Personal Statement For Family Medicine Residency Application

Ever since I was a child, by the grace of Almighty God, a number of life-altering events have motivated me to become a doctor. As I grew older, my personality, character, and various interests in life such as my fascination with medicine, engineering, and my love for sports have guided me to make the decision to specialize in Family Medicine. Over the years, I have developed and fostered long term relationships beginning in early childhood and all through my high school and college years, so I consider building strong relationships with people of all ages one of my strong suites. Also, I take pride in learning and honing the skills necessary to provide the utmost quality care possible to prospective patients noting their comprehensive medical history.

My engineering background has prepared me to focus on processes and interconnected systems as a whole and has proven to be a valuable asset in preparing me to meet and tackle the challenges of medical school. I find Family Medicine to be the specialty that I am the most compatible with and the one that most fits my natural talents and interests in life–because, in it, I am able to pursue my desire to help my fellow human beings regardless of age or gender. Furthermore, I believe that Family Medicine is the one specialty that focuses on strong doctor-patient relationships, and that Family physicians have the most complete vision of their patients; thus, are better able to provide the most integral and complete care for them.

I believe our primary care system, led primarily and foremost by Family Medicine, is about to face a revolution, perhaps only comparable to the Personal Computer (PC) revolution of the 1980’s. Today, state-of-the-art medical technology is ubiquitous in hospitals and large clinics in the US. The potential life-changing power of technology can now be harnessed and is about to reshape the primary care medical field of America. For instance, just the wide implementation of one of these technologies, electronic medical records (EMRs), could have enormously profound and lasting effects in the health and quality of life of present and future generations.

The information provided by EMRs, and available to patients, will allow them the flexibility to effectively and anonymously share their EMRs for epidemiologic, genetic and a long list of other types of studies that will shed new light on a myriad of diseases. Case-control and cohort studies will become easier to conduct and will potentially generate more powerful results because their sample sizes will increase exponentially; patterns of diseases that are barely noticeable now or that we might not even imagine, will start to crystallize before our very own eyes (here is where I envisioned artificial intelligence making this dream a reality). I believe that once these changes begin to occur, humankind will never be the same, and that I, in my very own way, can help bring some of these changes to fruition.

My engineering background, information technology experience, and medical education put me in a special position to help bring about many of these changes. Therefore, I have decided to pursue my specialization in Family Medicine because I believe that it is the one specialty that focuses on building and maintaining strong relationships and encompasses other areas of the medical sciences, which I find captivating and intriguing. Also, I believe that these long standing relationships will allow me to continue to learn from my patients and my intent is that I can also be a source of hope and inspiration for them as well. Furthermore, I have demonstrated problem solving ability and versatility to work with different systems and my medical school education have prepared me to master multiple scopes in the medical sciences, which is crucial for Family Medicine.

One of my main goals in becoming a doctor and being an engineer is to find ways to improve patient care by seamlessly integrating technology in the prevention, monitoring and care of patients to help them live longer, healthier and more enjoyable lives. Looking ahead, I believe we can improve medical technology in ways that we can only dream of at this time. I believe that my education, experience, and drive to succeed can help make many of these medical dreams a reality. I am looking forward to being able to help family physicians –and the medical field in general– meet the technological challenges of the 21st century; anywhere from helping in the design, implementation and delivery of telemedicine to remote places, to helping face the medical information technology challenges of our times such as in the transition to EMRs. I want to help bridge the patient-provider health information gap and enhance the patients’ ability to become more active partners in their own healthcare. My experience in the technology field coupled with my medical education will allow me to serve as a liaison between the capabilities and tools available and how they can be applied to assist in the day-to-day care of our patients.