family medicine residency personal statement examples

Family Medicine Residency Personal Statement Examples

It is a good idea to review family medicine residency personal statement examples as you  prepare for residency applications. Whether you are applying through  ERAS  (in the United States) or  CaRMS  (in Canada), your residency personal statement is one of the most important application components that you will need to submit. Residency program directors and admission committees want to get a sense of who you are as a person, the kind of  resident doctor  you can be, and why you have chosen your medical specialty. This is the information that they'll be hoping to get from your personal statement.

It should also be noted that even though family medicine is one of the least competitive medical specialties, all the best family medicine residency programs are relatively competitive. This means that you need to provide that information in a memorable way so that your personal statement stands out from the large pool of applicants.

In this blog, we share three outstanding family medicine residency personal statement examples  that will give you a better idea of what to include in your own statement. We also share some tips to help you write a strong personal statement for your  family medicine residency  application. 

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Article Contents 12 min read

Family medicine residency personal statement example #1.

Dr. Jamie Clark was in the room on the day I was born. He was also there the first time I broke my leg jumping off the jungle gym, the first time I had to get stitches after I fell off my bike, on the day that I became an older sister, and on the day of my high school graduation when I twisted my ankle at the graduation party. Like many others in my hometown, my parents have built a long-lasting and trusting relationship with this person. To the extent that Dr. Jamie Clark feels like a member of my family, but he is really just our family physician. 

Most children hated going to the hospital, but I always enjoyed it. Partly because Dr. Clark always found a way to make it fun for me by joking the whole time and giving me lollipops even when I was a teenager, but also because I was always so fascinated by what he did even if I didn't understand it fully. I just knew that people always left his clinic feeling much better than when they came in. I also noticed that his waiting room was always full of different people of all age groups, and he seemed to know each of them personally. I would watch him talk to them at the hospital and even outside in social settings; people always seemed to seek him for advice, and they always appeared more at ease after talking to him. As someone who enjoys talking to people, hearing their stories, and connecting with them, that really appealed to me. 

It wasn't until later in high school that I started to understand what it truly meant to be a doctor, and I became interested in medicine. The more I learned about human anatomy, the more questions I had. One of my biology teachers advised me that if I really wanted to understand the systems of the human body, I should consider going to medical school. His statement stayed with me, and I started wondering if a career in medicine would be suitable for me. 

After high school, I took a gap year and spent six months of it shadowing Dr. Clark. During this time, I learned that family physicians are among the few specialists qualified to provide comprehensive health care for people of all ages, from newborns to seniors. As a family doctor, Dr. Clark got to work on a variety of different cases on a daily basis. On any given day, he could go from doing an echography for a pregnant woman to helping a child with a broken bone and then walking a cancer patient through the radiation therapy that they would be receiving over the next few months. 

On the day of my high school graduation, one of my teachers told me that three qualities produce great doctors: leadership, dedication, and compassion. 

I realized the importance of leadership and commitment as I led my high school varsity soccer team and participated in various other sports activities in college. I then used the leadership skills that I was developing to create a community outreach program. I coordinated with some members of my college student union to assist multiple homeless shelters in Township. We coordinated drives to the shelters once a month, and once every six months, one of the physicians and the local hospital would come along to provide check-ups, medical advice, and supplies. 

One particular man at one of the shelters always complained about having blisters on his feet. I had spoken to him on several occasions, and during one of our interactions, he mentioned that he had diabetes. Remembering what I was learning in school about the disease, I asked one of the doctors to speak with him during the next drive. I later found out that the man in question had to get an amputation of the foot due to diabetes complications. This experience taught me the importance of active listening and preventive care, which solidified my interest in a career in medicine. 

Upon graduation, I wanted to work to help people in remote communities, so I joined a public health service program and spent almost a year working as an assistant coordinator with a team of physicians who travel to underserviced communities to provide medical care. We saw an average of forty patients every day, and I was exposed to a broad range of pathologies. I learned so much about the wide range of diagnostic tools and treatment options physicians use daily. 

This experience helped me understand how valuable access to a primary care physician is, and it motivated me in a new way. The physicians with whom I had worked inspired me. Their patience and dedication to their patients filled me with admiration, and they taught me the particular importance of interpersonal skills and doctor-patient interaction. The patients that we had seen helped me improve my active listening skills and taught me that is important to build trust with your patients.

I started medical school with that motivation, and I remain focused on achieving my goal of becoming a family physician. I am especially interested in practicing in rural communities as I have seen first-hand how the lack of access to primary care has affected these underserved populations. As a family physician, you not only have the ability to help those who have been affected by illness, but also provide others with the information and treatment that they need to avoid preventable conditions or complications from manageable diseases. I believe that as a physician who is willing and able to help, I should do so while I can. 

Over the years, my experiences have helped me build the leadership skills and sense of compassion that I need to become a good doctor. I am passionate about the field of medicine and dedicated to providing not only adequate but excellent patient care. I am ready to invest my time and energy into my residency to further complete advanced training in family medicine and become the best family practitioner that I can be. 

Family Medicine residency personal statement example #3

I have been practicing medicine for just under ten years as a trained anesthesiologist, but it is time for me to become a family physician. I was always torn between the two specialties, but after gaining experience in both fields over the past few years, I can confidently say that a career in family practice would be better suited for me. 

Family practice is one of the only specialties that exposes physicians to a broad spectrum of pathology, allows me to form deep connections with patients of different ages, and gives them a chance to provide them with continuous care. While I know that family physicians do not get to do this with every patient, I love the idea of caring for patients from birth to death and building long-term friendships with them. All while still using my knowledge of pharmacology, physiology, and microbiology to help patients. 

Three years ago, when I started considering switching to a different specialty, I decided to volunteer at a family clinic in my hometown so that I could get some practical experience. I knew that the experience would either affirm my decision to leave anesthesiology and switch to family practice or convince me that I didn't need a change after all. Even though I was very limited in my duties and only interacted with patients under supervision, every day I spent at the clinic convinced me that family practice was ideal for me. 

I enjoyed speaking with the patients long enough to actually get to know them and make a genuine connection. I appreciated being able to counsel patients and provide preventive care. I especially enjoyed having to investigate and diagnose patients again. Starting with a chief complaint and a few symptoms, then looking back into the patient's history and examining them to come up with a differential diagnosis is like solving a puzzle. Something that I thoroughly enjoy doing in my spare time. 

Now that you know what a great family medicine residency personal statement should be like, let's go over a few things that you can do to improve the quality of your personal statement, and common mistakes to avoid if you want your residency personal statement to stand out.  

1. Do tell a story 

If your personal statement is just a bunch of facts about you put together, it will not be memorable. Remember that family medicine is one of the most popular medical specialties, so you are competing with a large number of qualified applicants. To stand out, you should structure and write your personal statement using a narrative. You want to evoke some sort of emotion from the reader so that they can connect with your story and, therefore, remember it. For example, take a look at the passage below from one of the essays that you read earlier. This student could have just as well said that they pay attention to details and actively listen to patients. Instead, they told a story that shows that they do and that is far more memorable.

One particular man at one of the shelters always complained about having blisters on his feet. I had spoken to him on several occasions, and during one of our interactions, he mentioned that he had diabetes. Remembering what I was learning in school about the disease, I asked one of the doctors to speak with him during the next drive. I later found out that the man in question had to get an amputation of the foot due to diabetes complications. This experience taught me the importance of active listening and preventive care, which solidified my interest in a career in medicine.  ","label":"Example:","title":"Example:"}]" code="tab1" template="BlogArticle">

It is imperative that you follow instructions when you are writing your personal statement. It is actually important to follow them as you prepare and submit all of your application components, such as the  ERAS letters of recommendation , for example. 

Unless your instructions clearly state otherwise, your personal statement should be 650 - 850 words. Students sometimes feel like this is not enough to provide specific information about their background, but it actually is. You want your residency personal statement to be informative but straight to the point. You do not want to bore the reader with additional details that can probably be found in your other application components. 

Remember that you were given instructions for a reason. Following them not only makes a good impression, but keeping your essay concise will actually help you stay on track and focus on providing only key information about your background, skills, and abilities. 

 3. Do start writing early

 Writing a strong personal statement for residency takes time. You need enough time to brainstorm and consult your medical student CV and other records to choose the experiences you learned the most from and want to discuss in your statement. Once you know how you want to structure your essay, you still need to write it, review it for edits, and polish it until it is as compelling as it can be. 

When you are crafting your Eras timeline or CaRMS timeline for Canadian applicants, we recommend that you plan at least six to eight weeks to write and edit your family medicine residency personal statement. 

4. Don't rehash your CV

The residency directors already have your  residency CV , and if you are applying to residency programs in the United States, then they also have your  ERAS experience section . In other words, they do not need an essay detailing your work or research experience. Instead, they want to get additional information about you. 

Focus on sharing what you learned from your different experiences. For example, if you are an International Medical Graduate (IMG), instead of telling the residency directors that you were able to  get electives and clinical experience in the US and Canada as an IMG , pick one of those clinical experiences and tell them what you learned from it and how it prepared you for your family medicine residency in your new country of residence.

Not sure what to include on your residency CV? This video can help:

5. Do proofread (multiple times!)

Once you are done writing and editing your personal statement, you should proofread it for typos and grammatical errors. Then after that, you should do it one more time, just to be sure. You may even want to have someone else take a look at it because fresh eyes can sometimes see things that you can't. 

 Your personal statement is a reflection of you. So, you want to make sure that it shows your ability to communicate effectively and pay attention to the details. If you submit a personal statement full of typos, the residency directors will assume that you either did not care enough to double-check your work or that you did not notice those typos. Either way, it is not a good look, and it could cost you your spot in a residency program. 

6. Do seek help 

You should consider getting help from professionals if you are unsure how to write your personal statement or if you have written one but you are not sure it is up to par.  Residency match services  can review your personal statement and give you personalized feedback that will help you make it more informative and cogent. 

Furthermore, they can also help you with the preparation of other tricky residency application components like a   residency letter of intent , residency CV, and other Supplemental application documents.

Unless the instructions specifically state otherwise, your family medicine residency personal statement should not be longer than 850 words. 

In short: Yes! Your residency personal statement not only humanizes your application, but it gives you a chance to talk to the program directors and tell them why you want to pursue your chosen specialty. A strong personal statement can significantly improve your chances of matching to your dream program. 

You can start writing early, so that you have time to brainstorm thoroughly and write carefully. Using anecdotes and specific examples in your essay is also a great way to stand out while showing the reader why you are the ideal candidate. 

We recommend that you start writing at least six weeks before you have to submit your essay. 

You can discuss red flags only if you haven't already addressed them in a different application component and they are relevant to your statement. If you do address any areas of concern, make sure you take ownership of the problem and explain how you learned and grew from your mistakes.

Family medicine is not one of the most competitive residencies , but you need to remember that all residencies are competitive to an extent so you will still need a strong application that stands out to increase your chances of getting a match. 

Family medicine is definitely an  IMG-friendly residency program , and also one of the most accessible ones when it comes to competition. So if you write a compelling statement and meet the program’s requirements, you have a pretty good chance of getting into a program. 

Absolutely! While they cannot write the essay for you, they can help you brainstorm, provide tips and strategies to help you write, and help you through the editing process to make sure you are writing an outstanding residency personal statement. 

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Impressing: Personal Statement

The best personal statements are memorable. They paint a picture in the mind of the reader and tell a story about who you are, how you got here, and where you want to go. The personal statement is vitally important because it is frequently used to help determine who gets interviewed and ranked. Overarching theme: Look over your CV and think about the experiences before and during medical school that inform what kind of family physicians you will become. Often there is a common thread that holds together even the most disparate of experiences – this common thread is usually one of your core values as a person. Identify this theme and write your personal statement so the reader could easily verbalize this theme in one sentence after reading your statement. Experiences to highlight: Use your experiences to give programs an idea of who you are. Be specific – talking about the aspects of care that you like in Family Medicine is good, but it’s even better when programs can see how your personal experiences reinforce aspects of family medicine that resonate with you as a person. It’s okay to include patient vignettes and talk about your accomplishments, but be sure to relate it back to yourself. How did the experience impact you? What did you learn about yourself? How will the experience make you a better family physician? What about the experience demonstrates your commitment to the discipline of family medicine, your ability to work with others, your ability to work with patients? Choose one experience and tell a story. This is a good way to open your statement, to develop your theme and make it memorable. Commitment to specialty: Talk about why you are choosing family medicine. Programs want to know why your’e attracted to a career in family medicine. What experiences convince you that this is the right field for you? Strengths that you bring: What do you bring to a program? What are you naturally good at? What specific skills do you have that will serve you well in residency? Future plans/what you are looking for in a residency program: At the end of this long road of school and training, what kind of work do you see yourself doing? What types of training do you want during residency to be able to accomplish this goal? Organize your statement: There are many ways to organize your statement to get these points across. One common way of organizing the personal statement is a three paragraph form reminiscent of those essays you had to write in high school. To use this approach the first paragraph tells a story to open the theme, the second paragraph fleshes out other experiences that highlight the them and discuss your commitment to family medicine, and the third paragraph reviews your strengths and future plans/training desires. However, this is a personal statement and you are free to write and organize it as you desire. Do:

• Write in complete sentences.
• Use the active voice.
• Make your writing interesting – use a thesaurus and vary sentence length and structure.
• Have other people read your personal statement and give feedback.
• Give yourself plenty of time to work on your statement and revise it based on feedback.

Don’t:

• Rehash your CV or write an autobiography.
• Use abbreviations – spell things out.
• Violate HIPPA.
• Start every sentence with an “I.”
• Make it longer than one page, single spaced, 12 point font.
• Have spelling or grammatical errors.
• Write a statement that could be used for several different specialties (i.e. one that talks about wanting a primary care career but not specifically family medicine). If you are still deciding on a specialty and applying to different fields, write two different statements.

Writing a Personal Statement for Residency Application

Personal statements are an essential, required part of applying to residency. Residency programs screen thousands of applications every cycle and read many hundreds of these statements in the process. You should aim to write an interesting statement that showcases your personality as well as your achievements. Perhaps most importantly, you will need to skillfully articulate the reasons for your interest in family medicine and the particular program you're applying to.

How to Write a Great Personal Statement

A great personal statement sets itself apart from a good personal statement in several ways.

• First, it includes a level of specificity that shows your motivations and interests are authentic. For example, when conveying why you want to match into family medicine, show awareness of the exciting developments in the specialty, or describe your experience with or knowledge of topics like population health management, care coordination, and the social determinants of health.
• Feel free to highlight items in your CV if they help remind your reader of the experiences you’ve had that prepared you for the position. This is your opportunity to expand upon activities that are just listed in the CV but deserve to be described so your reader can appreciate the breadth and depth of your involvement in them. It should not be another comprehensive list of your activities, but rather should refer to activities that are listed in detail on the CV.
• The personal statement is also an appropriate place to address anything that may be ambiguous on your CV. In particular, you should address any nontraditional path you’ve taken through medical school, such as time off or an altered curricular journey. It is better to address these than to leave a program wondering. If you write about academic or personal challenges that you faced during medical school, make a positive impression by focusing on what you've learned from those experiences and how they brought you to where you are now. 

You may choose to relate significant personal experiences, but do so only if they are relevant to your candidacy for the position.

Sharpen Your Writing Skills 

The importance of good writing in a personal statement cannot be overemphasized. Unfortunately, not only are good writing skills allowed to deteriorate during medical school, but in some sense, they also are deliberately undermined in the interest of learning to write concise histories and physicals. For the moment, forget everything you know about writing histories and physicals. While preparing your personal statement:

• Avoid abbreviations.
• Avoid repetitive sentence structure.
• Avoid using jargon. If there is a shorter, simpler, less pretentious way of putting it, use it.
• Don't assume your reader knows the acronyms you use. As a courtesy, spell everything out.
• Use a dictionary and spell check. 
• Use a thesaurus. Variety in the written language can add interest, but don't get carried away.
• Write in complete sentences.

If you need a crash course in good writing, read  The Elements of Style ,  Fourth Edition  by Strunk and White. If you have friends or relatives with writing or editing skills, enlist their help. Student organizations at your school may host personal statement clinics, or your school may offer review services. Many student, medical, and specialty societies, local and national, may offer personal statement reviews or workshops.

Even if you're a great writer and feel confident about your application, you should ask trusted advisors, mentors, and friends to critique your personal statement (and your CV! ). They can help you make your statement as flawless as possible by giving you feedback about areas that might have been unclear or things that should be added.

Don't cross the line

Your personal statement should remain an original composition, even as you seek input and advice. Retain your voice as you refine your writing and don't ever plagiarize. Be aware of other ethical lines you shouldn't cross as well, for example, don't use vague references that would allow for the reader to misinterpret the nature of your experience, and don't take full credit for a project if others worked on it with you.

Copyright © 2024 American Academy of Family Physicians. All Rights Reserved.

The Residency Personal Statement (2023/2024): The Insider’s Guide (with Examples)

A physician and former residency program director explains how to write your residency personal statement to match in to your top-choice residency program in 2024.

Read example residency personal statements and suggested outlines..

Introduction

The residency personal statement allows residency program directors and associate directors the chance to get a sense of who you are and your commitment to your chosen specialty. 

As a former program director who understands how residency personal statements are reviewed, what “stands out,” and, most importantly, what will earn you interview invitations, the information below will help you write a residency personal statement to match!

It is imperative to make sure you get the most accurate guidance possible with regards to your residency personal statement content and optimal residency personal statement length (up to 5300 characters with spaces).

Want more personalized suggestions? Sign up for a FREE residency personal statement consultation .

Table of Contents

Goals for Writing Your 2024 Residency Personal Statement

Above all else, your residency personal statement offers the opportunity to show your interest in your chosen specialty when applying to residency to illustrate you are a good fit.

The more details you offer about why you are interested in the specialty and how your med school rotations, accomplishments and experiences have reinforced this interest, the stronger your personal statement will be, the more it will appeal to selection committees and the better you will do in the match process .

I encourage applicants to offer as much “evidence” as possible to “show” rather than “tell” what qualities, characteristics and interests they have. “Telling” a reader, for example, that you are compassionate and hard working means nothing. Instead, you must “show” that you embody these qualities based on your experiences in health care and the patients for whom you have cared.

The residency personal statement also offers the opportunity to write about who you are as a person to convey some details about your background, influences, and interests outside of your given specialty.

The Importance of a Balanced Residency Personal Statement

The key when writing your residency personal statement is to ensure that it is well-balanced so it appeals to a large group of people who might read your ERAS residency application.

However, it is important to understand that every program director and faculty member has his or her own idea of what he would like to read in a personal statement. As an applicant, you must go into this process understanding that you cannot please everyone, or a specific program, and your personal statement should therefore have the broadest appeal possible.

For example, some program directors would rather hear about your personal interests and curiosities and get to know who you are rather than have you focus on the specialty in which you are interested.

At MedEdits, we suggest taking a “middle of the road” approach; include some details about who you are but also focus on the specialty itself. In this way, you will make more traditional reviewers who want to hear about your interest in the specialty happy while also satisfying those who would rather learn about you as a person.

Above all, be authentic and true to yourself when writing your statement. This always leads to the best results! Read on to learn more about how to write a winning personal statement.

About MedEdits

Getting into a residency has never been more competitive. Founded by a former associate program director, the experts at MedEdits will make your residency personal statement shine. We’ve worked with more than 5,000 students and 94% have been matched to one of their top-choice programs.

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Residency Personal Statement Outline & Structure

Residency applicants often do well when given outlines or templates to follow, so, we will offer that, but, it is important to realize that many applicants deviate from these rigid rules. One very typical outline that serves applicants quite well in the residency admissions process is:

• Compose a catchy introduction. Your intro can be related to your interest in the specialty to which you are applying, about a hobby or personal experience, or about your background. Regardless of the topic you choose, you want to tell a story and start with something that will interest your reader and engage him.
• The next two to four paragraphs comprise the body of your personal statement. We encourage applicants to write about any significant experiences they have had related to their desired specialty and/or future goals. This would include information about rotations, electives, and sub internships related to the specialty, volunteer and research experiences and even significant outside interests.
• Finally, you want to conclude your essay. In your conclusion, write about what you seek in a residency program, what you will bring to a residency program, and, if you have any idea of your future career goals, write about those as well. Your conclusion is also where you can tailor a personal statement to a specific geographic area of interest or type of program (rural, urban, community).

Residency Personal Statement Length & Residency Personal Statement Word Limit

Residency Personal Statement Length: Our recommendation is that your residency personal statement be between 4000 – 5300 characters with spaces or up to 900 words in length. 

The allowed ERAS residency personal statement length is 28,000 characters which equates to about five pages!

We have been hearing from more and more applicants that the personal statement should not exceed one page when typed in to the ERAS application . Because of this overwhelming trend, we are supporting this guidance unless you have extenuating circumstances that require your personal statement be longer.

Our recommendation is that your residency personal statement be a maximum of 5300 characters with spaces.

ERAS Residency Personal Statement Checklist

• Ensure your personal statement flows well

The best personal statements are easy to read, don’t make the reader think too much, and make your path and interests seem logical. Rarely does a personal statement have a theme. Also try to have each paragraph transition to the next seamlessly. 

2. Your personal statement should be about you!

Your personal statement should be about you and no one else. Focus on your interests, your accomplishments and your path. This is your opportunity to be forthcoming about your achievements – by writing in detail about what you have done.

3. Be sure your personal statement clearly outlines your interest in the specialty.

Since the reader wants to be convinced of your understanding of, experience in, and curiosity about the specialty to which you are applying, be sure you highlight what you have done to explore your interest as well as your insights and observations about the specialty to show your understanding of it.

4. Make it human.

Again, your personal statement should be about you! The reader wants to know who you are, where you are from, what your interests are and who you are outside of medicine. Therefore, try to include those details about your background that are intriguing or important to you.

5. Express your interest in the specialty.

The reader fundamentally wants to know why you are pursuing the specialty. The more details you offer the more convincing you are about your commitment and your understanding of the specialty. Be sure to include details that might seem obvious. For example, in emergency medicine you must like acute care, but try to include more nuanced details about your interest, too. What do you enjoy about the diagnoses and pathologies involved? What do you value about the actual work you will do? What do you enjoy about the patients for whom you will care? How about the setting in which you will practice?

6. The start and evolution of your interest.

Readers want to know how and when you became interested in your specialty. Was this before medical school? During medical school? What have you done to pursue and nurture your interest in the specialty?

7. What you have done to learn more about the specialty.

You should explain what you have done to pursue your interest. What rotations have you done or have planned? What research, scholarly work or community service activities have you pursued to further your interest?

8. Where you see yourself in the future – if you know!

Without going into too much detail, write about the type of setting in which you see yourself in the future. Do you hope to also participate in research, teaching, public health work or community outreach as a part of your career? What are your future goals? Since many programs typically train a certain type of physician, it is important that your goals are aligned with the programs to which you are applying.

9. What do you bring to the specialty?

You should try to identify what you can bring to the program and the specialty to which you are applying as a whole. For example, are you applying to family medicine and have a distinct interest in public health? Are you applying for internal medicine and do you have demonstrated expertise in information technology and hope to improve electronic medical records? Do you have extensive research or teaching experience, and do you hope to continue to pursue these interests in the future? Have you developed a commitment to global health, and do you hope to continue making contributions abroad? Programs have a societal obligation to select residents who will make valuable contributions in the future, so the more ambitions you have the more desirable a candidate you will be.

10. What type of program you hope to join?

Do you hope to be part of a community or university-based program? What are you seeking in a residency program? Programs are looking for residents who will be the right “fit” so offering an idea of what you are seeking in a program will help them determine if your values and goals mesh with those of the program.

11. Who you are outside of the hospital?

Try to bring in some personal elements about who you are. You can do this in a few ways. If you have any outside interests or accomplishments that complement your interest in your specialty, such as extracurricular work, global work, teaching or volunteer efforts, write about them in detail, and, in doing so, show the reader a different dimension of your personality. Or, consider opening your statement by writing about an experience related to your hobbies or outside interests. Write about this in the form of an introductory vignette. I suggest taking this nontraditional approach only if you are a talented writer and can somehow relate your outside interest to the specialty you are pursuing, however. An interest in the arts can lend itself to dermatology, plastic surgery or ophthalmology, for example. Or, an interest in technology could relate to radiology .

12. Any personal challenges?

Also explain any obstacles you have overcome: Were you the first in your family to graduate from college? Were you an immigrant? Did you have limited financial resources and work through college? Many applicants tend to shy away from the very things that make them impressive because they are afraid of appearing to be looking for sympathy. As long as you explain how you have overcome adversity in a positive or creative way, your experience will be viewed as the tremendous accomplishment that it is. The personal statement should explain any unusual or distinctive aspects of your background.

• Residency Match: How It Works & How To Get Matched

Common ERAS Residency Personal Statement Mistakes

Do not tell your entire life story or write a statement focused on your childhood or undergraduate career. 

Do not write about why you wanted to be a doctor. This is old news. From the reviewers perspective, you already are a doctor!

Do not write a personal statement focused on one hobby or begin with your birth. Some background information might be useful if it offers context to your choices and path, but your residency personal statement should be focused on the present and what you have done to pursue your interest in the specialty to which you are applying.

Do not preach. The reader understands what it means to practice his specialty and does not need you to tell him. Don’t write, for example: Internal medicine requires that a physician be knowledgeable, kind and compassionate. The reader wants to know about you!

Do not put down other specialties. You don’t need to convince anyone of your interest by writing something negative about other specialties. Doing so just makes you look bad. If you switched residencies or interests, you can explain what else you were seeking and what you found in the specialty of your choice that interests you.

Do not embellish. Program directors are pretty good at sniffing out inconsistencies and dishonesty. Always tell the truth and be honest and authentic. 

Do not plagiarize. While this seems obvious to most people, every year people copy personal statements they find online or hire companies that use stock phrases and statement to compose statements for applicants. Don’t do it!

Do not write about sensitive topics. Even if you were in a relationship that ended and resulted in a poor USMLE score , this is not a topic for a personal statement. In general, it is best to avoid discussing relationships, politics, ethical issues and religion.

Do not boast. Any hint of arrogance or self-righteousness may result in getting rejected. There is a fine line between confidence and self promotion. Some people make the mistake of over-selling themselves or writing about all of their fantastic qualities and characteristics. Rarely do readers view such personal statements favorably.

Do not write an overly creative piece. A residency personal statement should be professional. This work is equivalent to a job application. Don’t get too creative; stay focused.

Writing ERAS Residency Personal Statements For Multiple Specialties

An increasing number of applicants are applying to more than one specialty in medicine especially if the first choice specialty is very competitive. If you are applying to more than one specialty, even if there is disciplinary overlap between the two (for example family medicine and pediatrics ), we advise you write a distinct specialty for each. Remember that a physician who practices the specialty you hope to join will most likely be reviewing your statement. He or she will definitely be able to determine if the personal statement illustrates a true understanding of the specialty. If you try to recycle an entire personal statement or parts of a personal statement for two specialties, there is a high likelihood the personal statement will communicate that you aren’t sincerely interested in that specialty or that you don’t really understand what the specialty is about.

Writing About Red Flags in your ERAS Personal Statement

The personal statement is also the place to explain any red flags in your application, such as gaps in time or a leave of absence. When addressing any red flags, explain what happened succinctly. Be honest, don’t make excuses, and don’t dwell on the topic. Whenever possible, write about how you have matured or grown from the adversity or what you may have learned and how this benefits you.

If you have left a program or had a break in your medical education, you will also have the chance to explain this in your ERAS application . You should also write about this topic in your personal statement only if you have more to explain, however. 

If you have failed a Step exam or one course in medical school, this likely isn’t something to address in the personal statement. However, you should be prepared to discuss any failure during an interview. By the same token, it is best not to address one low grade or poor attending evaluation in your statement. 

Have you taken a circuitous path to medicine? If so you might address why you made these choices and what you found so interesting about medicine that was lacking in your former career.

Residency Personal Statement Example

Below are two great examples of residency personal statements that earned the applicants who wrote them numerous interviews and first choice matches. As you will see, these two applicants took very different approaches when writing the personal statement yet wrote equally persuasive and “successful” personal statements.

Residency Personal Statement Example, Analysis, and Outline: The Traditional Approach

The most common approach to the personal statement is what I will call the traditional approach, in which the applicant conveys her interest in the specialty, when that interest began and what she has done to pursue the particular specialty.

Suggested outline:

• Introduction: Catchy Story
• Paragraph 2: Background Information and how Interest Started
• Paragraph 3: Write about what you did to explore your interest
• Paragraph 4: Second paragraph about your experiences related to your specialty
• Conclusion: Wrap it up. Write something about your future goals.

Below is an example of the traditional approach:

I looked into her eyes and saw terror. She knew the life of her unborn baby was in jeopardy. As tears streamed down her face, she looked to the attending physician. In desperation, she pleaded, “Please save our baby.” She and her husband had been trying to conceive for more than two years, and they knew this could be their only chance to have a healthy child. She went into labor at home and because of a horrible snowstorm was not able to reach the hospital for several hours. When she arrived in labor and delivery, she was crowning. But, the baby was having late decelerations. Because of the sweat on my attending’s forehead I knew the situation was serious. Yet we all tried to remain calm and to keep the patient and her husband calm as well. 

I entered medical school with an open mind as everyone suggested. Even as a first year medical student, however, I was fascinated with embryology. I entered my third year still unsure of what I would pursue. I knew I wanted a career that would be challenging and interesting. Because of my background in drawing and painting, I always loved working with my hands. Yet I also enjoyed working with people. Thankfully, my obstetrics and gynecology (ob/gyn) rotation was the first of my third year and I was immediately hooked.

I quickly sought out opportunities for research and became involved in a clinical study investigating the impact of a vegan diet on birth outcomes. I have always had an interest in wellness and nutrition, and this seemed like a perfect fit for me. My research is still in process, but through this experience I have learned how to analyze data, stay objective and critically evaluate the literature. So far, our findings suggest better than normal outcomes for babies born to vegan mothers. This reinforces my goal to educate my patients about the important of diet and nutrition, which I hope to make a part of my future practice. 

Early in my fourth year, I completed an elective rotation at Inner City Medical Center. There I cared for a diverse group of patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings. I realized how much I enjoy labor and delivery, but I also value the operative aspects of ob/gyn. I appreciate the importance of understanding the female anatomy so I can operate with precision.  I also value the diversity of practice in ob/gyn. Whether caring for a woman about to give birth, helping a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer navigate her treatment options, or caring for a perimenopausal woman who is coping with symptoms of hormone fluctuations, I enjoy caring for patients with knowledge and compassion. The outpatient aspect of ob/gyn brings satisfaction as well. I look forward to building relationships with my patients, helping them to lead the healthiest lives possible. I have also realized how much I want to care for those who lack access to care. The work I have done at Medical School Free Clinic has helped me realize the gaps that exist in access to care and education. As a future practicing ob/gyn, I hope to work in such a setting at least on a part time basis.

On that snowy night, when we realized the baby was having difficulty being born because of shoulder dystocia, a simple maneuver eased the situation. The baby’s first cry brought such joy and relief to everyone in the room and, at that moment, I knew I had to be part of this specialty. I hope to join a program where I will have the clinical exposure that will give me the skills and experience to care for a wide range of patients. I do not yet know if I will subspecialize, and I will seek out mentors and experiences as a resident to make an informed decision. I would be honored to interview at your program and thank you for your consideration.

Why It’s Great

This is a great personal statement because it clearly conveys the applicant’s interest in, and understanding of, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) and what the applicant has done to pursue that interest. Not only does this applicant have a long-standing interest in OB/GYN, but, she conveys that she has experienced the specialty in different settings and understands the diverse nature of the specialty. She also includes information about her hobbies and interests and writes about her exploration of OB/GYN outside of the clinical arena. An added bonus is that the applicant writes well and uses descriptive language making her statement interesting and fun to read.

Residency Personal Statement Example, Analysis, and Outline: The Outside Interests Approach

Many mentors advise applicants to tell the reader something about them that is unrelated to medicine or the specialty they are pursuing. This is a fine idea, but be sure your personal statement also includes some details about your interest in your specialty if you decide to move in this direction.

Suggested Outline:

• Introduction: Write a Catchy Introduction. Be creative! Think outside the box.
• Paragraph 2:Elaborate on your introduction offering more details
• Paragraph 3: Write about your specialty choice and what appeals to you.
• Paragraph 4: Write more about your explorations in medical school.
• Concluding paragraph(s): Write about your future goals, the type of program you hope to join and consider looping back to your introduction.

Below is an example of the outside interests approach:

The landscape before me was lush and magical. We had been hiking for hours and had found a great spot to set up camp. As I was unloading my backpack and helping to pitch the tent, I saw a scene I knew I had to capture. I quickly grabbed my carefully packed Leica before the magnificent sunset disappeared. Trying to get the perfect exposure, I somehow managed to capture this image so accurately that it reflected the beauty of what was before us high in the mountains of Utah, so far away from the hustle and bustle of New York City where we attended medical school.

Throughout my life, I have pursued my interests and curiosities with focus and creativity. One of those interests is photography. Even as a small child, I wanted my own camera, and I started snapping interesting scenes and images at the age of 6. As I grew older, this hobby took on more significance. I took a college level course in photography as a high school student, worked as a photographer’s assistant and even considered a career in photography. Paralleling my interest, however, was a desire to travel and experience new places, foods, and cultures.

I have been fortunate to travel all over the world. Rather than stopping in a city or place for a couple of days and seeing the sights, I prefer to immerse myself in my surroundings, eating the food, meeting the people, and staying for as long as I can. My fluency in Spanish and Italian has made it easier to “fit in” naturally. My most recent trip to Costa Rica allowed me to visit sugar cane fields and rain forests. I also volunteered in a clinic that helps the most desperate citizens. Of course, because I never travel without my camera, I also captured the beauty of this country; those pictures can be found on my blog.

Surgery seemed like a natural choice for me. It is a very tactile and visual field that requires patience, attention to detail and creativity—just like photography. The operating room setting is invigorating. I love to be a member of a team, and in surgery team work is an essential part of practice. The ability to deal with anatomical variations also satisfies my creative side; I have always been fond of puzzles, and the field of surgery represents a real-world puzzle to me. I also appreciate the intensity of surgery and believe I have the personality and demeanor for the field. I have always enjoyed solving problems quickly, something the field of surgery requires. My rotations in surgery – in addition to my core surgery rotation I have done trauma and cardiothoracic surgery – have helped me to understand the tremendous opportunities and diversity of the field. I have heard some residents lament that the only reason they went into surgery is to operate. However, I really enjoy seeing patients postoperatively. It is only at that time that a surgeon can really appreciate the impact of his or her work.

Finally, my trip to Honduras with a surgical team from my hospital and medical school made me realize that I can make a great contribution globally in the field of surgery. There we saw patients who had no resources or access to care. The facilities in which we worked were bare-bones. Yet the impact we made was tremendous, given that this was a group of people who otherwise would have no surgical care. In this way, I hope to combine my interests in travel and surgery as a resident, if I have time, and certainly as a practicing physician. My ultimate goal is to use my training to help populations globally and domestically.

To gain the most clinical exposure possible, I hope to train in a busy urban hospital. I believe that such a setting will give me the operative experience I need to be able to navigate many situations in the future. Such a setting will also give me the outpatient experience to understand how to manage patients once the surgery is completed.

I look forward to the day when I can be snapping my camera intraoperatively, documenting what I am doing and seeking to help other surgeons. For some, such pictures may not represent the art of those pictures I take in the wilderness, but for me they reflect the beauty of surgery and the great opportunity to make a lasting impression on another human being’s life.

This is a really intriguing personal statement because the author writes about his outside interests in a compelling way that makes him instinctively likable. He then goes on to explain what he enjoys about surgery and what he has done to pursue that interest. As you can see, this applicant writes less about his specialty (surgery) than the applicant in statement #1 did, but, he still convinces the reader of his understanding of, and commitment to, surgery. In this statement, the reader gains a much broader understanding of who the applicant is as a person and what he likes to do in his free time.

Final Thoughts

Writing your residency personal statement should be about telling your story in your own voice and style. You want to highlight your interest in the specialty for which you are applying while also conveying some ideas about who you are as a person to keep your reader engaged in learning about you as a person.

Residency Personal Statement Consulting Services

MedEdits Medical Admissions offers comprehensive guidance and document review services for residency applicants to every specialty in medicine. With more than twenty years of experience in residency admissions and founded by a former residency admissions officer and physician, MedEdits understands what program directors want to read and can help you decide what aspects of your background to focus on in your residency personal statement to earn the most interviews possible.

Getting into a residency has never been more competitive. Let the experts at MedEdits help you with your ERAS personal statement. We’ve worked with more than 5,000 students and 94% have been matched to one of their top-choice programs.

Sample Residency Personal Statements

Residency Related Articles and Guidance

• Residency Match Statistics
• Residency Personal Statement
• How to write a residency interview thank you letter.
• What Outfit To Wear To Your Residency Interview
• Medical Residency Timeline & Length
• Medical Residency Salary By Specialty
• How To Master MyERAS, The Medical Residency Interview, and Common Residency Interview Questions
• Master the ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service) & ERAS Timeline
• Residency Letters Of Recommendation (with ERAS Samples)
• Residency Letter of Intent
• How to Write a Residency Letter of Intent
• Residency Love Letters
• Residency Match Success: Lessons Learned

Residency Specialty Articles

• Family Medicine Residency Match: Beat more than 4400 Applications
• Pediatrics Residency Match: Beat more than 3000 Applicaitons
• Internal Medicine Residency Match: Beat more than 10,000 Applications
• General Surgery Residency Match: BEAT more than 1900 Applications
• Emergency Medicine Residency Match: BEAT more than 2600 Applications
• Anesthesiology Residency Match: BEAT more than 2,000 Applicants

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• Writing a Personal Statement

Personal Statement

The personal statement is an important component of your application. While it’s impossible to know the exact “weight” that a specific examiner will give to this aspect of your application, best estimates range from 5-25%. This is less than the relative contribution of your grades or Boards scores but a sizable chunk none-the-less.

Like many writing samples, there is no “perfect” way to go about writing your personal statement. It is a unique opportunity to let “you” shine through. This is in fact, as the name implies the most “personal” aspect of your application. It gives the reviewer an opportunity to begin to understand you as a person and the aspects of medicine that appeal to you. Only the interview (if you get one) provides a greater opportunity to highlight your personal qualifications.

The following is a list of tips and advice to consider that will help you put your best foot forward with this aspect of your application:

• Be positive. This is perhaps the most important piece of advice. Reviewers don’t want to hear you rant on about how this specialty or that specialty is not as important or meaningful as family medicine. Share the positive aspects of whatever the topic is that you are addressing
• Decide what you want to highlight before you start writing. Ask yourself how this will compliment or reinforce the other aspects of your application. Don’t go on a stream of consciousness bender
• This is not your opportunity to confess all the misgivings, second thoughts, and deliberations you have had over the years about going into medicine or choosing a specialty. If you really think the process of how you made the decision is critical, check with your advisor to make sure you are correct.
• Be authentic and write from your heart. If you covet continuity with your patients it’s fine to share this in your statement. Don’t worry too much about sounding cliché, unless of course, you are. Back up your statements with brief examples or anecdotes to illustrate your point to help avoid slipping into truly cliché prose.
• Don’t try to do too much. You need not convey every last thought about why it is you think family medicine is the best specialty in the world. A few, well-crafted and smartly supported concepts often make for a powerful statement.
• Patient stories are fine if they illustrate a specific point. We want your story, not someone else’s. Obviously, be careful about potentially identifying statements or if appropriate (needed) as for permission.
• You must have reviewers to give you feedback. Start with a close friend or family member who knows you and can review your statement to make sure your “voice” is reflected in the statement. Have someone read it purely from a proofreading standpoint. Typos cannot be tolerated. Share your final draft with your Residency Advisor for feedback.
• Our department has 10 copies of Strunk and White, Elements of Style, a text that can be very helpful if it has been a while since you have attempted this type of writing. If you are interested, come get one from our Student Programs Coordinator, Grace Bernier.
• Talk with your advisor before striking out to use your personal statement to explain some form of irregularity or “problem” in your application. The personal statement may or may not be the place to do so. You can also check with your College Dean for advice.
• Use the space that is given to you. Not necessarily every last character line but a personal statement that uses only half the allotted space is a red flag.
• Starting thinking about your statement early. Consider creating a folder (either virtual or real) that you can periodically put some ideas that you are considering incorporating into your statement. These can be concepts, short phrases, actual sentences, paragraphs, patient stories or any other bits of information that will help you to craft your final product. Try and avoid the panic of a rushed personal statement. Like spaghetti sauce, a personal statement that is allowed to “simmer” over days to weeks inevitably results in a more effective message.
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TOP SAMPLES FOR A QUALITY FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY PERSONAL STATEMENT

Get inspired with the best samples and get writing help with your own family medicine residency personal statement.

Creating Family Medicine Personal Statement From Scratch

It’s been a while since a personal statement residency family medicine became an essential part of the application process. In this writing piece, applicants should showcase their strengths and best qualities to assure the institution officials they will perfectly match the program.

However, sometimes writing an engaging and focused family medicine personal statement from scratch may be complicated. Especially if there are too many requirements set by the admission board. And neglecting quality is not an option because such a document is a core application component, and family medicine residency officials review it attentively. That’s why we’ve prepared some practical tips on achieving the highest quality, as well as ready-made personal statement examples medicine that can help you understand what this task requires.

Get Inspired With the Best Family Medicine Personal Statement Examples

Exploring dozens of writing guides, tips & tutorials won’t effectively compose good text until you don’t find family medicine personal statement examples to visualize them. Having a well-composed sample lets you see how the information is structured, what methods and techniques authors use to describe themselves, what accents to make, and how to place them within personal stories. Just have a look at these samples.

Whether it’s an application for a hospitalist fellowship family medicine , or any other one, each document should be unique. Even if the samples are related to one topic, how authors self-present themselves is remarkable.

Once you read a pro-made sample residency personal statement, you will be able to see how each point is managed in writing and how experts work on building structure and formatting with attention to detail.

• Most authors separate the text into small paragraphs when describing personal motivation, achievements, etc.
• They carefully add information to support your opinion and make your family medicine residency personal statement more valuable.
• Pros choose only important facts dedicated to the central idea of your family medicine application doc.
• They don’t make parts too big and monitor the coherence of the narrative so that the text is not only readable but also consistent and logical.

And these are just a few ideas you may get from a family medicine personal statement example. Of course, you cannot copy from it and use someone’s saamples without customization. But such insights can be beneficial to apply to your own writing.

Check Multiple Medical Samples at Residencypersonalstatements.net

The wide sample selection allows you to find the one that fits your needs. An excellent personal statement residency example composed by one of our writers shows what good application writing should look like. Each expert who works on family medicine samples has relevant experience and understanding of representing the applicant’s personality.

Our medical residency personal statement samples are done according to the admission board requirements, including format, style, word count, etc. Papers are written to represent individuals as perfect candidates for the chosen family medicine program. When another sample is ordered, our experts work on it from scratch, writing it according to the institution’s requirements.

How Good Medicine Personal Statement Examples Can Help

Family medicine programs are quite competitive, so you may go beyond your limits to impress the admission board with your personal statement. At the same time, completed medicine personal statement examples may help you understand how the winning document should look like and give you some ideas about creating the same one yourself.

The Size Matters

The first you should pay attention to when writing personal statement for family medicine residency is its size. You will never find a sample that goes beyond the word count. 450-600 words – it’s the perfect size of the personal statement you should strive for.

How to Make Your Personal Statement Stand Out?

Next, we’ll figure out more details that must be in your family medicine residency personal statement. However, the personal touches could make it really memorable. Pay attention to how sample authors use customers’ clinical and life cases, creating entertaining anecdotes that catch readers’ attention.

What About Addressing Red Flags?

Your family medicine residency personal statement is a great place not only for self-presentation but also to address some gaps or red flags you may have – e.g., professionalism issues or a too long time after graduation. In a fellowship application, you should be honest and don’t hide anything, but there are no restrictions for ways of presenting details. Just look how our best personal statement samples residency authors turned obvious disadvantages into advantages and ways to overcome difficulties.

Get Started as Early as Possible

Thinking about when to start writing a personal statement internal medicine residency , we can say one thing – don’t waste time, and get started as early as possible. Leaving everything until the last moment affects the quality, as you may not have enough time to prepare for writing or carefully proofread. If you did everything the last night, how would the personal statement for family medicine look? You know the answer.

Things in a Personal Statement Samples Residency to Consider

Each application document should be unique as it represents you as a family medicine specialist and describes your candidacy from the best angles. Plagiarism is unacceptable, but using personal statement examples for medicine allows you to see what general points must be added.

• Your motivation

What made you choose this path? Why are you passionate about becoming a family medicine specialist? Maybe someone or something inspired you to investigate this field – mention this in a personal statement for pediatric residency programs .

• A reason to choose a particular residency

What are your expectations from a chosen family medicine residency, and what skills and knowledge you are willing to get? Also, explain how you will overcome obstacles and challenges to succeed in the future.

• Relevant skills and abilities

Why institution officials should consider you as a great candidate for their residency. Your personal statement for family medicine residency is what may convince the admission board to choose you as their #1 applicant. Show your uniqueness and demonstrate how passionate you are about family medicine. Also, mention your knowledge of the residency opportunities and faculty culture and explain why it is a great place to realize your prospects.

Carefully edit and proofread the text when it’s done to ensure you don’t have any grammatical or contextual errors, typos, or formatting mistakes. Give your document to a professional residency personal statement writer , so a fresh look at the writing may spot something you may miss.

What You Don’t Find in Medical Residency Personal Statement Samples

As well as essential things, some points should not be seen in the medical residency personal statement samples. Now, we will focus on the typical issues. So, when writing residency applications, forget about such things:

• Copypasting your CV or writing an autobiography. Your task is to write an attractive and catchy essay introducing yourself to the institution officials. No one is interested in reading the list of your job history or stories from your childhood.
• Overdetail. Each sample family medicine personal statement has limited space, so there’s no need to count all your school achievements or class ratings. Focus on mentioning cases that improved your professional qualities and made you better in the selected field.
• Surpassing the word count. Once the medical residency personal statement family medicine has strict requirements, stick to them. That’s why you may need more than one draft to ensure you don’t have unnecessary information in the text.

Get Help With Your Family Medicine Residency Personal Statement Example

Besides sharing guidelines and tips to help future medical program members, we can offer one more option. Our talented authors are ready to help you with your own family medicine residency personal statement example, creating an outstanding one that presents your candidacy in the best way. Having solid experience in application docs preparation, they know how to compose the text in the needed format following all the admission requirements. Be sure all your top traits will be emphasized and the program’s features are addressed.

Forget about struggling with family medicine personal statements and let the professionals do all the work instead of you!

Residency Sample Personal Statements

These are real personal statements from successful residency applicants (some are from students who have used our services or from  our advisors ). These sample personal statements are for reference purposes only and should absolutely not be used to copy or plagiarize in any capacity. Plagiarism detection software is used when evaluating personal statements. Plagiarism is grounds for disqualification of an applicant.

Disclaimer: While these essays ultimately proved effective and led to successful residency matches, there are multiple components that comprise an effective residency applicant. These essays are not perfect, and the strengths and weaknesses have been listed where relevant.

Sample Personal Statements

Encouraged by the idea of becoming well rounded, I collected many hobbies and passions as I grew up from snowboarding and cooking to playing board games and practicing meditation. Despite the increasing demands on my time, however, I never learned how to get more than 24 hours out of a day. Since I entered medical school, I have been searching for ways to continue pursuing my one my most influential hobbies, playing the violin. While my violin may be gathering more dust than I would like to admit, I discovered that the same motivations that gave me an affinity for my favorite pastime are still fulfilled in the practice of anesthesia.

Learning to play the violin was challenging; for the first few years, everything that came out of my violin sounded as if it had been scratched out on a chalkboard. Through daily practice and enormous amount of patience from my parents whose ears were being tortured, playing violin slowly came to be effortless. My violin teacher went beyond teaching me how to play but also challenged me to envision my future and write down my aspirations. While achieving my milestones gave me a jolt of confidence, I learned that setting goals are part of a broader journey of constant improvement. Developed from years of practicing violin, my discipline to work tirelessly towards my goals provides the framework that will help me to master anesthesiology.

I found violin to be most rewarding when I had the opportunity to share my music with others. Through the simple act of pulling my bow across a string, I was able to convey my emotions to my audience. The desire to directly and physically affect change is a large part of my motivation to pursue anesthesiology where problems are identified and immediately met with a potential solution. Drawn to science because of my desire to understand the world around me, I enjoy creating a hypothesis and executing a plan in order to test it. While I was at [UNIVERSITY], I identified areas in which the school could improve the student experience and then implement projects that could address these areas. As the Academics and Research Committee chair, I planned as a summer math course for incoming freshmen to prepare them proof writing, which was a topic that many were to which they were not previously exposed. I derive satisfaction from the ability to take an idea and carrying it through to completion. As a life long learner, I take pleasure in finding ways to grow and expand my mind. My love of learning started from a young age where my favorite use of my computer was to browse my CD-ROM “the way things worked.” My golf team nicknamed me ‘Encyclopedia’ because of my tendency to share interesting facts with them as we drove to tournaments around [STATE]. To this day, it is difficult for me to have dinner with my friends without bringing up an interesting fact I learned from a podcast.

When playing violin became second nature, practicing became a sort of therapy where the world around me disappeared and my mind became quiet and focused. Throughout my life, I have been drawn to tasks that require intense concentration to transform thoughts into physical action from rehearsing a swing to hit a perfect drive to carefully executing a protocol for an experiment. The direct and focused care that takes place in the OR actually turned out to be tranquil and relaxing for me. Monitoring the patient, forming differentials, testing my hypothesis, and planning ahead, I found my mind completely immersed while I was assisting in cases. Able to use my own hands to care for a patient, I left the OR feel satisfied that my efforts were wholeheartedly directed towards providing the best possible care for my patient.

I first discovered chamber music at violin camp and immediately fell in love with beautiful harmonies and intricate counter melodies. One of the most shocking things about chamber music was how foreign the music sounded when I practiced at home because the individual parts frequently do not capture the beauty of piece. It isn’t until rehearsal as a group that the true form of the song emerges. Chamber music, similar to the operating room, involves a small group of people working together toward a single goal. Everyone from the surgeon to the nurses has his or her own role, which is needs to be executed appropriately in order to provide the best care for the patient. The teamwork required in the OR reminds me of seemingly impossible feats humans are able to accomplish through coordinated efforts. This collaboration is an essential characteristic of the type of environment in which I would like to work. In addition, I hope that the anesthesia residency I attend values the spirit of self-reflection and constant improvement. I am excited to pursue a career in anesthesiology where I will continue to build on my interests and strengths that were honed through years of practicing the violin.

The author did a masterful job of integrating one of his/her main outside passions (violin) into an interesting and engaging narrative as to why the applicant was fit for anesthesia.

Compared to the common “writing your CV” mistake that many applicants make, this personal statement is a breath of fresh air. The theme of violin is not irrelevant, as the author relates seemingly unrelated aspects of its practice or performance to key elements of anesthesia, medicine, or being part of a team in the operating room. 

The author allows his/her personality and voice to come through. Reading this, it is easy to imagine a quirky and intellectual applicant who is genuinely curious and excited to pursue the career of anesthesia, along with some interesting hobbies. It is no surprise, then, that this applicant interviewed at top programs across the nation and multiple residency admissions committee members cited the applicant’s personal statement during the interview.

As I stand on stage in front of 500 audience members, they are all eagerly awaiting my next line. In order to start the scene, I need a suggestion from the audience. “What am I holding?” I raise my empty hand in the air. One brave soul replies “Bacon!” My fellow improvisers and I proceed to perform a scene set around a bacon dinner party. We deliver our lines punctuated by laughter until the scene comes to a close. I recall this scene during my first night in the emergency department (ED). I am struck by how much improvisation has taught me. Emergency Medicine (EM) and improv have very similar motifs. Every scene in improvisation is different, as is every ED patient. Scenes are fast paced and force you to draw from life experiences while working in a team setting, similar to the controlled chaos often encountered during an ED shift. Ultimately, ingenuity, communication and resourcefulness are the main draws I have to EM which are traits that have been instilled into my character by my experience with improvisation.

During my third year of medical school, an elderly woman presented to the ED with acute vision loss. Reassessing the patient was difficult because I had no way of documenting the improvement of her vision. Improvisation had prepared me to use creativity and whatever tools available to find a solution for any given situation. I created a system where she could mark an ‘X’ wherever she could see on a grid drawn on paper. Each hour she would add more X’s to the grid as she received corticosteroid treatment. Helping patients with improvised solutions gives me the feeling of being an artist which can complement the logic and criteria needed in EM.

New and imaginative ideas in improvisation are born from constant communication between improvisers. Emergency physicians are constantly communicated information which changes their management of a patient. A growing discipline in EM is the idea of shared decision-making (SDM). My research aims to improve the communication between the emergency doctor and the patient using SDM which is when the patient relies on their life experiences, values, and preferences while the EM physician contributes his/her medical knowledge to improve decision-making. I have been involved in several projects to help identify barriers to SDM in the emergency department, and I am currently leading a research project on the implementation of SDM in oral anticoagulation therapy for patients with new onset atrial fibrillation. Through this novel concept, I learned how to effectively communicate with patients about their illnesses and the benefit of giving them an active role in choosing their care plan.

Entering medical school, I developed an original research project incorporating my life experiences. Five years ago, my grandmother passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. In medical school, I learned of the benefits of various alternative treatments of neurodegenerative diseases. Combining my experience with Alzheimer’s and improvisation, I developed a study where elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment were enrolled in an eight-week improvisation class. My efforts to improve the participants’ verbal fluency, level of depression and cognition using a treatment that had not yet been explored gave me the ability to administer care with the tools given to me by past experiences. Approaching the undifferentiated ED patient similarly requires resourcefulness and problem-solving which can stem from past life experiences. I believe I will be able to pull from these experiences salient information applicable to the situation because improvisation has helped me nurture this characteristic.

In my future career, I see myself working with underserved populations and performing research. There I can lift those who are in need as well as continue to research improvements in patient engagement through SDM. I know if I am given the chance to practice medicine in an environment that fosters ingenuity, communication and resourcefulness I can continue to be strong advocate for my patients and become a great EM physician.

Building from a unique background, the author of this residency personal statement brings a unique element to the table – improvisation. Similar to the personal statement above, the author uses their passion and interests outside of medicine to illustrate how the skills they have developed in that area will translate to their being an effective physician. 

Notably, the author also describes his novel research project incorporating improvisation into research and the backstory of how this idea was derived from Alzheimer’s dementia effecting his own family members. This simple anecdote reinforces the applicant’s passion for improvisation, their interest in furthering the scientific literature through research, and the personal connection to a condition. 

The applicant comes across as interesting. However, to further improve the impact of the essay, the author may consider tightening up the conclusion with a reference back to improvisation or other parting words that are more unique.

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Family Medicine Personal Statements

Sample Personal statement 1

Sample Personal statement 2

Sample Personal statement 3

Sample Personal statement 4

Sample Personal statement 5

Sample Personal statement 6

Sample Personal statement 7

Sample Personal statement 8

Sample Personal statement 9

Sample Personal statement 10

Sample personal statement 1 for Family medicine program

Although I began my medical career in anesthesia, I have developed a genuine interest in family practice during and after my anesthesia training. While practicing anesthesia, I always missed the wide spectrum of pathology, the continuous care for patients of different ages, and psychosocial issues in medicine. Family practice is the specialty that offers all these. Through family practice, I feel confident that I can achieve greater personal and professional satisfaction.

Although unable to find an observership program in family practice, I found several programs in general internal medicine. I have been doing observership at both Medical Education Alliance and Medical Hospital. During my observership training at both programs, I felt great achievement in using my knowledge of pharmacology, microbiology, and physiology to explain signs and symptoms of patients. This ensures me that I would be greatly benefited from a specialty in primary care.

I personally believe that providing long-term care, both preventive and therapeutic, to patients is an integral part of practicing medicine. During my observerships, I admired the relationship the attendings had formed with their patients. I love the idea of caring for patients from birth to death and building long-term friendships with them. While I was an anesthesiologist, my contact with most patients usually started one day before and ended one day after surgery. Even though patients developed complications from anesthesia, they did not seek medical care from anesthesiologists, because there was no communication channel between anesthesiologists and patients.

My knowledge and skills in anesthesia will be a useful asset in family practice. I am skilled in performing different kinds of invasive and non-invasive monitoring procedures. This will make me feel more comfortable while caring for critically ill patients. My hands-on clinical experience at both Memorial Medical Center of Medical University and the University of California was a unique opportunity to learn how the medical care system works and to enhance my communication skills with patients of all age groups. My volunteer experience at a mental health clinic helped me realize the importance of psychosocial issues in managing mental illnesses and develop a great compassion. By participating in all the activities during my observership training, I honed my history and physical skills. In addition, while I was an anesthesiologist, I enjoyed easing the anxieties of children undergoing surgery before I delivered anesthesia. This not only increased the quality of anesthesia care but also decreased the psychological harm on children. All these will make me better prepared for my residency training in family practice. Meanwhile I know exactly what I am going to face and I know I am able and willing to handle it.

I will bring enthusiasm, dedication, and professionalism, as well as clinical knowledge and skills to my family practice residency program. More importantly, I am very glad that I receive support from my family in applying for a family practice residency program. I seek a residency program that provides a balanced training approach. Through this training, I hope to develop excellent clinical skills and judgment and embark on a career with constant intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to provide long-term medical care to patients in a manner that I could not provide as an anesthesiologist.

Sample personal statement 2 for Family medicine program

“Did you hear about that huge earthquake in India?” asked one of my classmates who knew that I was from India. My jaw dropped and a hundred thoughts went through my head. There I was during my first year of medical school sitting anxiously about to take my first written anatomy exam when one of my classmates asked me this. I did not get a chance to listen to the news that morning, but there was a massive earthquake in the city where my family is from in India. This really hit a nerve. The anatomy test was the last thing on my mind at that point. Fortunately, later that night I found out all of my family was accounted for. That still didn’t put my mind at ease. The evening news showed the devastation the earthquake did to an already impoverished part of India. At that time, I felt more selfish than ever before. Here I was living this comfortable life in the U.S. and attending medical school with one of my biggest worries of the day being an anatomy test. I wanted to go to India and assist the injured, but I knew that my lack of medical training would not allow me to do that. Excluding this experience, I have always thought that it is a duty of mine to give back to the country where I am from. Being the first physician in my family and having this opportunity to give back to the place where my parents grew up has always been one of my major long term goals. Family practice will offer me the diverse knowledge base to treat many different types of ailments.

Attending an osteopathic medical school has offered me the opportunity to rotate through many months of family practice. When making my decision to enter this specialty, I asked myself what months during my clerkships I was happiest, which attending physicians I had the best interactions with, and what patient populations I liked the most. The answers to all these questions drew me to family practice. Although I formed meaningful relationships with the inpatient population during my internal medicine rotation and was able to acquire vital medical knowledge, I felt unfulfilled in regards to the doctor-patient interaction in that environment and really missed the continuity of care. In my family practice experience, there was an abundant amount of clinical knowledge to gain and I found myself attracted to the type of relationship my attendings had with their patients. I was truly envious of the continuity of relationships that my attendings had formed with so many of their patients. The “medical visit” in the family practice clinic amazed me because of the amount of psychosocial issues that would be discussed. This required the family practice physician to go beyond the medical aspect of the visit and truly treat the person as a whole. It is much easier to have a patient be compliant and more honest about their health when the patient feels more at ease with their physician.

The public aid clinic on Big City’s Westside was a place where I further realized the importance of the family physician. My volunteer experience in that clinic reinforced the fact that not every patient has access to a separate pediatrician, gynecologist, or geriatric specialist. My love for educating patients on topics such as hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol and preventative medicine was easily fulfilled in this type of setting. Another one of my passions is to also treat children Family medicine, offered me this opportunity. This is where I realized that I want part of my time to be involved with clinics that provide healthcare to the underserved in Big City. The great thing about practicing medicine in Big City is that there are so many well-established free medical clinics all over the city and suburbs that doctors can donate their time at. I am confident that the underserved areas of will have more than enough spots available for family practice physicians to donate their time.

The bottom line is that family practice is both exciting and versatile. When a family physician goes into work she does not know what to expect. She could have a day full of common colds, orthopedic issues, and newly diagnosed diabetics. One can take all these tasks and consider them overburdening or view them as challenges. I have always found it easy to adjust to a constantly changing environment During and after my training, I want to be the type of family physician that my loved ones would want not only as their doctor, but also as part of their family unit.

My determination, resilience, and self-confidence are foundations of my personality and character that will be part of me throughout my residency, and when I am practicing as a family physician. My goal throughout this application process has to find a family practice residency program that plays a vital role in the community and a program that shares a passion for teaching, mentoring and showing residents that family practice is not just a practice of medicine but also a practice of how to work with people. I look forward to starting my family practice residency at your institution with enthusiasm, a willingness to work hard, learn, teach, and most importantly, to identify with my future patients so I can offer them the healthcare they deserve from a family physician.

Sample personal statement 3 for Family medicine program

Sample personal statement 4 for Family medicine program

My life experiences have prepared me for a career in family medicine. I find such a field to require genuine interest, dedication, and the ability to communicate and relate to patients of all age groups. Upon entering medical school with an interest skin conditions, I assumed that dermatology was the field for me. I soon discovered, however, that I was interested in treating the whole person, that I wanted a career that treats the entire body, mind and spirit.

Working with patients of diverse ages and backgrounds is essential to my happiness. As a physician, I strive to positively impact my patient’s lives. Through volunteering for Hospice during college and medical school, and working in a nursing home in high school, I have enjoyed working with the elderly. In addition, I have spent 2 years as an elementary school reading tutor and volunteered for a year in the NICU and Children’s Medical Center at the University of Florida. Building a rapport with teenagers as a camp counselor has proven both rewarding and insightful. All encompassing, family medicine allows me the opportunity to work with the pediatric, adult, and geriatric populations. A vast and diverse field, family medicine provokes my interest and will continue to excite me throughout my career.

Numerous life experiences have prepared me for this path. Traveling across the country with 35 teenagers for Big Tours and working as a Resident Assistant in a college dormitory exemplify my ability to work well with others. The oldest of four children, I have taken on the role of responsibility and leadership in my life. On an individual level, I have mentored a young child for the past several years, which has impacted us both greatly. Extracurricular activities have helped to mold me in the person I am today. Outside of medicine, I have experienced whitewater rafting down the Snake River, water skiing on Lake Tahoe and hiking through Bryce Canyon. I am not only adventurous and easy to get along with but I am also a dedicated hard worker who thrives on patient care. Volunteering for several years in a family practice office has given me insight into the successful qualities of a family physician: patience, compassion and excellent clinical skills. My various work and volunteer experiences have confirmed that family medicine offers everything I want in a career – the ability to make a difference in the lives of patients while working in a field which I find exciting, challenging, and rewarding.

Much of my passion for family medicine stems from my desire to practice preventive medicine. The ability to retard or prevent the manifestations of disease inspires me. I intend to focus my future practice around this concept. Emphasis on treating the entire patient as a whole is also important to me. This holistic philosophy is essential to building strong relationships with patients. I want to become the best physician I can for my patients – a good listener, an excellent diagnostician, and a loyal confidant. To achieve these goals I have high expectations for my residency program. To develop the clinical skills essential to becoming an excellent family physician I must train at an institution dedicated to academic excellence and superior patient care. A strong academic setting combined with my desire to succeed will mold me into a well-trained physician. In the future, I desire to work in a clinical setting with an academic affiliation, which allows me the opportunity to teach what I have been taught to others. Many experiences in my life have helped me decide, unequivocally, that the field of family medicine is the path for me. My desire to treat and heal patients’ medical and social troubles drives me to become a successful physician. I look forward to the future with excitement and optimism as I enter the field of family medicine.

Sample personal statement 5 for Family medicine program

Since the age of 6 years old, I found myself frequently in the emergency room due to severe asthma. It was frightening as a child, but I clearly recall the warm and friendly doctors who comforted me. Since I grew up on Welfare and Medi-Cal, it meant sometimes having to wait long hours before getting medical attention. While waiting, I would chat with other patients and found that I was overwhelmed by the vast array of existing illnesses. Today I am no longer overwhelmed by the intricacy’s of medical diseases, but instead I’m inspired by the challenges of caring for a broad spectrum of various aliments. This is one of the reasons I have chosen family medicine.

I am a University of State graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Physiology. I participated in an internship at State Medical Center in the operating room where I found that I enjoyed easing the anxieties of patients’ pre and post surgery. In addition, I worked with a paraplegic for one year who I cared for daily. My patient was extremely frustrated because he had to be entirely dependent on me for many daily functions. However, there was no greater fulfillment than to see him grow comfortable and trusting toward me because I not only cared for him medically, but I took the time to establish a strong bond. This experience helped me develop a great compassion and understanding of the difficulties patients have co-existing with their physical disabilities. My desire to launch a positive role in a patient’s recovery along with the long term interactions established through continual care, have been other factors that have sparked my further interest in pursuing Family Medicine.

The goal of improving my Spanish contributed to my decision to attend medical school at the University in Guadalajara, Mexico. I had the fortunate experience of working with Spanish speaking patients in a family practice clinic. I was able to follow the entire family history of many patients throughout three years. Being able to become an integral part of these patients’ lives is another crucial factor that causes me to seek family practice. During my last year of medical school, I participated in the pre-internship program at the Mexican Institute of Social Services which provided me with outstanding training. I enjoyed rotating through all of the various rotations; especially pediatric, obstetrics, dermatology, and geriatrics. Family practice is well suited for me because it encompasses a multitude of areas in medicine. I want to continually be faced with the challenges that family medicine offers such as diagnosing a wide-range of diseases from different specialties, instead of focusing on one particular disease or organ system.

I also enjoy working with the elderly and learned some of their fears when I took care of my most important patient yet, my mother. I took a semester off to care for my mother who was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. Although it was extremely difficult emotionally watching her suffer daily, I knew that I had done my best in caring for her. I learned that many elderly patients neglect routine medical care and are hesitant or afraid to seek medical attention. As a consequence, they endanger their health or lives. My experiences have helped me mature greatly and have made me realize the critical responsibility as a primary care provider to continually teach preventive care.

I am applying to your residency program in family medicine because it is a well rounded community based program with broad-based training and a high level of responsibility that will prepare me to practice in settings comprised of a diverse population. In the future, I see myself as training future medical students. In addition, I plan to serve as a health advocate and mentor to children and adolescents. I feel that I will be an excellent role model for children, especially those in underserved communities, since I too grew up in an underserved area myself. I would like to return to my community or an underserved community where I feel that I am well prepared to fulfill the challenges and needs of my patients.

I am confident that I will benefit from your residency program because I have learned how to work and interact well with patients, families, doctors, and my colleagues through my life experiences. I also will never forget my earliest impressions of the dedicated and kind doctors from the emergency room. This is the type of Doctor I will be for all my patients

Sample personal statement 6 for Family medicine program

“ Some men see things as they are and say, WHY; I dream of things that never were and say, WHY NOT” –Robert Frost.

With this dream and vision along with many years of hard work and dedication, I am ready to embark in the exciting field of Family Medicine. Family Medicine adds a unique element to the practice of medicine that is very important: empathy. Family Physicians have compassionate beliefs and display caring values towards patient care. My choice to enter the area of Family Medicine expands this fascination and I am content, confident, and certain with this decision.

Beginning with grade school and throughout medical school, I made every effort to become the person and the physician I imagined. I learned early that two qualities produce a great physician: leadership and dedication. I realized ahead of time the importance of leadership and commitment as I participated in various sport activities in college. I enjoyed volunteering for my church in the community outreach program where I coordinated our youth group to assist various homeless shelters in Detroit. I later had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant for undergraduate and medical students in Anatomy class. I have gained many experiences by contributing to others the unselfish attitude, understanding, and dedication needed to be a respectful leader.

I was devoted to reach my aspirations of becoming a physician when I left my family and loved ones to attend the basic science portion of medical school abroad. This experience not only provided me with an outstanding and solid medical education, but also allowed me to mature and grow personally and professionally. I had the unique opportunity to discover how medicine was conducted in the Caribbean and to apply what I learned there to better my skills here at home. During my third year of clinical rotations in medical school, I was selected by the attending physician to lead my Internal Medicine group and to co-lead in my Surgery and Psychiatry clerkships. Furthermore, I was chosen by my Internal Medicine attending to work as a student assistant. My obligations were to admit, conduct a thorough physical exam and history, write progress notes, and dictate discharge summaries on detoxification patients. I learned to be proficient in patient management and to carry responsibilities in a structured and competent manner. These experiences have provided me the tools and knowledge to become the physician I want to be.

Many of the achievements I have attained are due to the encouragement and help of my family. Born in California and raised in New York, my parents have inspired in me the strong moral principles and loyalty that have made me the person I am today. Being the oldest of five children, our family was a close group largely because of our spiritual faith. Church service and fellowship was an integral part of our family upbringing and continues to be a vital part of my life. I am also exceptionally grateful for my wife for her immeasurable love and support.

Family Medicine best balances my abilities and assures my career ambitions. During my clinical rotations in Large City, I observed many aspects of medicine. I enjoyed working with patients in every age range and particularly enjoyed helping and solving their individual problems. The philosophy of Family Medicine is what especially appeals to me. It is important to me the idea of the continuity of care, being an active advocate, and most importantly to provide competent and complete health care. I desire to enter an exciting family practice residency program that will provide the needed training to work in a private practice or to teach in an academic or hospital setting. I also wish for a friendly and supportive environment where the faculty, residents, and staff work together as a collaborative team. Finally, I seek a residency program not only to facilitate my future career in medicine, but also would encourage me to continue to develop into the physician I envisioned. My greatest goal is to challenge myself to be the best physician I can be, without any regrets, and to “dream of things that never were and say, Why Not”.

Sample personal statement 7 for Family medicine program

As sage smoke rises from a shell full of embers, I watch Sandra waft the smoke over her body, washing away any reticence she had about sharing her past. She holds an eagle’s feather to help provide the strength to talk about  her struggles with alcohol and drugs . I witnessed her testimony in the Healing Circle, a Native-American tradition, adapted to treat clients at the Healing Center. Part of my Family Medicine rotation was spent studying the impact of cultural activities on drug and alcohol rehabilitation. While I had seen Maggie in clinic for her chronic joint pain due to rheumatoid arthritis and had discussed treatment options for her somatic complaints, I saw how the Healing Circle catered to her emotional and spiritual needs, giving her the courage to admit how badly alcohol and drugs had damaged her health, and to give her the resolve to abstain from further abuse.

This experience reinforced my belief that primary care must incorporate people’s emotional, cultural, and spiritual well-being with their physical health. I first realized the importance of primary care during my work in Chad where I encountered medical emergencies that could have been handled by a general practitioner. From this experience, my interest in medicine and primary care grew. Since then, I have taken special interest in activities that focus on the well-being of others such as providing emotional support to people with developmental disabilities, educating middle school children on HIV, and coordinating activities at the Retirement Home. I particularly enjoyed my Primary Care Track continuity clinic where I provided healthcare at a Med/Peds clinic to an underserved population in East Urban City. There, I learned the uniqueness of different cultures and personalities, fine-tuned my interpersonal skills, and came to understand the importance of social and personal issues to a patient’s overall health. All of these experiences have served to reinforce my interest in primary care.

I believe that these experiences in diverse socio-economic and cultural settings with people of all ages have uniquely prepared me for a career in Family Medicine. I thoroughly believe in working with family units and addressing the patient as a “whole person”. My two-month clinical rotation in Alaska reinforced this where I was impressed by the family practitioner’s ability to handle a wide variety of situations, from a pediatric case of asthma exacerbation, to an 84 year-old woman’s collagenous colitis flare. I also enjoyed coordinating patient care with other specialists and social service groups, educating people on preventative care, and helping patients understand their ailments. Furthermore, I found the opportunity in family practice, to establish long-term relationships with each patient and family.

My life experiences, clinical rotations, and education make me certain that a career in Family Medicine is right for me. I enjoy approaching complex problems in a systematic manner. My previous studies in biological and environmental engineering honed these skills and I use them in my clinical rotations and research. I enjoy taking a problem apart and dividing it into organ based systems, looking for connections, and searching for the root of a problem. My strengths lie in my ability to address and incorporate a person’s cultural and emotional well-being while tackling a generalized problem and narrowing the options down to a single source. Ultimately, my goal is to find a program with a diverse cultural and socio-economic patient population, with an excellent community outreach and ancillary programs that address patients’ mental and social needs. As a family physician, I feel I have the best opportunity to impact a person’s overall well-being and at the same time further enrich my life with culture and diversity.

Sample personal statement 8 for Family medicine program

My interest in family medicine has developed from personal and professional experiences over a long period of time. My father being a family physician was my first source of inspiration. I spent hours watching him at work and was impressed with bond he had with his patients and their families. My interest in family practice was further heightened from my experiences in medical school. Volunteer work in underserved areas and clinical rotations during the last two years of medical school exposed me to a wide variety of cases from the prenatal through the geriatric stages of life. I realized that managing the health care of patients in these different age groups is challenging and intellectually appealing to me. I also felt that familiarity with the family system is essential in performing complete assessment and treatment of a patient’s condition. Family practice provides exposure to the full spectrum of problems and issues in medicine and provides an opportunity not only to connect with a patient but also with their families. Family practice gives scope of practice to the needs of the community, puts me on the front line of diagnosis and planning, and helps nurture long-term relationships with patients. For this reason, family practice is the most comprehensive and most attractive type of medicine to me.

Most importantly, I realized it would suit me perfectly. Having taken care of my grandmothers during their end stages of life and being a mother of two, I have developed tremendous mental and physical stamina, learned to think quickly and remain focused, and work with patience and diligence. My fine eye for detail, interpersonal skills, and enthusiasm to work with a wide variety of patients will come a long way to mold me into an empathetic and successful family physician.

Throughout my well-rounded and diverse education I have tried to keep an open mind and expand my horizons. The decision to come to the US for graduate medical education was a step in that direction. My internship training after medical school had provided me hands-on clinical experience to wide variety of cases in all facets of medicine. The exposure I gained as an observer in pediatrics and internal medicine, as a research assistant and as a hospice care volunteer has further honed my clinical skills and added to my personal growth and social awareness. During this time, I attended daily rounds with residents, participated in taking medical history, discussed differential diagnosis and management, interpreted lab values and regularly attended noon conferences and grand rounds. My research has led to three articles, one of which has been accepted for publication by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. I continue to work as an observer at UMDNJ pediatrics emergency department while I prepare for Step 3.

I seek a residency program that will provide intensive clinical experience with a diverse patient population, promote patient education and prevention, encourage participation in community service, and requires significant resident responsibility for patient care. Though I welcome the excitement and intellectual challenge, what I want the most from my career is to channel a lifetime of energy into something meaningful and worthwhile. I am thoroughly committed to pursue a career in family medicine and I can only hope that I am able to give the profession as much as I think it can give me.

I am applying to a family practice residency program with a strong belief that it would bring the best of me and help me achieve my future goals. I will bring energy, enthusiasm, integrity and creativity to the program and will be committed to my work, fellow staff and to all my patients. After completion of residency, I plan to pursue fellowship in geriatrics. My ultimate goal is to dedicate myself to serve an underserved population while committing time to research and education in geriatrics.

Sample personal statement 9 for Family medicine program

I am applying to a family practice residency program with a strong belief that it would bring the best of me and help me achieve my future goals. I will bring energy, enthusiasm, integrity, and creativity to the program and will be committed to my work, fellow staff, and to all my patients. After completion of residency, I plan to pursue a fellowship in geriatrics. My ultimate goal is to dedicate myself to serve an underserved population while committing time to research and education in geriatrics.

Sample personal statement 10 for Family medicine program

   My path to family medicine was not a straight one. Drawn to improve community health care upon graduating from medical school, I joined ObGyn training. It broughta rewarding and immense satisfaction to have primary contact to patient care. I learned to manage common medical problems and emergency situations in ObGyn. However, I realized I could serve my community better if I could utilize my knowledge and clinical experience to help patients in all age groups  and a wider variety of medical issues. This thought lead me to family medicine.

My interest in family medicine grew exponentially during my observerships. I found that preventive medicine which encourages patients to become health conscious through education and life-style modification was very attractive. I also enjoyed working with the elderly and learned of their neglect of routine medical care as well as fears to seek medical attention. I was inspired by family physicians. They combined their medical expertise with a personal commitment to understand their patients’ problems, recognize and respect different health belief systems, and empower patients to participate in health care decisions. This is the doctor I want to be: a person who acts not only as a physician but also as a patients’ family member, who treats the person holistically. The observerships confirmed that family medicine is the speciality for me.

Postgraduate training in ObGyn helped me develop qualities that are essential for the family physician. It gave me tremendous mental and physical stamina and taught me to think quickly and remain focused under stressful conditions. I enjoyed applying medical knowledge to  clinical situations and using my hand skills to help patients.  I was

satisfied with the close interaction with my patients and learned a great deal from each patient. Whether it was an oncology patient in her final days of life, an infertile couple trying to conceive a child, or an obstetrical patient who miscarried a pregnancy, I always empathized with their situation and made a difference in their lives. Having helped improve patients’ emotional and physical well being was gratifying to me.

Recent clinical observerships offered me the incredible opportunity of familiarizing myself with the US health care system and learning medical ethics.  I realized the importance of confidentiality in medical practice as well as the uniqueness of different cultures and personalities, and to understand the importance of social and personal issues to a patient’s overall health. Through educating patients and coordinating patient care with other specialists and social service groups my interpersonal skills have improved greatly. All these experiences have further prepared me for my residency training in family medicine.

Outside of the wards, I have strived to build a solid foundation of medical knowledge through my pathology/pathophysiology training and clinical research in order to accommodate a broad spectrum of various diseases. With my hard work and problem solving ability, I have accomplished several research papers in peer reviewed journals. Growing up in a large loving family helped me learn the invaluable attributes of being a team player and an excellent listener. My cultural background will make me unique to minority patients and to provide valuable access and service to those patients.

I believe with my enthusiasm, hard work, and my past clinical experience I will be able to make an immediate impact on my family medicine program. I look forward to the satisfaction of undertaking specialized training and education, which combined with my personal abilities, will allow me to contribute to the prolongation of life and to the alleviation of suffering in others. My career goal is to be a well-trained physician who is dedicated to making a difference for every patient in a community.

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Personal Statement

Personal statements may be used to customize the application to a specific program or to different specialties. 

In This Section:

Creating the personal statement, formatting the personal statement, previewing the personal statement, reviewing/editing the personal statement, assigning the personal statement.

You create your own personal statements in the MyERAS portal from the Personal Statements section listed under Documents. 

• Each personal statement must contain a Personal Statement Title and the Personal Statement Content. The title will be visible only to you to help you correctly assign it to programs, and the content will be visible to both you and the programs it is assigned to. 
• The personal statement is limited to 28,000 characters, which include letters, numbers, spaces, and punctuation marks. 
• There is not a limit to how many personal statements applicants can create. 
• Personal statements created outside the MyERAS application should be done in a plain text word processing application such as Notepad (for Windows users) or SimpleText (for Mac users). The statement should reflect your personal perspective and experiences accurately and must be your own work and not the work of another author or the product of artificial intelligence. 
• Personal statements created in word processing applications not using plain text may contain hidden and invalid formatting. 
• Note: A number of websites provide examples of personal statements. Do not copy any information from these sites and use it in your personal statements without giving credit to the author. Such use is considered plagiarism. 
• The ERAS program will investigate any suspected acts of plagiarism. 
• Any substantiated findings of plagiarism may result in the reporting of such findings to the programs to which you apply now and in subsequent ERAS seasons. 

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When creating a personal statement in the MyERAS application, the following formatting options will be available: 

• Bold. 
• Italic. 
• Underline. 
• Strikethrough. 
• Bullets. 
• Numbering. 
• Align left. 
• Center. 
• Align right. 
• Increase indent. 
• Decrease indent. 
• Insert hyperlink. 

After entering the personal statement title and content, you will have the opportunity to preview your personal statement before saving it. This preview allows you to view your personal statement just as the programs will view it, including the number of pages.  

You are responsible for reviewing your personal statements before assigning them to programs. 

The Preview/Print option under the Actions column will allow you to view and/or print your personal statement. 

Personal statements can be edited at any point during the application season — even when assigned to programs that have been applied to. 

Personal statements that have been edited will be reflected on the programs’ side by an updated status containing the date of the updated version, but programs are not guaranteed to view or review updated versions of personal statements. 

You may designate the assignment of one personal statement for each program. 

• Personal statements can be assigned to any saved or applied to programs from the Personal Statements page by selecting “Assign” under the Actions column of the intended personal statement. 
• When assigning by personal statement, programs listed with a disabled checkbox already have the selected personal statement currently assigned. 
• When assigning by personal statement, you should review any personal statements that are listed under the Assigned Personal Statement column before making selections or changes. 
• Personal statements can be assigned by program using the Assign option under the Actions column on both the Saved Programs and Programs Applied To pages. 
• Changes to personal statement assignments can be made throughout the application season, but programs are not guaranteed to view or review newly assigned personal statements. 
• A personal statement cannot be assigned to programs that are closed. 
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Family Medicine Residency Personal Statement

Want an engaging and focused personal statement for your family medicine residency program? Looking for a suitable format for a family medicine residency personal statement? Need a sample personal statement for a family medicine residency statement? If you do, then you are at the right place.

We are a team of professional personal statement writers and strategists who can help you win admission for family medicine residency.

Tired of searching for a sample family medicine residency personal statement? Are you struggling to write an intelligent personal statement for a family medicine residency application? Not confident that the current format of family medicine residency personal statement is the right choice for your case?

need a professional halp and support ? Fill out the form or chat with us. 

Well, if you are, relax and let us help you. With nearly a decade of experience in the personal statement writing niche, we are fortified with the right skills and insights to help you. No matter how you want us to help you, we will.

Over the years, we have written various personal statements for residency in family medicine to aspiring students to universities around the world. Hence, we know how to write and choose the right formats for a personal statement for family medicine residency . This is the reason we have become a reliable name in the market.

FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY PERSONAL STATEMENT Example

You can be sure that someone cares about you and how your body is developing if a doctor is in your life. Henry Mathew, a doctor, was one of these people in my life. He is the most fervent and enthusiastic doctor I have ever seen. Most of the significant events in my life are entangled in his recollections. He has been there for me ever since the day I was born. He was there when I first hurt myself playing football in the inter school competition, when I first fractured my arm after jumping off the couches, when I first required stitches after a ball hit my forehead, and when I first twisted my ankle. I was given hope and the certainty I needed to build peace of mind by his presence and discourse. My parents have fostered a strong, reliable bond with Dr. Henry, very much like others in my neighbourhood have. Our connection with him through the years has made him feel like a family member at times, but in reality, he is really just our family physician.

One of my friends’ nightmares was having to go to the hospital. Even my cousins admitted they detest going to hospitals. However, I was the exact opposite. I wasn’t terrified, yet I was rather energetic, and I anticipated visiting the clinic. Dr. Henry is among the vital reasons for that. Each time we talk, he makes it lovely for me by telling wisecracks, and now and again he will generously offer me chocolates. I think about my family’s physician when my companions and cousins converse with me about their families’ doctors. He was more energetic and understanding than they were. Despite the fact that I was as yet a little youngster, I obviously failed to really see the reason why he had been simply conversing with me. However, as time went on, I became aware of his efforts to improve people’s lives and minds. And one thing was for certain: whenever I left his place, I always felt far better than when I had first arrived.

I was also drawn to his clinic since I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of people. His waiting room was usually crowded with a variety of age groups. With every single one of them, he had a close, trustworthy relationship. As someone who enjoys conversing with others and hearing their tales, I thought this was an excellent chance to expand my perspectives.

In secondary school, I started to fathom what it genuinely meant to be a doctor, and with time, I fostered an interest in going into the medical field. Because of the way in which its capabilities stunned me as I concentrated on science and human life structures, I turned out to be more curious and exploratory because of my interest. My biology teacher recommended that I think about attending a medical school if I truly desired to learn the mechanisms of the human body. I kept thinking about what he said, and I began to consider whether I would be suited for a career in medicine.

After completing my intermediate studies, I knew exactly what I should do next: seek a career in medicine. I began to work toward my objective. I decided to keep upgrading both my mental and relational capacities, which are basic for family medicine specialists. I signed up for various non-scholarly and volunteer exercises with full intent on fostering these capacities to accomplish that point.

As part of one of my volunteer endeavours, I had the chance to participate in a local clinical program, which permitted me to meet with different patients and gain a better understanding of the role that communication plays in creating fruitful results. My volunteer work in impoverished communities and medical rotation during my final two medical school years introduced me to a broad range of circumstances, from the foetal stage through the later phases of life. I also believe they have prepared me for the future I have ahead of me, especially when taken together with my prior experiences personally and professionally.

I have the ability to be an excellent physician due to my affinity for family medicine, desire to build relationships with patients, skills to do so, and competitive drive. I believe that, given the best education, I could become a wonderful family doctor who, like Dr. Henry, can establish enduring relationships with the patients he treats.

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How to Write a Personal Statement for Residency in Family Medicine?

Let us assure you that writing a personal statement for family medicine residency is not impossible. However, it takes commitment and conviction from the part of the person writing it. That is what makes all the difference. Every residency application is a serious affair and it must be done with adequate care and respect. Or the same can certainly fall wayside.  Being an experienced writer in the field, we know deeply about the entire process of writing a personal statement for residency in family medicine . We have a unique approach to writing a statement and we follow certain professional tips.

If you wish to write a statement yourself, you can follow these tips here:

• Create a strategy for writing the personal statement
• Have the resources with you before writing the statement
• Create a list of things to talk and not about in the statement
• Explain what makes you an ideal candidate for the residency
• Describe your career goals and how the residency will help it
• Explain your academic expectations about the residency program

Of course, these are the major things expected to be covered in a personal statement for residency application for family medicine . However, that is not the case most of the time. Hence, following these will help you make your statement even better.

Why Us for Family Residency Personal Statement?

Writing a personal statement for residency in family medicine is never easy. It takes time, effort, and creative ingenuity to strike the right chord with the evaluator. And it cannot be achieved by a regular writer. That’s where we come in. We have a team filled with experienced professionals with specific skill sets to help you.

Over the years, we have associated with various students looking to write personal statements for family medicine residency . With our help, they have bolstered their chances of admission significantly and won admissions.

This is why we can help you in every way you need. In our efforts to do so, we are helped constantly by the following service traits as well:

A Team Professionals

An important aspect of our success is the team that we have. Each member of the team is skilled and trained to do what they are assigned to do. We have an integrated work process where everyone works in tandem with each other to deliver the best personal statement for family medicine residency.

International Quality Standards

We always want our clients to get the best family medicine residency personal statements no matter where they want to study. In order to deliver on this promise, we have developed a unique quality assurance system. The system enables us to improve the quality of the statements and also include the clients in the process.

Bespoke Statement Offerings for All

Although we have been in the field for a decade now, we have never seen a student with the same expectations, backgrounds, and career goals for family medicine residency. Each of them has different aspirations and wants to take different paths. Hence, we offer them with custom-services that will help their visions.

Different Statement Formats and Samples

There are many sample personal statements for family medicine residency online. However, the quality of the same cannot be ascertained, nor can its originality be. We do not know if it is a genuine statement written for a student. However, we have a plethora of genuine sample statements written for our students in diverse formats.

Value-Adding Statement Services

It is our promise that we offer affordable personal statements for residency in family medicine. As a result, we always offer our clients with different packages with their requirements that can add tremendous value for their investments. This affordability is also another reason why we are sought-after by our clients.

Timely Customer Care

Different clients may have different requests and concerns. They all need to get answers to their concerns in a timely manner. Hence, to do that, we have a trained team of customer support to provide them with all the support that they need regarding the service, its status, and all other service delivery.

While we undertake a project to write a personal statement for family medicine residency, we use these elements creatively to deliver on all our promises. This is the reason we are constantly referred to friends and families by our clients.

Hire Our Family Residency Personal Statement Writing Help

A residency experience in family medicine can add tremendous value to the career of a medical professional looking to build a career in the same. Since family medicine is an important vertical of medical science, the opportunities are plenty in the same. This makes students want to pursue residency programs all the more.

However, writing a personal statement for residency in family medicine is a tough job without the help of a professional. But we can help you.

With our help you can get a family medicine residency personal statement that is:

• Creative and focused
• Conceived from scratch
• Evaluated multiple times
• Written with your inputs
• Revised by paid quality tools

Although a personal statement cannot win you admission alone for re sidency in family medicine , ours can certainly bolster the chances of admission. We can develop any type of personal statement for family medicine residency application as you need in both PDF and Doc formats as you wish.

You can speak to our client support team to get more details and request for samples and formats for personal statement for family medicine residency to review them.

Contact us here for more details.

Vasuki Ram, senior writer and the founder of SOP Consultants is a B-tech Graduate who used to work in an MNC. Starting from 2013, she along with her team has assisted more than 10,000 students. Shift in her career was drastic. Read full story here.

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Medical Residents Are Increasingly Avoiding States With Abortion Restrictions

— some concerned this will exacerbate the shortages of physicians in rural and underserved areas.

by Julie Rovner and Rachana Pradhan, KFF Health News May 9, 2024

Isabella Rosario Blum was wrapping up medical school and considering residency programs to become a family practice physician when she got some frank advice: If she wanted to be trained to provide abortions, she shouldn't stay in Arizona.

Blum turned to programs mostly in states where abortion access -- and by extension, abortion training -- is likely to remain protected, like California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Arizona has enacted a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.

"I would really like to have all the training possible," she said, "so of course that would have still been a limitation."

In June, she will start her residency at Swedish Cherry Hill hospital in Seattle.

According to new statistics from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), for the second year in a row, students graduating from U.S. medical schools were less likely to apply this year for residency positions in states with abortion bans and other significant abortion restrictions.

Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to an abortion , state fights over abortion access have created plenty of uncertainty for pregnant patients and their doctors. But that uncertainty has also bled into the world of medical education, forcing some new doctors to factor state abortion laws into their decisions about where to begin their careers.

Fourteen states, primarily in the Midwest and South, have banned nearly all abortions. The new analysis by the AAMC -- a preliminary copy of which was exclusively reviewed by KFF Health News before its public release -- found that the number of applicants to residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans declined by 4.2%, compared with a 0.6% drop in states where abortion remains legal.

Notably, the AAMC's findings illuminate the broader problems abortion bans can create for a state's medical community, particularly in an era of provider shortages: The organization tracked a larger decrease in interest in residencies in states with abortion restrictions not only among those in specialties most likely to treat pregnant patients, like ob/gyns and emergency room doctors, but also among aspiring doctors in other specialties.

"It should be concerning for states with severe restrictions on reproductive rights that so many new physicians -- across specialties -- are choosing to apply to other states for training instead," wrote Atul Grover, MD, PhD, executive director of the AAMC's Research and Action Institute.

The AAMC analysis found the number of applicants to ob/gyn residency programs in abortion-ban states dropped by 6.7%, compared with a 0.4% increase in states where abortion remains legal. For internal medicine, the drop observed in abortion-ban states was over five times as much as in states where abortion is legal.

In its analysis, the AAMC said an ongoing decline in interest in ban states among new doctors ultimately "may negatively affect access to care in those states."

Jack Resneck Jr., MD, immediate past president of the American Medical Association, said the data demonstrates yet another consequence of the post- Roe v. Wade era.

The AAMC analysis notes that even in states with abortion bans, residency programs are filling their positions -- mostly because there are more graduating medical students in the U.S. and abroad than there are residency slots.

Still, Resneck said, "we're extraordinarily worried." For example, physicians without adequate abortion training may not be able to manage miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or potential complications such as infection or hemorrhaging that could stem from pregnancy loss.

Those who work with students and residents say their observations support the AAMC's findings. "People don't want to go to a place where evidence-based practice and human rights in general are curtailed," said Beverly Gray, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Abortion in North Carolina is banned in nearly all cases after 12 weeks. Women who experience unexpected complications or discover their baby has potentially fatal birth defects later in pregnancy may not be able to receive care there.

Gray said she worries that even though Duke is a highly sought training destination for medical residents, the abortion ban "impacts whether we have the best and brightest coming to North Carolina."

Rohini Kousalya Siva, MD, MPH, will start her obstetrics and gynecology residency at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., this year. She said she did not consider programs in states that have banned or severely restricted abortion, applying instead to programs in Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, and Washington, D.C.

"We're physicians," said Kousalya Siva, who attended medical school in Virginia and was previously president of the American Medical Student Association. "We're supposed to be giving the best evidence-based care to our patients, and we can't do that if we haven't been given abortion training."

Another consideration: Most graduating medical students are in their 20s, "the age when people are starting to think about putting down roots and starting families," said Gray, who added that she is noticing many more students ask about politics during their residency interviews.

And because most young doctors make their careers in the state where they do their residencies, "people don't feel safe potentially having their own pregnancies living in those states" with severe restrictions, said Debra Stulberg, MD, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago.

Stulberg and others worry that this self-selection away from states with abortion restrictions will exacerbate the shortages of physicians in rural and underserved areas.

"The geographic misalignment between where the needs are and where people are choosing to go is really problematic," she said. "We don't need people further concentrating in urban areas where there's already good access."

After attending medical school in Tennessee, which has adopted one of the most sweeping abortion bans in the nation, Hannah Light-Olson, MD, will start her ob/gyn residency at the University of California San Francisco this summer.

It was not an easy decision, she said. "I feel some guilt and sadness leaving a situation where I feel like I could be of some help," she said. "I feel deeply indebted to the program that trained me, and to the patients of Tennessee."

Light-Olson said some of her fellow students applied to programs in abortion-ban states "because they think we need pro-choice providers in restrictive states now more than ever." In fact, she said, she also applied to programs in ban states when she was confident the program had a way to provide abortion training.

"I felt like there was no perfect, 100% guarantee; we've seen how fast things can change," she said. "I don't feel particularly confident that California and New York aren't going to be under threat, too."

As a condition of a scholarship she received for medical school, Blum said, she will have to return to Arizona to practice, and it is unclear what abortion access will look like then. But she is worried about long-term impacts.

"Residents, if they can't get the training in the state, then they're probably less likely to settle down and work in the state as well," she said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF -- an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF .