The Psychiatry Example Preventative Medicine Personal Statement Library is now open!
These sample Psychiatry and Psych residency personal statement examples are here for your viewing pleasure (fully anonymous). We’re hoping to add more in the future, including Pre-Med personal statements. If you’ve got one to add to the free library, don’t forget to contribute yours.
PSYCHIATRY PERSONAL STATEMENT
I have chosen to pursue Psychiatry for both humanitarian and scientific reasons. After my residency, my goal is to become a competent psychiatrist familiar with both Western and Eastern culture who will be able to better care for my patients, especially those from other cultures. I also want to be a physician-scientist to develop imaging technology for early diagnosis of mental disorders.
After graduation from medical school, I was trained in radiation medicine, where I learned to treat patients with problems caused by radiation exposure. I worked as an internist for eight years. During my practice, I treated many patients with mental illness who refused to see psychiatrists due to their cultural beliefs. To treat them, I expanded my psychiatric knowledge, and used it to gain firsthand experience in managing patients. Since then, I have developed an interest in Psychiatry while my clinical practice has solidified what I learned in medical school and helped me gain a deeper understanding about being a physician. I now understand very much that we need to be concerned about patients’ mental as well as physical health.
I moved to the United States to learn more about advanced medical technology and took a position as a nuclear medicine technologist and prepared for my residency training. From this position I learned many valuable lessons. First, patient care is always important. When very sick patients have a difficult time in finishing a scan, I try my best to comfort them and give them the best opportunity for a successful study. I’ve become well liked by my colleagues for my ability to help patients as well as be a part of a team,. Given the time and ability, I am always willing to do things beyond my job description. On one occasion I finished a computer project for our PET and CT scanner on my own time in order to solve a problem which no one had assigned to me. This is only one example of things I did for my team that brought me personal satisfaction. Also, I learned to think fast while working with critically ill trauma patients, anticipating what physicians needed in advance to facilitate prompt patient care.
In addition to my technologist experiences, I worked at an internist office as a volunteer medical assistant as well as an observer in the Anesthesia Department of General Hospital. General medicine deals with common diseases and requires routine patient care, but I prefer a field with more challenges and less routine. Psychiatry falls into this category. Each psychiatric illness presents so differently, with the symptoms being dramatic, vivid and colorful. The causes of these illnesses are largely unknown with many mysteries yet unsolved. These complexities triggered my urge to solve these problems. While working with patients face-to-face, I have a strong passion to get them back to functioning in our world. It is a difficult but artful work that requires talented physicians trained to deal with brain dysfunction.
After more than 10 years of hard work, I have reached a level of excellence as a nuclear medicine technologist. Although I still like nuclear medicine, my job is becoming repetitive. I crave the diagnostic puzzles and clinical problems which physicians face each day. That is the main reason why I am seeking a new career in psychiatry. In addition, I believe the Asian community needs more psychiatrists. Because of their culture, many immigrants must struggle to adapt to this country. As an immigrant myself, I know they often are pushed to the very edge by their stressful lives. I believe I can bring a special understanding to the important role culture plays in the disease process.
For example, a colleague of mine sought medical help for insomnia, but could not describe his symptoms accurately because of the language barrier. The doctor he saw suspected he was mentally ill and referred him to a psychiatrist. For a Chinese man, a psychiatric referral is culturally insulting, so it made him very angry. Eventually he did see a psychiatrist, but because of his hostility, he was mistakenly diagnosed as schizophrenic. However, after a Chinese psychiatrist became involved in the case, language and cultural barriers were overcome and he was treated for depression with dramatic improvement. Along the same lines, I also recognize the importance of psychiatrists educating the public on the nature of mental diseases. Culturally, the Chinese consider mental illness a shameful problem for patients and families. In China, mental illness is not treated early, but rather kept in secret. As a psychiatrist working in my community, I hope to combat such perceptions.
In addition to clinical psychiatry, I would like to make a significant contribution to the research field. I have considerable training and experience in the field of radiation medicine which will allow me to bridge psychiatry with emergent molecular imaging technology. Currently the rapidly evolving technologies of radiological science offer promising opportunities to explore the nature of brain-behavior relationships. I believe my unique background and dedication to the field will allow me to become a successful and effective psychiatrist.
Although I have not been working as a physician for some time, I am a hard worker and team player. Even though I am not a new graduate, I have never left the medical field. I have had significant US hospital work experience and gained valuable knowledge about the US healthcare system by working with patients and physicians on a daily basis. I also have the ability to communicate with patients and physicians from different ethnic backgrounds and age groups. Finally, I am mature and reliable. I believe that my previous clinical training in radiation medicine and my cultural background will make me an asset to my psychiatry residency program.