hello my name is kami from medic mind
i'm a second year medical student at the
university of birmingham
and today i'm going to talk you through
how to write a great introduction to
your
medicine personal statement starting the
personal statement of
can be one of the hardest parts so as
i've mentioned in other videos
i definitely recommend starting with the
main body perhaps whatever bit you're
most interested in such as the
extracurricular bit for me
so after writing all of your text out on
all your work experience your academic
achievements and your extracurriculars
you're going to have a much
better idea of how to talk about your
instruction
and your motivation for medicine so what
should i
include in my introduction so there are
four main things that you want to think
about
for your introduction so firstly why are
you interested in medicine as
a science so here you could focus on say
the
physiology anatomy or pharmacology
perhaps anything you've been doing extra
reading in
it's good to mention specific examples
but try not to talk about your books
or your academic achievements or
anything here because that's going to
need to go in the main
text so next you're going to want to
link this to
medicine as a profession so you could
mention here the clinical aspect
perhaps working as a team and how it's
quite patient centered
these are quite vital and key things in
medicine but remember to state why you
want to do this
as part of your career there are plenty
of other jobs out there
so you need to show why medicine is the
one for you so the reader should be
gripped by your enthusiasm
it has to be passionate so next is
writing style
as i've already said your writing needs
to be fascinating and
passionate the admission staff that are
reading
your personal statement have probably
already read hundreds and hundreds so
yours needs to stand out and you need to
keep them reading an important point
here
is to show that you have a good
understanding of medicine as a whole
so lots of people might use quite
idealistic
writing in the introduction so for
example saying
medicine is my dream or um medicine is
the perfect career for me
medicine is not a perfect career for
anyone
there's negative aspects and not
everyone will love everything about
medicine
it is a challenging course and a
challenging career so you need to show
that you've looked into all the negative
aspects and perhaps what will challenge
you
and how you can deal with that in the
future finally give examples
now you don't want to put too many in
here because you're going to want to
keep them for the main
body of text and you don't have that
much space in your introduction
but it might be a good idea to drop in
maybe one example here
so for example if you're really
interested in the science of medicine
instead of saying i have always been
interested in the workings of the human
body
this sounds a little bit bland and it
doesn't give much reasoning and it
definitely doesn't sound very passionate
so instead of this you could say from an
early age i've been fascinated by the
workings of life
the human body is a remarkable machine
with many diverse systems
producing an organism that could never
be artificially reproduced
so this is a much more insightful answer
and it gives all the reasoning
and it's so much more interesting and
people who are reading
your personal statement will definitely
want to ask about
the things you've brought up in this
answer in your interview
as i've mentioned in previous videos in
your introduction
you can mention some personal anecdotes
if you have
a good experience in healthcare or in
hospital perhaps from when you were
younger or growing up or if your
family member has had a particularly
poignant experience
but do avoid cliches try to make it
realistic
and make sure it shows that you have a
good understanding of medicine as we've
already talked about
always remember to link it back to how
it will make you a great medic
so i hope that you now have a better
idea on how to write your introduction
be sure to get in contact with the medic
mind team if you need any help
they are always on hand to help so
thanks for watching best of luck
in writing your medicine personal
statement and i'll see you in our next
video on how to write about your work
experience
