The Medfools Pediatrics Sample Residency Personal Statement Library is now open!
These example pediatric residency personal statement samples are here for your viewing pleasure (fully anonymous). We’re hoping to add more in the future, including more pediatric and Pre-Med personal statements. If you’ve got one to add to the free library, don’t forget to contribute yours.
Kids of all ages have always fascinated me. More importantly, I find kids possessing an honesty and interest for life that adults somehow lost along the way. Even though I found all of my clinical rotations incredibly challenging and fulfilling, particularly those experiences requiring more patient contact and continuity of care, I always find myself gravitating towards the infants, the kids, and the teenage patients. While it was very exciting to deliver in obstetrics, I find myself following the pre-term infant to NICU. In the OB clinic, I was particularly interested in the special teen-clinic. My interest in pediatrics was solidified the first day I started my pediatrics rotation. I was surprised at the end of the day when my attending told me that we had finished seeing all sixty patients in the clinic. The day flew by and I realized that I had seen patients from a two-week-old new infant check up to a sixteen year old asking for contraception. The variety of patient age and the degree of illnesses makes pediatrics extremely appealing to me.
I was constantly amazed by the resiliency of these young patients. I still remember the active eight-year-old boy jumping around all over the place who was previously diagnosed with Kawasaki’s disease. Then there are the difficult cases that are forever etched in my brain, the fifteen-year-old teenage boy living in a group home due to an abusive father who returned to the clinic because he had contracted HIV when he was raped in the group home. During my pediatrics rotation, in addition to teaching my patients about their illness, I also learned a great deal from my patients, such as the 12-year old boy with diabetes, whose frustration with the limitations imposed by his illness was vented by secretly snacking on sweets. He taught me that being a good doctor entailed far more than knowing the pathophysiology of diabetes; it requires an attention to the human dimension of patients and their families. In addition to a dosage schedule of insulin, he needed me to understand the emotional and psychological ramifications of his illness. This extra step of empathy is the difference between the physician as a highly skilled technician and the physician as a compassionate ally.
Although it is very exciting to be able to diagnose an infant with the rare retinoblastoma, it is even more exciting to me to educate a child on the principles of healthy diet and exercise. I have always enjoyed teaching young adults from high school students in biotechnology to college students as a graduate teaching assistant in molecular biology. As a pediatrician, I will have the opportunity to teach young patients and their parents about their disease. I am excited by the opportunity to take care of patients from birth to adulthood; the variety of patient age in this setting will keep me continually interested and enthusiastic throughout my career. Working with young people is rewarding because of the chance to be involved in a growing relationship with patients as they mature and learn. Pediatrics is a natural choice for me because it provides me with an opportunity to work with people whose energy ignites my spirit. In the future, I picture myself a competent, well trained, and respected physician and at the same time an educator to my patients and their families. I want to feel the satisfaction that what I do improves the lives of children in big and very small ways.
