MEDICINE RESIDENCY PERSONAL STATEMENT

Although years have passed, I still can almost hear my father calling me: “Son, I’ve got to show you this.” The pictures of a patient of his with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome that he would present in a clinical meeting confirmed his fascination for practicing internal medicine. Well before I entered medical school in South America, that fascination contaminated me irreversibly. More than that, his example as a human, compassionate man and his deep understanding about human behavior contributed enormously to my ultimate decision of taking medicine as a profession and internal medicine as my medical field. During medical school, I have found two additional motivations to apply for internal medicine: first, the similarities between the general clinician’s and the detective’s reasoning, which makes internal medicine-based careers even more seductive, and, second, the opportunity to refine my intellectual skills by exploring the immense complexity of human’s body systems and pathologies.

This led me to complete a 2-year internal medicine residency at the University of South America. But I did not stop there. I felt inspired by the intensively deep relationships I shared with cancer patients during residency, and also fascinated by the systemic nature of malignant diseases. Then, I concluded a 3-year medical oncology fellowship at the Country Name National Cancer Institute. Taken together, these 5 years of training were a wonderful experience. I matured both as a professional and as a person.

During that time,while I was gaining a tremendous clinical experience in oncology, I developed two other goals. First, I decided to refine my interpersonal skills and enrich my life experiences by pursuing a professional training in another country with different cultural backgrounds. Second, as I became a profound enthusiast of cancer clinical research, I wished to participate in cancer clinical trials performed at major academic centers. Those goals were clearly correlated. Dr. Bigshot, then Chief of Oncology division at the Country Name National Cancer Institute, who had his medical training at two recognized US academic centers, became my mentor. His outstanding clinical skills, ethical behavior, and extensive evidence-based medicine knowledge served as basis for my decision to come to US and carry out my 2 dreams. After 14 months working with outcomes research in cancer at General Hospital, I finally realized I should apply for internal medicine residency to make my goals come true. The reasons I decided to pursue residency in the United States include: 1) to develop outstanding general clinical skills, which are essential to conduct clinical trials; 2) to improve my interpersonal communication skills with different patients with different pathologies; 3) to get an experience that will certainly contribute to my intellectual and personal development; 4) to share teaching experiences with medical students, which I consider strictly bound to conducting research in academic center, and 5) to become a full licensed, board certified medical oncologist able to participate in clinical trials.

Many colleagues consider me an easy-going, team-devoted, hardworking, resilient, straightforward, and goal-oriented person. I look for a program in internal medicine where I can make use of these personal characteristics to approach the patients as a whole and provide them with the best of comprehensive care. I also make a commitment to develop the mastery expected from a physician trained in an US academic center to manage a broad range of diseases. Equally important, I pursue a program where I will find the opportunity to build an expertise in clinical research.
In the long-term, I believe that every physician’s ultimate goal is to contribute to society as a whole. There are many paths that may lead physicians to this goal. Each of us has to judge his own values and beliefs to make decisions on how best serve society. After questioning myself, I realized that an US academic-based training in internal medicine will take me to the path I idealize to help people: obtaining an excellent medical background to further participate in cancer clinical trials. The detective’s reasoning inherent to clinicians, and my curiosity about the complexity of body systems I mentioned earlier will certainly guide me through this journey.