Module 4: How To Write a Coercive Personal Statement

Welcome to Module 4. In this section, you will write a compelling, coercive personal I will be teaching you specifically what residency programs want to see in your statements, what they do not want to see in your statements, and what you can save for I'll show you how to break your personal statement into four key sections. I'll teach you specifically the common questions that your personal statement should answer, because those are the questions that programs are asking themselves while they're reviewing your application. So your personal statement should tell the story that answers these questions preemptively. If if they have to reach out and ask you to tell them, then you've already lost them in the shuffle, right? You want to put the information in there that triages you up. So that you fast forward, accelerate yourself to get invited for interview. I'll show you how you can express your character and show your true self while remaining professional in your personal statement. How you can expose virtues and bring out the characteristics that serve you well in the There is homework as and I want you to participate in that homework and take it very seriously. There's a question prompt that you can use in this section that would help you brainstorm ideas and process feelings and emotions that you may have not connected with before. I want you to answer those questions and have anyone in your network to review. We'll talk about it for those in the live class, we'll discuss some of that together I want you to take time and write it out. There will be several iterations of your statement, and that's okay. What we're going to do is we're going to extrapolate content. From your responses to the prompt to create your personal statement. Because if you answer those questions, you're answering the commonly asked questions that programs have about future applicants or their future residents, what they desire, because you have to remember, their bottom line is they want residents who they want to train. They want residents who fit into the culture. So you're going to have to show that in your personal statement and not tell. We'll talk about the difference between showing versus telling in your writing. We'll talk about how to write Copy that makes a difference, copy that converts the program director, converts the faculty panel over to favor you over the other There is a lot of work in this module. A lot of introspection. Reflection is needed. So take your time through it. Don't rush through this particular module. Because it's a key aspect. A key portion of your application is your personal statement. Let's get into it.

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to this special webinar on how to write a compelling personal statement. I am Dr. Lum. I am the lead coach here at www.imgroadmap.com. This is a platform that is meant to motivate, inspire, and coach IMGs on what they need to know in order to beef up their application packet so that they are presenting themselves in the best light possible.

This in turn will hopefully increase your chances of getting into your dream program. Your personal statement is one of your most important parts of your packet. I find that for IMGs this is one area where we don’t really put a whole lot of effort. By the end of the day, what’s happened is you have a whole page that you could have used to display your best self.

I look at it as a one page document that allows me to write an open letter to the program director. What do I want to put on it? That is what and how I want to approach this. What do I want to put on this letter? That is not obvious on my packet. I do not want to repeat things that are already present in other portions of my application but want to bring out the human behind my application packet.

Without further ado, we will go right into the first slide. I would like for us to define the personal statement because of course, we have to know what we are talking about prior to going into writing one. So it is an essay, basically. Like I said previously, it brings out the human behind the CV. It is a place where you want to share your pursuits, your ambitions, your motivation and the things that make you tick as a doctor. You want to bring those out in a way that relates to you being a very good resident. Basically, programs like your portfolio, which is why they have pulled it out. You have met the criteria. You have met that cut off whatever they were wanting to sit to see through applicants. You have met the criteria. Your personal statement should indeed reflect that. It should reflect the person behind the statement.

That being said, when you go into the details of what your personal statement should do. It should expose virtues. It should expose character. It should be short, one page. I will usually break it down in three to four paragraphs. I want you to answer pertinent questions about what the program director wants to know. 

Common essay themes that people have used in the past include using a story of how adversity has shaped you, using a patient encounter that shows what drew you to that specialty, using a patient encounter that shows something that you learned about yourself in taking care of that person, describing your background to emphasize your values or your specialty choice, using even a story of an influential physician, or someone that you worked with that maybe led you into this pathway that you have picked out for residency.

Another thing to remember with your essay theme is you could choose just about anything. Some people have used their engineering background and tied it into why they want to pursue a residency in radiology. Some people use their background in neurosciences to speak about their reason for pursuing neurology. Some people use their background as working as a nurse to reflect why they are pursuing a career now in primary care. So whatever it is, you just want to pick a theme that makes you unique and pick something that works for you.

Remember, this is not your medical school personal statement. This is your residency personal statement. At this point, your program director does not need to know why you chose medicine. What they need to know is why you chose that specialty because you are already in medicine, you have already completed medical school, or you are in the process of completing medical school. Their priority is really not what your motivation was to pursue medicine. At this point, they are hoping that you are already clear on that. You should be opening with a story that led you into your specialty of choice amidst other specialties. What made you choose pediatrics, right? Over psychiatry. You want to bring a story that brings that into light, not “Oh, when I was a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor.” This is not the place for that. That was for your medical school personal statement.

This is the place for, “During my third year rotations, I was so interested in entire human physiology. I could not pick a specialty but once I rotated with Dr. “So and so” on the cardiopulmonary service. I realized that I really wanted to learn more about the intersection between different internal organs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that led me into internal medicine.” You want to pick something that makes the program director see why you chose that specialty and not necessarily medicine as a whole.

That being said, I want you to think of your audience next. I want you to think about what the programs want to know in your personal statement. With writing a personal statement, I would recommend that you pause this video right now. I want you to answer these questions on a piece of paper before you come back to it. Because if you can answer these questions in your head arbitrarily without trying to pull a story out of it and then later on put a story around it, that makes it really flow. Because like I said, there are going to be four paragraphs in your personal statement. You can choose to make each paragraph answer one of these questions.

Your first paragraph could answer the question of, “Why did you choose this specialty?” Again, not medicine in general. You can use a doctoral story. You could use a patient encounter. You could use a research story. You could use a famous physician's biography. Whatever you choose to use, make sure that it tells me or the program why you chose the specialty. Take a piece of paper right now and write down why you chose the specialty that you will be applying into. Write down four reasons. Then, you can later on frame a story around that and make that your first paragraph. 

The second thing, “Why did you choose this program?” Most of you are going to write one statement for like a hundred programs, but I would advise you if you have expertise with a particular program, you have knowledge, or you have relationship with the program, meaning you have rotated there or people that rotated through there, you live in that same town, you know about the reputation of the program, you worked with an attending from that program, you went to undergrad at that university, whatever kind of relationship that you can develop, you want to tie that into your statement. Because what that show is you did not choose that program out of random selection but you chose that program out of prior knowledge. You have an idea as to what that program can really offer you as an individual. You want to bring that out because that brings a sense of familiarity. Remember, you are writing this letter to the program director. When the program director sees that they are thinking, “This is not a stranger. This is not a person that is an alien to our facility, our university, or our teaching program. This is someone that is familiar. This is someone that is at home here.” You want to create that likability and you are doing this subconsciously in your writing. That is why I would say it is really important that when you write your statement, and if you have a relationship with a program, personalize your statement. Yes, you may have to write 10 different statements. You can write the one generic one that you are going to send to all family medicine programs across the country but those family medicine programs that are in your state of origin, the state that you recite in, or the state that you have knowledge about, you should write something that ties in. It may have been a news break, a news outbreak, or something that had to do with the health of the people in your community.

Like in my community, there was a hep A outbreak throughout this last year. We had so many patients that were positive for hepatitis A. If I was a person applying into a program in this area, I would use a story of taking care of hep A patients because I know anyone that is in primary care saw their fair share of hep A last year. So use something that ties in or makes the person that is reading it can get their heart synced like, “Oh yes, I remember that. Oh yes, that is close to home.” Because that makes them realize that you know what you are talking about, you have done your research and are familiar with them. 

The third paragraph can go into what you have to offer or add to the program. That is when you don’t necessarily reflect your CV over again but reflect what your CV has achieved. If you have a research background, you can talk about what you anticipate to do with the program or how much research you anticipate to participate in. If you have a background in community health, you can talk about how much you want to be involved with community health projects or how much you want to be involved with women’s health. If you are looking into OB or how much you want to be involved with whatever it is that program has, that they stand out in. For example, if you are going to a program that has an ID fellowship, and that is something that you are potentially eyeing, you may want to highlight that in there, “Oh, this program stands out in the training in infectious diseases. That is something that appeals to you.” If they have a cardiology fellowship, you can use and tie that in there, even if you are not certain that is something you want to pursue, but you are creating a sense of likability. 

The fourth paragraph, it can include what you want out of a program such as what you are looking for. Then you want to tie that into the whole statement. What are you looking for? You tie that into your introduction. Why you chose the specialty? Why you chose that particular program? What do you have to offer them? What are you looking for? You want to close it really well. You want to make it, bring it all home.

Some really important things to remember. Like I said before, you can use the common themes. You can use a clinical encounter that led you to the specialty. You can use how a hard season changes your perspective towards a specialty. 

I want to bring out some common pitfalls and things that you should avoid. Don’t tell a story that shows that someone else was less than you. Do not tell a story that discloses a patient's name or any kind of HIPAA violation. HIPAA is a law in the states. It is a healthcare protection act for patients privacy protection act. You can not disclose the patient's identity or things about patients in so much detail. You can dance around a point and the program director will understand that, so do not worry about it. Because they know about HIPAA rules. Do not disclose the patient's identity. Do not put any kind of negative criticism towards other healthcare providers. Do not talk negatively about your nurses. Do not talk negatively about your help healthcare services. Do not talk negatively about chiropractors. This is not the place for it. You do not want to take the risk of being looked at like someone who is completely negative. 

In talking about why you chose a specialty,  don’t overdo it. You can talk about the reason why you like a certain discipline, but these program directors are smart. They have gone through all kinds of people. They have stories under their belt that will make you laugh. They know and they can tell “BS” when they see it. This is not an official teaching. I am not in an academic center right now or in a university program. I can call things as they are, but program directors, they have been through the mills, they have seen all kinds of things, so you cannot surprise them. You need to be very honest and genuine. Don’t fantasize about something like if you are interested in family medicine, you don’t have to lie that you have this dream of staying in a rural area forever and just being like a small person and never really breaking out of that shell of a small town. No, you don’t have to go into all that detail. You can really talk about your passion for working with underserved people and leave it at that. You don’t have to lie or exaggerate the point because a lot of times they can tell.

Another thing, do not sound too braggadocio, “My whole family is all plastic surgeons. There is nothing else that I can do in my life besides plastic surgery just because my dad is a plastic surgeon.” No, nobody cares. This is about you, make it personal. You need to make yourself likable. That is what is important. Are you likable to the person that is receiving your letter or your essay on the other end?

Another thing to remember, alongside answering questions, you should always try to think ahead. What are some things that my reader wants to know about me? Remember, your program director is your most influential person in this process. Subconsciously, your personal statement is trying to influence them. You need to be answering questions, which is why I said before, “If you can go through those questions that I have on the previous three slides, you follow them, write them out on a piece of paper, answer them verbatim first and create a storyline around it, that really makes it easier for you.” Because when you sit down and you say, “I am going to write a statement.” I mean you just get a mind block, especially if you are already dealing with a fixed mindset, which we have talked about in the introduction of this whole series. It is dealing with a fixed mindset that just does not let you think outside of the box. It is important to answer these questions generically and create a story around it. 

This slide says, “What do programs want to know in the personal statement?” Like I said before, answer questions. They want to know that you are easy to work with. They want to know if you are teachable. They want to know if you possess what the ACGME calls core competencies. There are five of them, but they want to know if you are professional. They want to know if you are going to apply practice based learning. Professionalism is so important because in this day and age, you hear residents getting fired. You hear people not completing residency, so being professional, having good communication skills. Your medical knowledge is reflected already in your application packet. You do not have to worry about displaying your fond of medical knowledge in your personal statement. They just need to understand that you are willing to learn. That you are willing to put time and effort into patient care procedural skills. 

Because if you think about it, residency is the place to learn. These programs know very well that you do not know squat just yet. They want to teach you. They are willing to teach you. This applies to those who are not or who have never practiced medicine in another country. If you have never practiced medicine in another country, accept that you will learn everything that there is to know about your specialty once you get into residency. Do not worry about impressing them with medical knowledge at this point, impress them with your ability to learn, impress them with your humility, impress them with your professionalism, impress them with your interpersonal skill and your communication skill.

If you have been a physician in another country before, this may be a point where you have to humble yourself. Because you already have knowledge of what it takes to practice your specialty of choice. This is like a difficult area as trying to explain it over to someone and train you on something you are an expert in, but I want you to for a moment just adopt that growth mindset again. Think what if, “Everything I have known about my specialty is not the only thing that there is to know. What else can I learn from my specialty?” Then use that as a selling point or if you have that sense of humility, you go back to the place that you were when you first chose that specialty in your medical school and reflect that in your statement.

This is a slide that touches on the ACGME core competencies. I just want you to think of them as a guideline. I do not want you to list this out. You do not need to tell the program that you are professional, you are interpersonal and you have got good communication skills. They would know that you have copied this on the ACGME website, so don’t fool yourself. I want you when you are writing your statement, after you have answered those questions I talked about before. I really hope that you paused and answered those questions by writing them out before you continued. If you did not, pause now and write them out and then come back to the rest of the video.

I am assuming that you are back in the video because you did pause and answer the questions. When you are tying in your story, ask yourself, “Is this a professional essay? Does this show that I am an approachable person? Does this show the interpersonal side of me? Does it communicate? Does it show that I can adopt new skills and I am flexible in learning about patient care? Does it reflect those things?” If it does, then you are meeting the core competencies already. Subconsciously, because remember you do not want to be direct. You want to be subconscious. You want to be influencing these people that are reading your statements without them knowing that your intention is to influence them. Important virtues to bring out to training programs are to always be ethical, honest, human, honorable, be someone that holds high principles in life, be moralistic and conscientious. We talked about being professional. We talked about seeking improvement, being sincere, incorrupt, virtuous, altruistic, a team player, and compassionate.

Those are things and character traits that all physicians already possess. You want to focus on those things. You want to bring out the best version of you. Again, you are not going to be listing out these words necessarily but you are going to show them how. That is a key point in this personal statement writing process. You are not supposed to list out the attributes or the things that make you a phenomenal person. I want you to make it a point to show the program how you are a phenomenal person. Do not tell me you are a person that is phenomenal. Tell me you ran a 5k or a marathon for the first time you had never ran one before, you beat a healthcare problem like diabetes, or obesity by hard work, determination and a having strong will. Tell me then at that point you have not told me that you are hardworking, you show me that you are hardworking. Always try to show people instead of telling them that you are hardworking. Always show, don’t tell. You want the reader to understand that you are hardworking, inquisitive, persistent, dedicated without coming out and saying, “Oh, I am hardworking. I am committed to this specialty.” No, show me how. You show me how by the fact that you have done some shadowing work with people in that specialty, the fact that you did an acting internship with someone in that specialty, the fact that you presented your poster in that specialty. That shows me how dedicated you are because you went to the annual conference and presented that in your CV. That shows me how dedicated you are. You don’t have to tell me that again in your personal statement but you can talk about an experience or an encounter that you had at that conference. Not necessarily that you went to the conference but by telling about an encounter that triggered your desire to train at this program, I know that you went to the conference. You indirectly show the reader about yourself.

Another key point to use in the statement. Actually, we will go to the next slide and we will talk about these other components. Like I talked about in the beginning, you always introduce, open, give a background story, and open with the true event. Then you talk about why the program, what you have to offer the program, why the specialty, and tie it all together. Some key things to remember, the quality of what you write is just as important as what you write. You should always personalize your essay to one or two programs that you particularly hope to match to.

If you have a program that you know that your chances are high, personalize your statements. If you rotated at a hospital, personalize your statement, meaning you are going to highlight things that are specific to that hospital. You can even quote times and things that happened to you while you were at that hospital. Experiences or mentors that are from that hospital, people in that program. What you have seen the program achieved like, “I know this program has had a hundred percent pass rate on their boards. I know this program has had a 80% match rate for fellowships. I know this program builds people up to become cardiologists. I have seen this program building people up to become successful academic professors or teachers after they finish residency.” Quote things that are specific to that program. 

Another thing to remember about your writing, you always want to use an active rather than a passive verb tense. Instead of, “Dr. X did or Dr. T did this,” instead it should be like, “While I was working with Dr. T, such and such happened.” You make it active because think about a book. If you pick up a boring book, you are not going to finish it. You end up closing and tossing it to the side. You want to make sure their personal statement is interesting. If you have trouble with creating an interesting statement, seek help, have one or two people read it. People from your specialty of choice particularly but also pick some linguist, someone in your community that is a literary agent or someone that has just the sense of literature. You can have them read it and say, “Hey, how does this flow? I want you to just comment on the flow.” But the person that is in your dream specialty should comment on the content. Whereas the person, maybe an English major, can comment on the grammar of what you have written.

Another thing, let us go into the introduction of your personal statement. You open with true events. We talked about this. A captivating medical story that exposes your altruism, shows a talent, a hobby or a gift, how it intersects with your mission in that field of specialty and narrative events that made you choose a specialty. Something captivating, you really want to draw that reader in. Then remember when you get to the conclusion, which would be your last paragraph, you want to tie into that first paragraph. If you started off talking about how being raised on a farm led you into choosing to do whatever specialty it is that you are choosing to do. At the end, you need to tie that into what you have to offer and what that farming experience is doing for you in medicine. That is just an arbitrary example. If you are going to use something that outlandish, you should tie it in at the end so that it makes sense. You want to quote some of your introduction in your conclusion.

It is also good to remember that you want to always make sure that your experiences come alive, highlight what you learn from them and how they influence you. By the time I am done reading or the reader is done reading, they need to be able to picture you. They need to have a picture of who this person is even without seeing you but they should have a sense of who you are as a person just by reading that. 

Another thing that you should remember, your personal statement should not sound like a braggadocious repetition of your CV. Don’t plagiarize. Don’t pick up someone’s statement from the internet and think that you can twist it here and there. Because there are a hundred other people that are doing the same thing and you are going to sound like them. Then it is not personal anymore. It is more of a generic statement.

What they are asking you for is indeed a personal unique statement of why you are choosing to come work with them. Always check for spelling and grammatical errors. Don’t use clichés. Don’t talk about politics. Don’t talk about romantic relationships. Don’t give your opinion on sex even if you are applying into OB. Don’t give your opinion on abortion or any political issues. Don’t just go there, you just never know. Don’t talk about religion if you don’t have to honestly, unless you are applying to a program that specifically talks about doing mission trips. Mission trips are universal. It is more of a global health initiative, but as far as spelling out your religion, whatever that is, Hinduism, Buddhism, you probably don’t want to talk about that. Because if you have a bias Christian, a bias Muslim, or a bias Atheist reading that, they may not want to talk to you any further. Don’t talk about religion. Talk about medicine. How about that? Talk about your specialty and medicine. Make sure you vary your sentence structure. Don’t be repetitive. Don’t say the same thing over and over. Don’t exaggerate. Don’t begin every sentence with me, me, me and I, I, I. Start the sentence with a scenario or something else and be concise. Write full sentences. This is another big point. Write full sentences. Don’t write a phrase and don’t write anything that is left to their imagination. Don’t write anything that the person has to decide what you were trying to portray.

Another thing to remember, don’t write any negatives in your statement. This is not the place for it. Don’t write anything that you regret on your personal statement, only use it to show your attributes, to exhibit the good sides of you. They do not need to know why you made a poor choice in the past, no. The only time you can talk about anything negative is when you are trying to talk about what you learned from it. That is the only time you can bring out any negatives. When you are bringing out a negative, then falling up quickly with the lessons learned. If you are going to write a negative that has a sentence with seven words in it, your lessons learned better be 14 words. Because I don’t need to read about your trouble and be left with no solution. Because then all I am left with is, “Whew, this person has some issues that they need to work on.” You do not want your personal statement to reflect that.

I want you to start brainstorming some ideas based on what we have talked about. I want you to start to think about answering those questions and bringing it all together. If you were applying for ortho, for example, you start off by talking about your analogy in the beginning was working with tools or something, and you tie it in at the end. Maybe your father was a technician, an engineer, or something. You saw him develop new tools or new types of devices. Then you are tying that into your love for orthopedics or whatever,  make sure that it ties in together.

I want to give you some other tips for your writing. There is Grammarly, it’s free. I would not call it an app, it’s a free program and you can download it to your computer or to your keyboard. It helps you to be able to correct your grammar as you go along, and use spell check for variety so that you are not repetitive. You can use it like in this area to help with your writing, and find different words that maybe you would not normally think of. Always keep the tone of your voice very professional, personable, yet approachable, and of course still professional. It is a fine art. You should be confident. You should show self worth but not be arrogant. You should be strong, positive and very engaging. Make your CV very different from your personal statement. Your CV states facts. It is hardcore, but your personal statement should bring out the attractiveness of you as a person. You should have a strong structure. Each paragraph should be focused on the central idea. Like I said before in the introduction, the why’s, “Why this specialty? Why this program? What I have to offer and tie it all together at the end.” 

If you just follow those five points, you should be able to write a very, very, very attractive personal statement. To conclude, I want you to remember to use it to outline your career goals, specify what you are looking for, pull everything together, highlight why you love the specialty, and tie your essay together in the last paragraph. Always remember content beats everything. Make sure that the content of your essay answers all the questions that your program really cares about. If everything else fails, you can always hire a ghostwriter. If English is not your first language, I have a resource and I am including that in the class notes. It is called “Admissions and Careers”. They help you draft a personal statement. It is not affiliated with me directly. They charge a fee. I don’t know how much they charge but I can work on getting you a discount code. If you are interested, send me an email. You can talk with them in a conversation mode. They can help draft your personal statement. If all else fails, get help and sometimes you may have to pay for it. I hope that you have no troubles with it. 

If you want me to review your statement, there is an added charge for it, but I can certainly review your statement for you. I will give you a strong critique on it. For the first five people that watch this video and are interested in having me review their statements, you can send me an email and say the first five in the title. After we get to that five number limit, every other statement after that will be charged. Because it takes time to really do a good critique of a statement.

I wish you the very best in your career endeavors. I hope that this video was very beneficial for you.

I hope to see you in the next lecture. Bye, guys.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are recording now, so that if you are coming in late, you can catch the replay. Today I will be teaching you about everything you need to know when it comes to writing your own personal statement. I want to remove the anxiety. I want to remove the stress that is associated with writing a personal statement. I want to inform you today that you can write your statement in one sitting. Everything that I am telling you today, you should be able to gain enough clarity to write your statement in one day. 

A lot of the issue with writing personal statements does not really come with the statement itself. It is overcoming what is in your head about what you should put on paper and what you should not put on paper. Do you agree with me on that? Do you agree with me it is not really that you do not know how to write an essay. I know a lot of you on here know how to write essays. You have written essays in your life multiple times but when it comes to residency, we get into this analysis paralysis. We analyze things too much. We overthink it and then we miss the point. My goal today is to redirect you. The two things I do on the IMG roadmap is I help improve clarity and confidence so that you know exactly what you need as you proceed. 

Let us get right into it. What you can expect tonight will be about 30 minutes of teaching. I am going to introduce myself here in a little while. We will go over the objectives of the webinar. We will go about really the purpose of what a residency statement is. I will tell you about how personal statements are used by programs. We will talk a little bit about storytelling and your personal statement. Then I will teach you how to write your personal statement. If you need more help, I will show you what I can do to help. Are you ready for this?

Just a few orientation points, if you have any questions about anything that I say, you should put it in the chat because I will continue to teach. I will take questions at the end of the presentation, put your question in the chat or you can use the Q&A button. We are in a Zoom webinar. There is actually a Q&A button. If you use Q&A button, it allows us to check off the questions that we have not answered and the ones we have answered. FYI, if I say something and you are like, “Oh, that, I want more information on it,” drop it in the Q&A and come back to listening. You do not need to write copious notes but you have your guide. When you hear the answer to what is on your guide, I want you to just write it down. Let me make sure I pull up my own guide here. 

I make sure I give you the answers at some points. That is how you know that you are paying attention is when you have the answer to what is in the guide. I am Dr. Lum. I am Dr. Nina Lum. I am board certified in Family Medicine. I have worked as a hospitalist for the last six years. I did a residency where I was also the Chief Resident. Prior to that, I did not know anything about residency applications. I did not know anything about it. I did not understand the process at all but when I went into the residency and got the opportunity to be chief. I started to really learn what programs we are looking at. I was reading other personal statements and it dawned on me that my personal statement for residency was whack.

I went back and I looked at my personal statement. I literally cried because I was like, “That is why I did not get as many interviews.” That is one of the reasons why I felt, “Man, what was wrong? There were so many things wrong.” Those of you who know my story know that I did not have a high score on Step 1 and did better on Step 2 CK. I have that whole story in a whole separate webinar. If you are interested in that, we could talk about that another time. I already had that red flag, “Low Step 1 score, IMG needing a visa.” Personal statement, like I said, was not great. I ended up only with two interviews. Even in those two interviews, one of them I went there like I was not even present. The other one was the program I eventually matched into. Based on that information and after starting to be an attending and working with other physicians, I started to learn.

Actually all the medical students, US based medical students, I started to learn a little bit more about what personal statements like in residency application in whole. Particularly, how your personal statement can make or break you. The personal statement alone is, by itself, carrying very little weight but the personal statement in conjunction with everything else carries a lot of weight.

We will go into the details of that. I did mention that I was a hospitalist and many of you know that but what many of you do not know is that I started a fellowship this month. I started a fellowship at the University of Tennessee in Emergency Medicine. Today is about day-7 for me. I had to write a personal statement. I had to apply again last year when I was going through teaching you all about the match and how to be competitive. I was doing the same thing, making myself competitive for fellowship. Now that I am in fellowship, I actually thought personal statements were something that I had to write again.

I had to sit down and write a personal statement after eight years or nine years of writing the first one for residency. Now I am like, “Oh my gosh, I should come back and put everything I have learned because obviously I matched into my university based program.”

I started my fellowship on the 1st of July. Everybody else has started training and I am really looking at things. I am like, “There is a lot that went into my personal statement now than what it was before.” As I mentioned, it is a fellowship in emergency medicine. I am going to be double board certified in Emergency and Family Medicine after the fellowship. It is at the University of Tennessee. That being said, I will go into the presentation and I’ll teach you the things that I have learned from the last year including some of the things I have already taught my students from before. Those of you on here who have taken the IMG Roadmap Course, I have taught you about personal statements and you still have those videos on replay but this is some added information. Everything I say on here, you are going to hear some new information that I am putting out. I have updated your portal. Do not worry, we will talk about that. I am looking at the comments everyone that said, “Congratulations”. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Let us get into the meat of why you came here tonight. The session will be recorded because it is the most frequently asked question. Are we recording? Yes. The replay will be available only on the IMG Roadmap Platform. I will give you the link at the end where you will find the replay tomorrow. Once we are done with the session, I will download it and it takes a while to upload these videos. Then I will upload it onto the IMG Roadmap Platform and you will be able to access it whether you are a member or not. But if you want to be a member, we will talk about that also.

Let us get into it. Who is this personal statement webinar for? This webinar is only for intentional hardworking IMGs who are self-starters, who take initiative and more importantly, follow recommendations. If you are willing to put in the time and effort into making your ERAS application stand out. This is what you will need to do. If you meet this criteria, which I am sure, you are here, some of you were here at 6:45, I know that you are intentional. You are ready for this. I am not even going to ask if you think you are this person. Because everybody that is here, I know you are in for the big deal. It is all for international medical students and international medical graduates. If you are not one of these, you can leave the room now. We will see you at another webinar. 

Let us get right into it. The objective of today's webinar is I am going to teach you my three step process. I will show you how to identify and understand your audience. I have a three step process as to how you should approach and how you should write your personal statement. I will give you a guide on how to start writing. We will touch on personal statements’ red flags. We will touch on structuring your statements and how to harness the art of storytelling and how to improve and invoke positive emotion on the reader.  

The person that is reading your statement, they are going to definitely want to feel something. Because what makes a difference is that feeling. I will also teach you how to improve your confidence and clarity on what to write and what to avoid. Then for those who need any additional help, I will tell you exactly how I can be of help to you if you want to know about that.

Next thing. Who has ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like you are writing an essay and, “I am vomiting on paper? I am going to have all my words out and then I will figure it out.” Do you guys feel like this meme at all? Am I the only one? Tell me in the comment. I have somebody say, “Yes,” Dr. Shy, Shanté, Tracy, Oluwa, Toyin, Daniela, Nehima, Ariel, Ifaluwa, Patricia, Sudha, Melissa, Kevin, Ddray, Serena, Sarah. Everybody is saying “Yes.”

This is me totally when it comes to writing a personal statement. I was like literally writing my personal statement and just submitted. I did not have it reviewed or revised. Nothing. Big mistake. But this will no longer be you. We are going to make a difference here tonight. We are going to change your story.

The first thing I want you to do is I want you to understand your audience. The personal statement is a string of words on a document, but if you are writing to everybody in the universe, you will miss the mark. When you go out to play with, what is that game where you play and you throw a dart into the center of a target? If you are not targeting your particular or the center, you are not going to get it. If you do not have one dart in your hand, you are not going to get it. Looks like my screen moved here.

For example, in order to write a competitive personal statement, you need to first understand the audience. The most important audience is the program director. The second most important audience is the faculty and then the program coordinator, and then the residents and everybody else that is reading it. Why is it important to understand your audience? It is because it would help direct what you are writing and who you are writing to. I almost think of it like a letter. If you think about it, when your letter writers write your letter, they write, “Dear Program Director, letter recommendation for Nina Lum, AAMC ID number X, Y, Z.”

The 2020 NRMP Program Director survey showed that 78% of Program Directors cited the personal statement as a 3.5 over 5 when they were asked to rank important factors in determining who to invite for an interview. What does that mean? Program Directors were given a list of things to say, “Hey, on a scale of one to five, with five being very important, and one being not as important. How would you rank the personal statement as to how much influence did that have on your decision on who you invite for an interview?”

The reason I bring this up is there are two parts to getting into residency. One of them is getting invited for an interview. Then the second tier is getting a match. A lot of time you will attend webinars, listen to Gurus on Instagram and YouTube, and they keep talking about matches. The truth is nobody can make you match but what they can do is, I or other people, whatever, whoever you follow or listen to, they can help you get invited for an interview. The match is dependent on you, an algorithm and the program. We are not going to focus on the second thing. We are going to focus on the first thing, which is getting invited for an interview.

When 78% of Program Directors saw about 650 Program Directors across the country. That was the number. When they ranked these different factors, the first statement was pretty high up there. It was 3.5 over 5. What does that tell us? It is pretty important. It is not another document. It is not another essay. It is not another article in your application. It is part of the application. It is important as much as you are finding a letter writer, as much as you are working on other things. USMLE scores are also super important. You should also put that same level of effort into your personal statement. I find that the personal statement is an error of missed opportunity. A lot of IMGs missed the opportunity of leveraging that as a tool for themselves. 

Another reason you should understand your audience is what I have on the screen here. Can you guys see this? This is a screenshot that I obtained from, I think it is University of Washington Medicine, it is their Family Medicine Department. Can you guys see this? Can you see this slide that I have here? I just want to make sure everybody is on par with me. On their website, you will see this from program to program, it varies. They have requirements for residency applications on their website and all programs usually have at least a list of requirements on their website. If they do not and you are interested, you should reach out to them and ask them for recommendations as to how to prepare. 

Personal statement, this particular website stood out to me because under personal statement, they did not just say, “Provide a personal statement.” They said specifically, “Please write a careful and thoughtful document. Your personal statement can be written any way that tells us the most about you. We are interested in learning about your life, particularly regarding any hardships you have faced or obstacles you have overcome. We are also interested in your future goals and how the UW can help you achieve your goals. If you have any specific connections or special connections to the Pacific Northwest, please share that with us.”

What are some things that stand out to you in this? What this person or Program Director is telling you? We are filtering true personal statements. We  do not want a generic statement. We do not want a document. We want a careful and thoughtful document. We want a document that tells us about you. We want a document that tells us about hardships and obstacles. We want a document that gives us your career goals and such. But the key here is if you do not understand your audience and you give them something that they are not asking for, you are automatically willing yourself or ruling yourself out of the equation of one of those that gets selected.

One, you’re understanding of your audience is the Program Director as the primary audience, but then you have faculty members because usually multiple of them are Assistant Faculty Chairs of the Departments, Senior Leadership, and then you have the Program Committees, your Program Coordinator, Residents, Chief Resident, and such. If you do not understand what these people are looking for, then that is how you can miss the mark. 

Now, let’s go. Let us move into the next part. What we know is that the personal statement has a huge impact. It provides a 360 view of the applicant, it gives them your overall story, your perspective. My theory is with the virtual interviews that took place last year and with this upcoming season, there is a rise in holistic reviews. Because programs are not having that opportunity to maybe rotate with you as much as you would have wanted to, as much as they would have wanted to. Because they also want to know how they are going to work with you.

Then they have to use paper and pen to determine if they want to invite people for an interview and a zoom call. For me and you, it is different because maybe we have a relationship through Instagram. You follow me for a while. You know a little bit about me if you have been chatting with you. I know a lot about you, maybe through you having taken my course before or you have been communicating with me on the Internet in some capacity, but imagine a program that has no idea of who you are and you expect them to review your packet holistically. How are they going to do that? Because they have never met you. They are going to look at your CV. They are going to look at your ERAS application, which is your CV. They are going to read your MSPE from your Dean, but then your personal statement is the only place where you get to write what you want. You get to write what you want them to know about you. With this push of virtual interviews, you can see how your personal statement is likely to go up in ranks. 

We already know that Internal Medicine, Dermatology, and I believe General Surgery this year, sometime next month, they are going to be requiring some additional questions on the ERAS form in order to gain some more personal and geographic idea of the students that they are going to pick for the interview. ERAS has not released specifically what that will look like, but they anticipate releasing that in August. My theory is that is one of their methods to ensure that they have holistic information on the applicants. We do not know if more specialties are going to adopt this, as you can tell every day there is a new update. Today was an update about the number of the specialties that are going to use virtual interviews, which if you saw my Instagram stories, you saw that there as well. My theory is your personal statement may actually move from a three and a half to a four or even a four and a half. Because this is your opportunity to showcase yourself in a holistic manner, give them more than what is on the ERAS. One of the biggest mistakes I have seen students make is listing out their CV in the statement when they could be using one of my three methods in relaying a story that is compelling. Personal statement is one of many ways to learn about an applicant. Obviously, they are going to look at ERAS, but this is a way to talk about personality. Obviously, other ways include ERAS applications, publications, Google searches. You would be surprised how many programs will put your name in Google or those search on social media and see what you are about. Be aware of these things.

Next up, we need to understand our audience. Understanding our audience means it also varies from specialty to specialty. Some specialties are different from others. Some specialties consider personal statements higher on the list than others. You see this particularly in nonsurgical specialties, where they want people that have good interpersonal values. They want people with character and charisma, because you spend a lot of your time speaking to awake patients. Other specialties, maybe Pathology and some of the other surgical specialties. You do not spend as much time with awake patients as the others. They may put emphasis. Obviously, they want to know why you want to be a Pathologist. They want to know what you want to add to the world of Pathology, but it would not be as personal of a specialty like Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, you are working with kids. How are they going to know that you are good for this? If they never met you, especially in this virtual cycle, it is a way to determine. I need to understand who I am writing to so I can give them a story or a picture of who I am. If I am applying to a nonsurgical field for example, then how do I let my personality shine? Even if I am applying to a surgical field, how can I still speak about myself that showcases how good of a surgeon I will be.

We talked about who reads your personal statements, I would not read over those slides or that portion of the slide. You can also know that programs that have a component of continuity care. They usually want personality as well, because you will be seeing patients over the course of time. You build relationships. Building relationships, rapport, those things are important, and being able to relay those in your personal statement. 

Do your words attract or repel? This is something I want you to ask yourself. What do they want to know about me in my personal statement? Am I putting out  what they want to hear or am I putting out what I think I want them to know? Usually your personal statements you want to include personal attributes, character traits, specialty specific strengths. If I am writing to a surgical program, I need to at least be speaking about my dexterity or something related to me working with my hands, as much as I talk about wanting to care for patients and make a difference. What would you add to the program? What do you want from a program? Those are important things, because they want to know your career goals. Programs have goals too. They have their goals and you have your goals. When your goals align with their goals, then you make a good fit. If they are needing more people that would do research for them. You are saying, you are interested in the program for this research. You are attracting them.”

If you are saying that you want to be a role physician and you are applying to some community based hospitals, you are attracting them. If you say you want to be a role based physician but then you are applying to a program that is in the middle of downtown that really does not see a big rural population, it is in the suburbs of or somewhere. Then you may not necessarily attract or you may not even repel but you may just be indifferent compared to the statement that speaks to that particular program. That is why it is important to understand your audience first. Then you proceed into using your personal attributes, your character traits, specialty specific strengths, what you add to the program, what you want for the program and how you will be a good fit.

Before we proceed, I want to ask a question. I want to put out a poll. Let us see, I am going to launch the poll here. Can you guys see the poll? You can leave question three. Do question one and two, because we are still in the beginning of the webinar. Do you have a personal statement? Yes or no? I see about 55% do not. Most people feel worried. Four people feel confident about their personal statement. Like I said, leave question three on the answer. We will answer that at the end of the webinar. I will just leave that on there.

Let us see our poll has been open for 45 seconds. At the one minute mark, I will end the poll, but it looks like 71% of us do not have a personal statement. I just wanted to make sure that I knew what my audience was. You see what I am doing there? This is me learning about my audience. Because you guys are listening to me tonight. I know that 72% do not have. I know that 90% feel worried about your personal statement then I can give you the part of the lecture that focuses on writing your statement. If 74% had a personal statement, then I will give you a lecture that is focused on reviewing it.

That is an example of understanding my audience. What did I do? I asked the question. You may not have the opportunity to ask a question but reading through the programs’ requirements is a way to know.  That it was just a trick in the game which helped me get some information from you.

Then it also helped me show an example of why it is important to understand your audience because then you can speak to what your audience needs and wants. We will do this again later. What program directors want to know from you is obviously they want to know more about you. They want to know why you want to practice in the specialty and they want to know what your career goals are. They want to know how. Because by knowing what your career goals are, they can know how to determine if you will be a good fit, if your goals mesh together.

Let us move into something to note about generic personal statements. Many of us wrote one statement and blasted it to 140 programs. Then we wait for interviews and we get maybe four or five. If you notice your statement probably spoke to those four or five for those of you that have been to the match before. Because if you go back, this is a retrospective exercise, go back and look at it. Say you applied last shooting, you got a few interviews but did not match. Look at the programs  you got interviewed at. Look at your personal statement and see how you spoke to them and why they called you for an interview. That is obviously factoring in them, maybe you did not have any connections or maybe you did not know nobody is putting a word for you or nothing like that. They just simply pulled you out from the pile. Look at your statement. Look at that program and see what similarities are between what they want in their residence. What you proposed to them in your statement. Tell me if you do not see something as a recurring theme. What I did when I finished residency while I was chief, I went back to look at my statements because I started noticing this trend. I ended up training at the University of Kentucky rural program, which was focused on rural and underserved community health. We did a whole broad spectrum. It was big on OB and heavy. Our program director was an OB GYN at one point or OB GYN resident at one point, we had a little bit of OB infused, a lot of OB actually infused into our training. When I went back and I looked at my statement, I realized that my statement wrote about my desire to work in underserved areas. I wrote about my desire as a person from Cameroon to serve the less fortunate. I also wrote about my desire to learn about deliveries and different things like that. My letters were mostly from Family Physicians and then Obstetricians. When I look back, I noticed that my personal statement though, I sent a statement to over a hundred programs and only got two interviews. The two places that interviewed me had some similarities with what I was asking for.

Generic statements are fine. You will still get interviews with a generic statement but if you are specific about where you want to go, you have a geographic location tie, a spouse, a friend or family in a particular state, and you want to go there. It may be to your advantage to look into creating your generic statement and then making a variation of that.

I will tell you how to do that variation and make a variation of that, particularly in the last paragraph. If you are applying to a specialty that has fewer training spots, not Internal Medicine, Pediatrics or Family Medicines. One that is narrow Ophthalmology, Urology, or Orthopedic Surgery for example.

If you are applying to a specialty with very few training spots, you need to be careful because if you have only a very limited number of programs then you really want to hone in and be as specific as possible. The good thing about those specialties is they are probably all going to be the same. There would not be a need to say that, “I am trying to be an Ophthalmologist in a rural area,” because that is not a thing. Ophthalmologists are needed everywhere or you can not be like, “I am going to be an orthopedist in the rural area.”  Orthopedists are needed everywhere and it is the narrowest specialty. Based off of that, you can have a generic statement for those ones because they are smaller. They are a very small proportion of specialty specific programs. You may not need a whole other variation with those, just a point to note with generic statements and we will proceed. 

Do you think you have a story to tell in your personal statement? For 74% of you who said you do not have a statement, do you think you have a story to tell? Tell me I have a story. If you have one or you think you do not have a story, say, “I do not have a story, tell me in the chat.” I have seen a few, “I have a story. Not sure. Maybe unsure. Not sure.” We will get into it. We will talk about stories since so many people do not feel like they have a story. I have this question, “How about that time? When?” Because there is always something you can talk about. There is always something you can talk about. Storytelling is one of the easiest ways to hack into someones’ brain. I will tell you why. When I want you to listen to this very tentatively. Storytelling is seen sometimes as something very simple. It is seen as something that, it is just whatever, we do not really put any thought into it. When you hear a good story? What happens? You immediately get attracted to listening in, especially when there are certain things about the story that trigger you. 

Actually there is Neuroscience behind storytelling. When you read a good story, you have an increase in neural activity in the brain. It increases about fivefold. Some neuroscientist says it goes up about fivefold. Basically your brain is made of a bunch of electrical impulses, they are basically always making connections and making connections to things. That is how we remember things, experiences, words, stories, based on brain connections.

When I started the webinar, I told you the story of how I applied and basically how my entire life history up until right now in a very short way. I am sure you will never forget that story but you will probably forget a lot of the things that I am going to say today. Why do stories stand out? Some of us, I grew up in a home where our parents would tell us stories at night or you remember those childhood stories? I think childhood stories that you remember that people told you when you were a kid and you still remember it. Storytelling is very powerful. What I really like about storytelling is stories that trigger a release of Oxytocin. This is from a more recent Neuroscience research. And Oxytocin obviously, as we know, it is a love drug. It is the bonding hormone, makes mom bond with the baby. Obviously, this is really going off tangent but listen, stick with me, I am getting somewhere here. When you tell a story and it is received on the other end with attention and understanding, what happens is subconsciously the listener of your story or in this case, the reader of your story has a surge of Oxytocin and they also therefore feel bonded to that story or to that personality.

Usually, there are some four elements of storytelling that can make that happen. If the story is relatable, if there is something novel in it, something new. Which you are always going to be new to me because I am sure there are a hundred things that you can tell me about yourself that I do not know. And then the story is fluent and flows really well. Then there was some level of tension. There is something bad that happened or something that was going to happen in that story. Those are the key things that keep people glued into paper to read. One of my posts on Instagram, “I am going to show you.” It was on the signup page. I will tell you exactly what and how to get a Program Director glued to your paper. Because in my eyeballs or glued to your stories when I started reading it, something stood out. The opening line was a hook. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened.

Storytelling is very important for multiple things but one, it increases neural activity about fivefold in the brain. When you hear a good story, you have a release of different electrical impulses trying to make sense of the story. What you do is you subconsciously cause a release of Oxytocin from that other person. Then there is some subconscious connection because my brain now wants to meet the person behind the story.

It could be a very remarkable thing that they have done or a remarkable experience that they had as a child. I want to know, I want to meet them. I want to know more. I want to see what challenges they overcame. That obstacle? How did they get through that? It tells me, “I therefore make an interpretation of your story.” I say, “This person has tenacity. This person has what it takes but it all boils out from storytelling.” If someone walked up to you and said, “I am strong, tenacious, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You would probably say, “Everybody is that.” What makes you stand out? It is your story.

A good story has three parts. It has a character, an obstacle and how the character overcame the obstacle.

What does that mean? When you are writing your personal statement? You are the character. Obstacles do not always have to be bad things as always. It does not have to be your red flags. It could be an interesting story. It could be a time when something happened and how you dealt with it. Then how you overcame it. It tells more about you than just writing that, “I, once upon a time, overcame the obstacle of dealing with the death of a parent, that is okay.” But it is different if you describe how that happened, maybe suddenly you walked in the room and there your mother was lying on the floor and you had to start CPR and you had to call an ambulance and what not. If I start reading that, I want to know what happened. Then I leave my story right there and I go into why I want to be an internist. I hone in on all the reasons why I want to be an internist. I hone in on what I want to do with my career. At the end, I come back to what happened to my mother on the floor. I have a character which is me, I have an obstacle. Then how I overcame that obstacle that keeps that person reading. At the end of it, they are like, “Whoa, this is a very brave person. This is someone that has definitely been through a lot but is still here standing and I want to meet them.” We are going to harness the power of storytelling. You may be thinking now, “I do not have a story.” Everyone has a story. Your story must be heard. Your story is powerful. Your story can reveal what your application does not say about you. 

Where do we start? I know some of you came on here, you are ready with your webinar lecture notes. You are ready to write some real answers down a guide on how to start brainstorming ideas. The best way to brainstorm ideas is by using written prompts. Journaling has been proven multiple times by neuroscientists to help people brainstorm if you just put all your thoughts on paper then you can rearrange them.

Sometimes some of us start writing by just starting to type, and we can wonder why we have what we call writer's block. I think when I was writing one of my books I think the second book I had a writer's book a lot of times, and then I stopped and decided to use prompts. When I used prompts to write, it was so much easier because I could just answer questions without thinking about how they fell in syntax or structure and brainstorm on my prompts and then rearrange my ideas later on.

The first thing is brainstorming and those of you who have taken the IMG website course under the personal statement section, you have prompts that you should have already been using. If you do not have those and you have never been in that course before, I could tell you how you can get it.

Select a theme to follow. Find one thing, reflect, go back, reflect on experiences. Key points, keep them down and avoid the urge to write about everything. You just need one or two key stories. You do not need everything in your statement. I did tell you I was going to teach you about my three step process in writing a personal statement.

This is it right here. The IMG  Roadmap is obviously my registered trademark. Within that, I have come up with this three step process. That is your structure, the content and the context. This applies even to letters of recommendations, structure, content, and context. Because everybody has a strong story, everybody has a story. It is really about the context in which you present your story, how you presented the structure and what you write about the content. 

Guide on how to start, your story is best if it fits one page that is the entry to your first webinar lecture note. It should fit one page. It should be easy to read.  Meaning when I start reading it when you write and word, the good thing about word documents, you can adjust the spacing between your letters. You can adjust the line spacing between your sentences. Average for to fit one paper is about 725 to 850 words or less. If you get that many, that word count, you are probably able to fit it.

If you use Times New Roman 12, you can fit all that on one page. I usually say three to four paragraphs. Within my course also I teach about what you can put in the first, second, third, and fourth paragraph. I want you to keep the themes tied together. You are not going to write about everything.

You could pick a childhood experience and then a clinical experience. You can pick a travel experience and an experience on a mission trip. You can pick an experience while you were out skydiving and then an experience out on the Sahara desert, whatever it is but keep one or two recurring themes.

You do not need to write about everything. Page symmetry was all attracted to symmetry. That is just how their brain works. It likes symmetric things. If you came to this presentation, all my bullet points were everywhere on this page and were asymmetric, you will be distracted, “What is going on here?” But when everything is symmetric, it keeps consistent for you. Full sentences, that is another thing, I see some statements written and you write in phrases or you write really long, continuous sentences when you should write a single sentence, which if read on your own can portray a lesson by itself.

I should be able to read one sentence and let it make sense for me as opposed to you writing a sentence as three lines long. You can write a sentence as one line long or one and a half lines long but try to make sure you have full sentences but that are not too long.

Another thing is using active themes. You are better off when you are telling a story to be in the active tense like talking about doing things that you have done, not things that show your knowledge of something. For example, you should not start your personal statement saying, “My name is Nina Lum and I was born in Cameroon.” That is a very passive theme. That is stating the obvious things from your ERAS form, but I could start my statement by saying, “I was walking down the street with a Calabash hat on my head when I had this fall. I give this kind of visual representation of where I was without necessarily being obvious about my name is Nina Lum and here's where I am from.” I could start up with growing up in the middle of such and such a location. I learned about this and this because this was prevalent in my are or whatever. You want to use more active themes not passive ones. Syntax is another big thing structure and that is basically the arrangement of words and phrases to create well from cynics in language.

That basically means being able to say, “Hey when someone reads my statement, they read a sentence in my statement. They should be able to make sense of each sentence because it is well formed and the words are arranged in such a way that the language is easy to understand.” 

Content is another part, we talked about content being storytelling. You always show how and tell why. You show how you are a hardworking person by telling a story around that as opposed to, “I am hardworking, intelligent, determined and I will be a good fit for your program.” No, it could be, “During my time at an internship at the World Health Organization, I received this award for this and this because of my ability to do this and this.” That says you are hardworking but not necessarily saying that, “I am hardworking, so take me.” No objective listings tell a story around it. Make it objective. Make the story relatable to the specialty. If you are going to apply to two specialties for example, you can not give your Pediatric statement to Internal Medicine and vice versa because they are very different. Even family medicine, internal medicine are very different. This is another mistake I see. Last year I was reviewing partial statements and I had a lot of people applying to Family and Internal Medicine. They basically had the same statement and they changed, everywhere that was Internal they put Family. I am like, “Those were two different specialties.” One of them is big on children. The other one does not see children. One of them is big on minor office procedures. The other one is not too much in hospital procedures. One of them is big on musculoskeletal care. The other one is not. The other one is big on OB, one is isn’t. You can not interchange Family for Internal Family. You need to make the stories relatable to each. You can use the same theme but make the stories relatable to each. Let the ideas flow, use your writing prompts as a way to let those flow tie in stories with concepts and use active descriptions.

These are just some ideas that I am going to throw out there. You do not have to use these specific ones, but I have tons of ideas. The first one, the first list of ones is you can, because some of you will be thinking, you have told me to use themes, ideas, story lines, how I do not even know how to start. You may be feeling that way. I am not even sure how to start, a previous career experience is a good theme but you need to not only tell about that career experience but why the specialty is close to that. Especially if it is a non-medical career experience, you can share why that specialty is important to you. 

What about your career experience made you feel like this specialty makes you a good fit? A volunteer experience and its impact on you. Recreational experience that led you to believe you will be a better fit. Were you bungee jumping, got into a crash and you had to splint your own leg or splint somebody else's leg on the field, and then you thought, “I am going to be an Orthopedic Surgeon.” That is a recreational experience. You are into fencing as a sport. You realize that you are really good at it. You have won a couple of awards. You write a statement about being able to be good with your hands and you want to be a surgeon because that is like the dexterity with your fencing career.

Last year I was working on one of my students that I coached who matched into Peds. She was in Ireland. Throughout the cycle, we worked with her remotely and she was a Wimbledon Champion. Like she used to coach students like younger kids and she was applying the Peds. I was like, “That is what we need to put in your personal statement.” Forget all this other stuff that you want to write about, talk about what you learn from coaching children who are kids with Wimbledon like young girls Wimbledon. That was her theme. She tied that into how she wants to be a Pediatrician and some of those experiences are unique. They are different. She is the only one who can have that story, especially as someone with her background. Again we went into her background, went into the fact that she was in Ireland but she had all these different diverse backgrounds and hone it on a sport. It is a very specific sport, hone it on a volunteer experience that she had being a volunteer high school coach, and then tie that into Peds.

A geographic or historic event that draws you to this program location. Maybe you had care-given at this hospital. It is in your city or you live in the same town. It is an hour or two hours away and you know about it. Take advantage of these things. These are story themes that you can write. You can create content around this.

Like I mentioned, I will be showing you how you can access my personal statement for my fellowship. You can access my personal statement and you can read it for free and see if you get some inspiration. I did use my weakness in my statement but I turned it into a strength. That is another thing. You can write your personal statement about a weakness of yours that you have. Then you flip that around and make it a strength. That is what I used for my personal statement. But then again, I am a seasoned writer, I have no problems writing about problems, but because I know how to write how those problems turn into strengths because my mindset is different. I have a growth mindset. I am focused on solutions, not problems. When I tell you a problem, you bet I am always telling you a solution. For me, I have used my weakness and I wrote about that. Maybe that is why a Program Director called me to interview, maybe not. It is something that I know you can write about, but you need to have tacked, every time you list a weakness or you talk about a weakness. It should not just be, “Oh, I suck at this thing.” It should be the lessons you have learned and how it has now made you better. 

Some other content ideas. No, next page.

Ideas, number two, you could talk about a hobby and how it ties in with you using your hands or your dexterity for those going for surgical work. An award, how it made you feel. It is not just, “Oh, I won the award for the best student in the world.” No, it is a result of being awarded, the humanitarian award for such and such. I realized the benefit of continuity care and community health, especially for underserved areas. You see how you were able to slide that award in there but then you did not say, “Oh, I just won an award.” It is what that award did for you. The impact that it had on your life and your career choice. You are saying, because I was singled out for this thing that I am good at. Now I am using that to improve myself and choose a career around it. A medical mission trip. You may have wanted to be one thing and you went on a trip and you realize, “Oh my God, there are very few people that can repair a cleft palate and ENT will be a good specialty for me, so I can train to repair cleft palates. I want to be an ENT.” You can tell the story of that time.

One of my students last year, her personal statement that I reviewed and edited, she was doing a mission trip. I think in Kenya, somewhere. She is from Sylvania. She wrote about a time when she presented to the mission field and they did not have an emergency room. She had a patient that was decompensating. She had to basically carry a private car and take that person to another location. She went into the details of how that really transformed her idea of emergency care. That is an angle. I have another friend that I know who went into EM as well and wrote about being in Ecuador and learning about Emergency Medicine there because she didn't even know about it.

Those are just some things you can consider are some pretty pertinent experiences that I have. You may be in a country that is dealing with a disease that is not seen in the rest of the world. You can talk about that because what would that do? If I am a physician, it would raise my level of intrigue. I may never have seen someone with leprosy but you have. How did that change your idea of how healthcare was different where you are at?

I had another person who worked, actually she is currently in intro medicine going on PGY2 and she was one of the first students in my IMG Roadmap Course when I started it two years ago. She wrote a statement on working in and during the time of Ebola in West Africa. She worked around. She did some public health work to reduce the spread of Ebola. Do you think if you start writing about Ebola, nobody is going to read that and feel touched by that? Covid was here recently. What are some unique experiences that you had as a result of COVID you can write about that because that is a hot topic. It will be a hot topic for the next how many years that we know about.

What do you want to add to the field based on your research? If you feel like I lack luster. I do not have experience, you can write about things that you can add into the field, your hope, your desire, how you want to transform medicine. You have the opportunity to see my personal statement and I can tell you how to do that at the end of the lecture.

A common theme is to seek patients during rounds. I see this one as just some of ideas that I feel are overused. Everybody talks about a patient's saw during rounds. That is fine. You are given the right context and syntax. Structure, sentences and word structure. You can really tell a good story about a sick patient during rounds. Because maybe that is all you have and that is perfectly fine. You want to be an OBGYN. Was there an extreme thing that you did at one point you delivered? You saw a woman deliver at the top of the road or you had a really rare gynecological disorder or maybe you yourself had to deal with an infertility issue, or whatever and you feel comfortable writing about that. Go for it. It makes you relatable. It adds some tension to your story and people like tension especially when you share how you overcame it and how it made you the strength. Even pursuing the specialty after a trial like that makes it the strength. You can talk about the impact of a mentor on your career decision. Someone that influenced your life and there are many more ideas. I will tell you how you can get more ideas. We are running slow on time here. Context is defined as circumstances that form the setting for an event statement or idea in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

Context is key because we have talked about content. We talked about structure. Context is key because any story is a good story if it is given within the right context. Personal statements add context to your entire application. They also add meat to the bones of your ERAS form. Even if your storyline is similar to another person, the context will always be different. That is what makes you stand out, what makes you unique is your story. We have all seen patients from rounds but the way that it made us feel was different. The things that it brought to light for us were different.

Red flags to avoid the grammatical errors, syntax structure problems, plagiarism. Please do not plagiarize. Do not copy a statement from the Internet. Even when I tell you how you are going to be able to see my own personal statement, please do not copy it. Plagiarism is not going to get you anywhere. Especially if it is found out, you could literally get in trouble for that. Avoiding typos, taboo subjects, politics, extreme opinions, extreme preferences, being braggadocious. Avoiding vague stories, meaning stories that have no beginning and no end. They are not active stories. They are all passive. You are listening to your CV. Avoid all these things, avoid them. 

Personal statements, add context, I already talked about that. Should you address red flags? Some people say, “I failed exams multiple times. I have multiple times transferred to medical schools, long gaps.”

How would you do that? I transferred to medical school. I know where that shoe hurts me if you have gaps but you can address your red flags. It is not a must. First of all, that is an answer to one of the questions that we have, “Must I address my red flags?” No, you must not. It is not required to address your red flags, absolutely not, but there is a way around addressing it. Especially if you have been through the match before and did not match. You may want to address it because maybe that is why you are having problems with not getting in. I will teach you how to do that.

There are so many more things that I want to teach you today, but we are already at an hour. This was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation. I am going to slow down here. I am going to tell you that your personal statement is a very important document, which if you follow the three step process that I have told you, which is your structure, content, context and using things like prompts ideas, and morphing a story together. You can write a story that gets programs glued to you. You can get a story that causes neural wiring and firing in the brain creates a subconscious likability between you and the program. 

Some of you may be thinking, “Dr. Lum, you have presented this format here today but I still need in-depth directions and help to start.” If you want me to share about that, I would let me get your questions in the chat here. I know, I can not see the Q&A. I will look at the chat, but if you want me to share some more information as to how you can get more information on writing personal statements, tell me in the chat. Then I can tell you a little bit more about my program that I have today to share with you. If not, I will just end it right here. 

Princess, Veronica, Fernando says, “Yes, please,” John says, “Yes, more info. Yes.” I am going to share with you something that I have put together, which can help you pick up from where this conversation ends. I will tell you over here. I have a new personal statement course. This is new because it is new. I have never had this before. The reason I did this was last year when I agreed to review personal statements, I realized that a lot of people do not even know how to start writing.

As I write on here, do not submit your personal statement without taking this course. It is really on how to prepare and write a competitive personal statement for your residency application. What the course is really geared towards is improving your confidence, providing clear instructions as to how you can improve your own personal statement using all of the information that you have heard me speak about today. That is also where I have uploaded my personal statement that you can read for free. It is a bonus in the course. This lecture will also be included in the course as a free preview for you to come back and watch it later on. Other things that I have in this course that are different is I have templates. I have two strong templates that you can use and make variations of. I have writing prompts for you that you can use first to brainstorm like we talked about. You can brainstorm just writing, answering these questions. Second, you can use the template to guide your structure. Another really cool thing that I have on here is an audio guide. Basically you can pop this audio guide in your ear. Pull up your word document, you can sit there and you can follow my audio guide as I speak to you about what to write about.

Obviously, I make reference to your prompts. I make reference to your templates. Then you have me listening in your ears, you can just listen and you can type. You also get a lecture, a webinar, which goes into more of the structure, what to write and how to write it. There is a second part webinar in there. You will also get information. Some of you have asked me, “Can you review my personal statement?” I will tell you how I can review your personal statement after you completed this part of the course. 

For those of you that are already in my IMG Roadmap Course, what you may or may have not realized is if you go back into your course and you refresh your screen. You will see that all of this information is already on there. You have already gotten this new course uploaded to your system. You may have noticed it. But I know for sure, if you have not watched your videos in a while. You may not have seen it. Go back, refresh your screen and you will see all of this information now on your portal for those who have never been a member within my course. I can tell you how you can join us if you want me to tell you that.

I will tell you specifically how you can get just for this particular personal statement course. Let us see some more information. In the course, like I mentioned, you get writing prompts that help your brainstorm and help reduce your anxiety with brainstorming on what to write about. It also helps you get some clarity before you start to write. You get templates that you can use to follow. I pretty much tell you in your template. This is what to write in your first paragraph. This is what to write in your second paragraph. This is how to address your red flags. I am telling you that and you can literally have that open and write your statement over it.

You have a new audio guide that you can plug into your ears and it guides you as I talk to you slowly to tell you what to write in each section, and then you have content ideas as well. Then you have an additional replay webinar from our IMG Roadmap Course from May of 2021 to the actual section that we had. You get a replay of that for free.

You get to know how you can get my one-on-one review with me or one of my IMG Roadmap Physician coaches, and how to get a personal statement written. If you feel like all this is not working and you want your statement written for you from scratch, we have an option for you as well.

This webinar replay will also be available within the course. This is the information that you get from it. You will also get my fellowship partial statement. It is a free preview and you get the replay of the 2021 live session that we did as well. That those are just bonuses. This is not part of the course. We are just sharing that information to help you make better choices.

You may be wondering, “How much does this cost Dr. Lum? Do we have to pay for it? Is it free?” Yes, there is a cost to it and I think of it like the cost of five trips to Starbucks. Those of you who are coffee macchiato or you like fancy things, the cost of a pair of jeans. The information within this course is enough to help you scale your career further with an opportunity to write a meaningful personal statement. The competition, residency statements, I have seen some other emails come to my inbox, pitching me to write my statement and then asking me to give them $300 to write a personal statement. I am like, “For what?” That is not necessary. What we are doing here is to make sure you have a platform that I should guide you on what to write and not just someone that is not a physician, not even able to guide you has never been through the process. Some of us have been through it twice. Then it is charging you for a personal statement.

What is that competition and who are they really? What is the price you are paying doing that when you could do it much easier? 

This is one of my students, Dr. Ralu. She is also one that will be helping me with reviews as well in the near future. In her review of taking the course with me, I reviewed her personal statement back in the day and now she is PGY3. She is working on her fellowship application. I like this line that she says, “I helped her present herself in the best light possible.” That is really the key to this thing is getting you to present yourself in the best light possible, leveraging every single opportunity.

The price of this course is originally $97 but I am going to give you a discount for everybody that is on here today with a 10% off code using IMG30. You can get that on this website, which will be put in a chat. If you sign up, you will get 10% off today only. We will take some questions and answers, and then we will call it a night.

Let me get back to my screen here and get your Q&A box opened. Yes, Sonia, you said, “IMG Roadmap.” Yes, you will find it in your course. It is all uploaded. We have updated the module number four, which was your personal statement module with all of the information in this course that I am presenting to everybody else. You get it for free already because you are in the IMG Roadmap Course. I will take some questions here. Let us see what questions that we have in the Q&A box.

Question number one I am going to only answer questions regarding personal statements, because this webinar is about personal statements and then questions that have to do with other items, we will take them at another time. Ahmad asks, “What happens if it exceeds the page?” Nothing. Nothing bad happens. It just runs the risk of not being read entirely or the risk of that person becoming distracted. The risk of that person not paying attention to the different parts of your story. Nothing bad is going to happen per se, but you run the risk of not getting your entire statement read.

“How long do you have access to the course?” You have access to the course lifetime access at least for the first year, for sure. Because after which we can make additional determinations as the need remains, but obviously update stuff every year. I have content.

“Could you kindly speak more or no objectives. Does this make sense?” Yes, objective things are saying, “I have a degree in English from Cambridge University and I know that I will communicate well.” No, but if I told a story around during my time at Cambridge, I worked by helping new immigrants. I was teaching English to new immigrants or something like that. That was most subjective, because it tells a story. 

Editha, “How do you know, How do I choose?” Choose the best one. The one that represents you the most, the one that you are willing to talk about during an interview. That is what I would say.

Veronica is asking, “Does the course include a review by you personally?” No, it does not. But within the course, if you want a review by me, personally, I have a section there where I tell you how to make that possible. But no, it does not include a review by me.

“Multiple attempts and exams can be written as further personal statements.” Again, it is a red flag. You can choose to address it. It is not about just writing about multiple attempts writing, it is all about the lessons learned. That is something else. I also teach you how to address your red flags as well within the course. I will provide you with a template. Actually, there is a separate template for people with red flags who want to address that. There is a template for you that you can follow. We have answered that one live. 

Raba asks, “Is getting a personal statement edited from you with additional charges?” If you want me to edit your personal statement, it usually requires me having a one-on-one interview with you to know more about you and to learn about you and to determine if that is your best story. Yes, there is a charge for my time.

“What happens if it exceeds a page?” I have answered that. 

“For applicants who have been impacted by personal health issues, to what extent should it be disclosed?” You do not have to talk about health issues, if you do not want to. If you do not feel comfortable with it, avoid it. Talk about something else that you are good at.

“Is the course a one-on-one session for PS writing?” It is not one-on-one. It is a self-paced course, meaning you do it on your own time but you have Audio Prompt from me and you have a written template to follow. After you do that, if you still want a one-on-one with me within the course, you will learn how you can get a one-on-one with me. We have answered that. 

“Is there anything to leave out the PS?” Yes, the red flags, especially if you are not ready to address them.

Raba states, “It is getting personal.” Yes, we have entered that.

Let us see, “Is the Roadmap course still available for this application season?” Yes, it is.

“Guys, just putting it out there. For those who are not an IMG Roadmap Course member. The course is amazing, very helpful and informative with a lot of gold.” “Thanks, Sonya. Thanks for saying that. I really appreciate that.”

“Do I review personal statements?” I do review personal statements but there is a process to follow. Obviously, I want you to write your statement first. Like I have mentioned in this video, I am showing you and giving you tools that you can use to continue to write your statement. Then after you have done that, I can review your statement. 

“How much does it cost for someone to come first?” It varies from person to person. People have had their statements reviewed for $500 dollars. Of course, for $80 dollars, you are getting it at a steal that is for sure. 

I have answered that.

“How long a gap due to mental health issues should be mentioned?” Not, if you are not ready to talk about it during the interview. Do not mention anything you are not ready to talk about during the interview. That is the rule of thumb.

“If we are trying to choose between telling a story that makes us unique or as regular, which would you recommend?” I would say go with the one that is unique and make it relevant to your specialty. It has to, there has to be a connection. Remember that three step diagram I showed you structure, content and context. You do not pick one. You have to put all three together.

“On your medical journey, do you suggest taking an IMG Roadmap Course?” As I think Sonia already told you but let me see. Any of my IMG roadmap students are still on, can you tell Marcel when the best time is to take the IMG Roadmap Course from your perspective? Because I think sometimes I do not want to sound jaded, biased, or anything, but tell them when you think is the best time. Because that is usually the best way to approximate. So you have Editha and Faith and they are telling you now. That is it. That is the answer, Marcel.

We have answered that.

“Do you have to add not matching the last time in your current personal statement?” You do not have to add that if you do not want to. Again, only add what you are comfortable with discussing. If you are talking about a weakness, talk about a strength, talk about how you overcame it. We go again into that in detail. 

“Examples of prompts?” I have given you tons of prompts in this presentation already. If you want my written prompts, you have to purchase the course. The link is in the chat, click on it, buy the course, download the prompts and start working on it. 

“Are psych personal statements written differently given the specialties vary from others?” No, three things. The three step process: context, content and structure. Same thing, storytelling. Red flag, same thing. You have a template to follow. The link is in there. 

Let us see if we already answer that. We have answered this one.

“How much is the IMG Roadmap Course?” The IMG Roadmap Course is different from the Personal Statement Course. The entire course, we are not talking about that course today because it is a separate course. What we are talking about today is the Personal Statement Course? Which you are getting today I think for $87 dollars. 

“Is transferring from a medical school considered a red flag that I should have addressed in the PS?” It is a red flag. You can address it if you have a reason to. When I was applying, I did. Because I wanted the programs to get an idea as to why I did it. My reason around it was I was looking for a better educational opportunity to get more clinical spots for rotations that would equate to clinical experience or high quality clinical experience. That is why I did that. I wrote about it but it is up to you. If you have a reason why that makes you look like a better applicant. 

Someone asked, “How do I get a one-on-one?” You can get a one-on-one through after you take the Personal Statement Course. Then you get information in there as to how to get a one on one with me.

“What is included in the IMG Roadmap course?” The IMG Roadmap Course is a seven-module course. It is very different from a Personal Statement Course. I want to refrain from answering questions about the parent course because it is not the same as this course. I do not want to cause any confusion. 

“Is the death of a family member trying you to be a doctor done to death already?” Remember, you are the unique portion of your story. The context matters more. You talk about you. Nobody has your story. You know number of people who lose family members every day? Your patients, every day. They lose somebody. Or your patients’ family members. What makes it different is the story, the person, the uniqueness. When your neighbor dies, it is not any less painful for their family than it would be if your own loved one died. Because it is you. It is unique. You talk about you.

“Do we mention a person why we chose medicine?” No. This is a key point that I talk about. In my personal statement, most of you think this personal statement is for medical school? No, it is for residency specialty specific. I talked in detail about what you should put in your first paragraph and how to get your first paragraph to speak to your program of interest. We will take a few more questions and I think that will be it. 

Julius says, “I used to be a professional baseball player for almost four years for the New York Yankee. I am an IMG now trying to get into the IM program.” No, if I was a baseball player for the New York Yankees, I will make sure that I include the fact that I was a baseball player for the New York Yankees, especially when I am applying to all the New York state programs. Then for the one that goes to other programs outside of New York state, I could just remove the state of New York and just keep it as a baseball player. Then I would talk about how my love for baseball drew me into medicine and specifically Internal Medicine. 

Ifenluwa says, “Is it acceptable to exaggerate your stories to make it more interesting?” You probably have an interesting story that does not need exaggeration. You can definitely reword experiences that make it more impactful, that make it more relatable, that make it more fluent and add some more tension but keep the integrity of your story true. Because you could get asked questions about it. You do not want to fake it. 

“Will we be getting a recording of this session?” Yes. The recording will be available on the IMG Roadmap Platform.

“What are some specialty specific traits for Family Medicine?” That is within the course as well. 

“What is the difference between FMEM or doing FM–?” Well, this is not the webinar for that. We will talk about my personal choice, career choices in another webinar.

Prithi, “Any ideas on remote research opportunities for IMGs? I literally had no idea on research stuff but I am willing to work on it with proper guidance.” This is not a webinar for research, but you can do remote research, you can do personal research. The most important thing is that you have some publications.

That brings us to the end of our webinar. We definitely went over time. If there are any questions regarding the Personal Statement Course, I will take those now. Otherwise we will call it an evening. The link is in the chat box as well that you can use to sign up, take advantage of that discount, IMG30. If you have any additional questions, you know how to find me, admin@imgroadmap.com. You can send us an email and all of this information will be available on the course platform as well.

We will talk to you. I will talk to you at another time. 

All right, guys. I hope you have a good evening

Hopefully, you watched the previous video on my five tips for writing your personal statement. I am going to go into some more details and this information is available in the www.drninalum.com It is always important to include why the specialty is important to you but remember that the person that is reading your statement is an expert. It could be an attending. It could be a program director or members of the interview committee. They are already on the other side of your specialty of interest. You don’t necessarily have to wile them with your knowledge of deep things in medicine. You really need to focus on things in your life that tie into why you are a good fit for that program or for that residency position.

It is important to remember that whenever you are writing your statement, you want to strike a chord with your reader. I always say this, “Your statement should have that point.” It is like the climax, the point where I get to me as your reader, I realize, “Oh wow, this is the person I want to interview. This is the person I want to talk to,” always look for that highlight. That point where you are going to strike a chord with your reader. You do not have to go into so much detail about somebody that you knew that was sick and how they survived their illness. Technically, we all know people that have been sick, but if you choose to talk about your personal struggle with an illness or your personal experiences with dealing with a certain condition, be mindful about the delivery. Whatever story you choose to write could be a good story depending on how you deliver it. You just do not want to belabor the point about maybe a super common diagnosis or when you could maybe talk about something that is really rare that would usually strike a chord as opposed to, “Oh, I used to take care of people that have high blood pressure, that is just very vague and it does not necessarily highlight you in that way that you want to be seen.” 

Remember, you can always use points as to how you stand out. People that have worked in the military, people that have served in the military, I should say, or medical relief work. If you were an engineer in your previous life, you are a soccer fan or you played a competitive sport. You can tie in how being a team player on the field will make you a better pathologist. You could tie in your military service with how you work well in teams or just the discipline from that as to how you are a good surgeon. If you have worked with your hands in your prior career or in undergraduate studies, things that you have done in the past and how that ties in.

You really want to paint the picture of what makes you as an individual a good fit based on your personal life experiences. I usually say you can always talk about a sad thing but again, goes back to your delivery. You can change that sadness around and make it a point, a lesson learned, or a point of turnaround in your life or a thing that makes you better, or made you better is really how you want to portray in your statement.

More tips to come but remember you want to avoid sounding braggadocious. You want to avoid sounding arrogant or conceited. This is about personality and bring out those strong character traits that people want to see. More tips to come on the next video. If you want to be a part of my one-on-one individualized personal coaching program, I am going over personal statements, I am going over ERAS applications, and I am going over tons of tips and tricks for how to just basically nail this whole residency thing as an IMG, check out the link in my bio. You get free access to my IMG e-course as well if you subscribe.

All right! Go ahead. Learn more. I will be waiting for you on the other side. Bye guys.