Are abbreviations in a medicine personal statement acceptable?

As the title says are abbreviations in a medicine personal statement acceptable?

As a graduate with lots of different experiences it is hard to fit everything you want to say into 4000 characters/ 47 lines.

Are common medical abbreviations acceptable or lazy? For example:

50yo = fifty years old
AKA =Above-knee amputation
HCA = Healthcare Assistant
ECG = Electrocardiogram
CHD = Coronary Heart disease
IBS = Irritable Bowel Syndrome

All opinions welcome!

Reply 1

Democracy

20

Original post by AnatomyGrad

As the title says are abbreviations in a medicine personal statement acceptable?

As a graduate with lots of different experiences it is hard to fit everything you want to say into 4000 characters/ 47 lines.

Are common medical abbreviations acceptable or lazy? For example:

50yo = fifty years old
AKA =Above-knee amputation
HCA = Healthcare Assistant
ECG = Electrocardiogram
CHD = Coronary Heart disease
IBS = Irritable Bowel Syndrome

All opinions welcome!

As a general rule, no, not unless they're obvious even to a layperson e.g. GP or A&E. Even then you should try not to, if you can avoid it.

If you're finding yourself including acronyms like CHD etc you're being overly technical and you'll almost certainly run out of space. Your PS doesn't need to include the patient's age or describe procedures and conditions that you've seen - it should be about why you want to do medicine and the process that made you arrive at that decision. The fact that the patient was 50 doesn't really have anything to do with that.

Here are some examples:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/content.php?r=15895-medicine-personal-statements

Reply 2

Ghotay

13

Of the examples you gave, I would say that ECG would definitely be ok, and HCA and IBS might be ok, though I would try not to use them.

I agree with Democracy though, you shouldn't be including any of this technical stuff. Remember you will be competing against people who have never worked in a medical environment, so while you should use those experiences if you have them, the goal of the PS is NOT to show off how much medicine you've seen, nor to present histories or explain pathologies. You want to draw on these experiences to show reflection, an understanding of the job, a suitability for it, and an interest in it

Reply 3

Ienjoylife

2

I would say those are okay because they are commonly used:
ECG = Electrocardiogram
CHD = Coronary Heart disease
IBS = Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The others are more internal jargon.

Reply 4

Helenia

20

CHD can also stand for congenital heart disease, plus I'd usually use IHD (ischaemic) instead of coronary so even though it's commonly used there can still be misunderstandings.

Reply 5

AnatomyGrad

OP

Thank you for all your help, I will try and be more concise, reflective and demonstrate my suitability for the course.

Also are any of the personal statement examples on the student room link you posted green level standard? :'(

Reply 6

Beska

21

Original post by AnatomyGrad

Thank you for all your help, I will try and be more concise, reflective and demonstrate my suitability for the course.

Also are any of the personal statement examples on the student room link you posted green level standard? :'(

Yes, here: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Category:Green_Quality_Personal_Statements

Don't get too hung up on it. When we went through and started to mark them all a few years ago we were quite harsh, so the vast majority of statements are in the yellow category. There's also a very large number that aren't marked. The only thing to pay attention to really is the red category - they are statements that aren't too good.

Are abbreviations in a medicine personal statement acceptable?

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