Seeing eye-to-eye - Harvard - Successful medical school personal statement
Hometown: Colombia
Undergraduate School: Private, New York University
Major: Biology and English Literature
GPA: 3.8
MCAT: 514. CP: 128, CARS: 128, BB: 129, PS: 129.
Successful medical school personal statement
I sat on the second floor of the Centro Médico Dominicano and reassembled, for the fifth time that morning, the plastic eye model I had used to understand the hundreds of ocular disorders introduced in my copy of The Wills Eye Manual. Just as I was getting to my favorite part of the assembly process (the lens—how does nature make something so beautifully transparent?), I saw one of Dr. Dauhajre’s patients struggling to reach the entrance of the examination room. Jimena was a charming, 82-year-old Colombian woman who had laughed her way through everything life had thrown at her—including nuclear sclerotic cataracts. As I helped Jimena with her walker that morning, however, she remained indifferent, only slightly nodding after I had introduced myself as Dr. Dauhajre’s student and asked if I could help her get situated on the exam chair. After several minutes of silence, I noticed a thin band on her left wrist—a bracelet braided with strands of yarn colored yellow, blue and red. I immediately recognized the piece of jewelry; I had seen it countless times in the kiosks of San Andresito, a Colombian shopping center located only miles from my childhood home. “Señora, es usted Colombiana?” I asked. I had never seen a person’s countenance soften so suddenly. She tilted her head sideways, smiled, and proceeded to share with me the stories of her grandchildren, her opinions of Colombia’s political climate, anecdotes from each of her three marriages, and, most importantly, a passionate discourse regarding the “miracle” of lens replacement, a procedure she hadn’t known existed until earlier that week. That same morning, I observed and took notes as Dr. Dauhajre patiently explained the nature of cataract removal surgery. That following Friday, I walked behind Jimena as she was wheeled into the surgery room, and sat next to Dr. Dauhajre and her team as they worked to remove the patient’s left lens— no longer transparent, but rather colored with age, wisdom, and character—and replace it with a new multifocal piece that would allow Jimena to perceive the micro expressions on her grandchildren’s faces for years to come. I sat next to Jimena in the recovery room, and, as Dr. Dauhajre removed the bandages from the left portion of her face 72 hours later, I witnessed an 82-year-old grandmother get her vision back.
My experience with ophthalmologic surgeons, their teams, and their patients that summer urged me to contextualize myself within the confines of hospital walls. Unlike most surgeons, my exposure to the physicality of the human body had not been through the blade of a scalpel, but rather through the tip of a paintbrush. I grew up an artist. My drawings and paintings have served as a way to express the love I have for my friends and family—when I care for someone, I put them on paper. Over a decade of caring for people and putting them on paper has resulted in countless drawings ranging from my mother’s hands to my roommate’s knees to a homeless man’s brow. I see this aspect of myself reflected in Dr. Dauhajre every time she performs a cataract removal surgery, or, if you will, a redrawing of the human eye. The idiosyncrasies of her techniques, the way she dominates both her medium and her tools, and the delicacy with which she approaches her work inspired me to reconsider the boundaries I use to define art. When I care for people, I no longer want to put them on paper. I want to cure them on hospital beds.
The time I’ve spent at New York University has allowed me to grow not only as an artist, but as a scientist as well. Over the last two and a half years, I’ve completed several research projects at the Coruzzi Lab, all of which have aimed to investigate nitrogen efficiency in plant roots. This experience has allowed me to reach what I once believed to be an unobtainable level of discipline, as well as a deep appreciation for the value of a structured work ethic. Plants grow—and at the Coruzzi Lab, plants will continue to grow without the slightest regard for me or for my obligations. As a result, I’ve spent my undergraduate career working and planning around the schedule of a garden weed. At first, the demands of the lab were almost unbearable. Today, they’ve become an integral, enjoyable, and almost necessary part of my everyday life. After my experience at Retina Associates and Centro Médico Dominicano, I was invited to observe the life of a physician outside the clinical setting; it was during these moments when I realized that medicine requires the same discipline and regimen that have become both a natural part of my daily routine and an indispensable portion of my personal identity.
I believe that my artistic endeavors, research, dedication to the Hispanic community, and medical shadowing experience will one day coexist within hospital rooms. I want to tell someone like Jimena that I will work to restore her health. I want to cooperate with a team to address the health problems of the underserved. I want to redraw the human body. But I must go to medical school first.
Analysis
Manuela begins with an anecdote focused on her interactions with Jimena, a memorable eighty-two-year-old Colombian patient. Her strength is in her elegant prose. She writes vividly, leaving no details unadorned or reflectionless. In doing so, she is able to express convincingly the impact the connection she forged with Jimena that day had in furthering her awe of medicine and her desire to heal others within her community.
She goes on to surprise her readers as she ties her background as an artist to her pursuits to become a doctor. While at first glance the two are seemingly different and almost contradictory paths, as she draws similarities between her careful 2-D depictions of her loved ones and the art of surgery, it becomes obvious that through Manuela’s eyes, medicine too can be an art and mimic the expression of care her paintings represented.
Her concise, yet powerful, final paragraph beautifully concludes her essay. Readers are left reminded not only of Jimena, of Manuela’s Colombian heritage, and of her love for art and the human body but also of her strong desire to bring multiple facets of her identity to the world of medicine.
From 50 Successful Harvard Medical School Essays edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2020 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group