 3,921 characters on word (which is probably 3,931 characters on UCAS). I have room to add a bit more so should I add to one of these? Can other people also share their structures so I know I'm on the right track? My school has no support system for personal statements.

My format is as follows:

1) Introduction and motivation for medicine (58 words). Should I worry about sounding cliche?

2) Work experience - I talk about what I saw in the hospital, but mainly reflected on what it taught me (ie, the personal/professional qualities a doctor must have). (172 words)

3) Community service - two main voluntary experiences where I reflect on how they made me more compassionate and how I can apply this to treating patients. Also one sentence on gap year plans. (135 words)

4) School activities - how these gave me useful transferable skills that have better prepared me for the field. (121 words)

5) My hobbies and how these help me cope with stress. (65 words).

6) A conclusion restating my motivation with reference to my experiences. (55 words)

This gives me a total of 606 words, whereby I've used 3,921 characters on word (which is probably 3,931 characters on UCAS). I have room to add a bit more so should I add to one of these? Can other people also share their structures so I know I'm on the right track? My school has no support system for personal statements.

sounds similar to mine

Okay. Well that's good. This whole process is really stressing me out.

yeah me too where you thinking of applying?

My format is as follows:

1) Introduction and motivation for medicine (58 words). Should I worry about sounding cliche?

2) Work experience - I talk about what I saw in the hospital, but mainly reflected on what it taught me (ie, the personal/professional qualities a doctor must have). (172 words)

3) Community service - two main voluntary experiences where I reflect on how they made me more compassionate and how I can apply this to treating patients. Also one sentence on gap year plans. (135 words)

4) School activities - how these gave me useful transferable skills that have better prepared me for the field. (121 words)

5) My hobbies and how these help me cope with stress. (65 words).

6) A conclusion restating my motivation with reference to my experiences. (55 words)

This gives me a total of 606 words, whereby I've used 3,921 characters on word (which is probably 3,931 characters on UCAS). I have room to add a bit more so should I add to one of these? Can other people also share their structures so I know I'm on the right track? My school has no support system for personal statements.

1) Nice and short. Good! Yes worry about cliches but remember that they are cliched for a reason. Avoid water/fire metaphors, any "desire" or "passion" and be careful how you use personal stories. They can work well but talking about parents as doctors or family bereavements can quickly sound like you're trying to score points.

2) GOOD. One thing is to avoid saying "and this is a skill vital to a doctor" etc. They realise this as you're writing it in your statement Make sure you've covered things like teamwork, or patient centred approaches or holistic care. Something that shows you have an idea of modern practice Reflection is perfect

3) Good! One thing people do a lot is overstate what they learnt. If you overplay how much compassion you learnt it suggests you didn't have any to start. Make sure it's realistic. But sounds really good.

4) Good.

5) Good!

6) Good! Make sure this is selling you, rather that reinforcing that you want to do it. It should be reminding them why you're awesome.

Obviously without reading it its really hard to give you any really personalised advice but it looks like you're on the right track. Great structure and what you're talking about is great

N

Hi!

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback

1) I haven't used any personal stories. I'm just trying to be direct and plainly state my motivation. I avoided using stuff like "from a young age" or "for as long as I can remember" like the plague. The water fire words are also not used here. Am I at a disadvantage if I don't have a personal stories? I mean some people just don't...

2) I actually did do something similar to "and this is a vital skill for a doctor" because isn't that showing that I have an awareness of what I require in the future? If I can remove those words maybe I could mention something along the lines of an ever evolving field? This section is mainly anecdotal as well rather than impersonal. I feel that's a better way to make this statement more "personal."

6) I need to make the conclusion "pop" without sounding cliche. Right now I have two statements, neither boring nor amazing. I don't want to sound too overconfident here because that could undo my whole statement... But I don't want to be boring either.

Thank you so much for the input though!