For Residency in Internal Medicine - Personal Statement Example

Personal ment for Residency in Internal Medicine If there is something that brings gratification in a person’s life, it is watching his/her life’s desires come true and achieving his or her set goals. My interest in Public Health has remained to be the greatest paradigm shift of my entire life. I was born in Sierra Leone, a place with lots of diamonds, and my childhood ambition was to become a prominent diamond evaluator. However, in January 1996, war broke out when the revolutionary United Front’s rebels attacked Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and I saw individuals dying helplessly throughout and immediately subsequent to the war. In an attempt to locate my grandmother, my uncle was thought to be a rebel and was shot in the stomach three times. He was rushed to hospital, which was overflowing with helpless wounded persons. The military, in their endeavor to work out the situation, decided to dump some of the patients into the Sierra Leone River. I watched helplessly as my uncle, who was fighting for his life, together with other patients were loaded into a lorry for transportation into the river. Had there been additional doctors, perhaps, his life as well as that of others could have been saved. From this time forth, with the support of my teachers and my family, my ambition changed – I realized that I would be more contented if I committed the rest of my life to saving patients’ lives. As the war intensified, my family moved to Guinea and my enthusiasm was apparent as I worked for the International Community of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the year 1998. Our aim was to find refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone who had gunshot wounds, amputees, the elderly, the sick, as well as pregnant women, and take them to ICRC-run Satellite clinics. While here, I observed the difference in the military hospital’s health care system and at the satellites, clinics operated by ICRC. This encounter made me realize that I not only wanted to become a Doctor, but I also wanted to obtain health management skills and knowledge. I believe that pursuing resident training in the field of internal medicine would realize my desire and I hereby express my interest of enrolling for this program in your institution. Being a career that promotes lifelong learning and that grants great individual satisfaction, I believe that internal medicine will give me the intellectual stimulation I desire in a career, as well as the personal contentment of having great impact on the lives of others. My particular area of interest is on involvement in the assessment of existing health policies as well as taking part in future planning of healthcare. Pursuing an Internal Medicine Residency program will equip me with knowledge on management, thereby enhancing my decision-making capacity, as well as my leadership skills. Through management, I will learn how to make the most of the limited resources effectively and efficiently. I attended Brooklyn College in New York where I majored in Chemistry. While here, my academic performance was excellent and during spring of the year 2004, I was honored for appearing in the Dean’s list. In May 2007, I graduated from Fordham University, Bronx, New York with a Bachelor Science in Chemistry and in June 2008, I received a Medical Certificate from Georgetown University School of Medicine. In 2013, I will be graduating from Georgetown University School of Medicine. While at Georgetown University School of Medicine, I engaged in activities that are proof of my fervor concerning internal medicine. From the year 2008 until now, Health Rights and Social Justice have been of particular interest to me – I head the introduction of health rights, as well as health justice concepts in the context of healthcare providers to a civil and open society. In my capacity as a Health Justice Scholar at Georgetown University of Medicine since the year 2008, I have also taken on research activity both in my specific academic department, as well as outside it. I have been working on a research geared at reviewing disparities in family education and their influence on early childhood development in Columbia District. In Medical School, my first patient greatly increased my interest in Internal Medicine. We were supposed to come up with a diagnosis and treatment for Ms. Resico, a 20-year-old Caucasian female on Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo characterized with elevated blood pressure with a systolic pressure of 180. Our differential included secondary causes of hypertension such as Fibromuscular dysplasia, pheochromocytoma, reninoma since she had an elevated renin. Through multiple tests and with the assistance of the rheumatology team we tested her for vasculitis and she tested positive for p-ANCA. Renal angiogram on her revealed multiple aneurysms on the renal vasculator. We were, therefore, able to diagnose her with Polyarthrits nodosa and started her on steroids and cyclophosphamide. Taking care of Ms. Resico taught me the significance of teamwork in efficient healthcare delivery and the critical necessity of IM physicians, as well as their value in healthcare. My other clinical rotations further cemented my decision to settle for a career as an internist. In medical school, I have displayed most of the qualities needed in an internist. In all of my clinical rotations, my operation has been excellent and I have taken every chance to learn with great enthusiasm. Academic challenges are dear to my heart and I maintain a steady and unquenchable thirst for knowledge. In addition to coping with a medical school’s demands, I have gone to numerous conferences and taken on leadership roles. I learnt that being the quarterback in patients’ management, internists play a significant role in the provision of hospital care. They are the primary investigators who carry out an initial assessment on patients and make a decision on which specialists to consult. With the information that they collect from the history, various laboratory tests, physical examinations and studies, they are able to make a list of differential diagnoses. Moreover, the fact that the job of an internist is never boring and requires the incorporation of many disciplines makes it admirable. At times, internists play the role of pulmonologists, nephrologists, and cardiologists. In the year 2002, I volunteered as a Hemodialysis Patient Care technician at Veteran Affairs Hospital where my duties entailed counseling the patients, connecting the components to the dialysis machine, and recording crucial information of patients’ pre and post dialysis, including fluid removed. I also worked at Fordham University as a research assistant from the year 2005 to 2007, with the aim of creating fuel cells with the use of silver electrodes instead of platinum. We worked with AFM, mass, UV and IR-spectrometer. Moreover, since the year 2007 until now, I have been involved in patients’ assessment and producing a working diagnosis at the non-profit student-run Hoya clinic that cares for the uninsured and homeless in Columbia District. Between 2009 and 2011, I Co-founded the Internal Medicine Group, and my responsibility involved enlisting medical students, as well as producing a list-service. Between 2010 and 2011, I was the Radiology Interest Group’s treasurer responsible for keeping track of the group’s income and expenditure. Over and above my educational profile and experience, I love sports, with a particular interest in soccer, basketball and golf. I also enjoy following the current events in the country and all over the world by watching national and international news. I believe that with these skills, my excellent academic background and my commitment to excellence, I will add value to your institution, while, in its turn, it will provide me with the best avenue through which I will be able to actualize my desires of being a manager and policy maker in the public health sector. I aspire to become a master hospitalist maintaining an outpatient practice as part of a medical group, and a head in internal medicine who is ready with the skills required to lead in medical education, research and clinical care of patients. I trust that this program will provide me with a strong academic environment and the resources that will permit me to expand my knowledge base. I also anticipate to set new standards in scientific research, as well as in patient care, and to become an instrument of change equipped to boost science and establish future healthcare system, through practice inquiry and/or improvement. The fact that this program emphasizes on preparing students to become educators of both patients and peers within healthcare community attracts me most. I also believe that the program will expose me to numerous clinical and research opportunities in Internal Medicine, as well as its sub-specialties. Moreover, it will enable me to become a proficient and competent healthcare provider in any other field that I may chose to pursue in future. I am eager and ready to put in extra effort, to face the challenges that life has in store for me, and to take full advantage of unlimited opportunities for personal and professional growth within internal medicine. Kindly consider my application for enrollment into this program and assist me to actualize my dream of serving humanity. Read More