Personal Statement

you may be right, but that is probably somewhat influenced by the selection of operative patients. Orthopods don't put total knees in people with 18 months to live from their cardiac, renal, cancer, or other disease. We have a way of self-selecting the patients that will do well.

Just my opinion.

SharpTool,

To each his/her own. During interview season last year I interviewed with some of the biggest names in Ortho, including some of the biggest names in joints. And NONE of them laughed when I said ortho patients tend to be a healthier patient population. Matter of fact, most of them agreed. And I heard time and time again that that was the reason they went into Ortho too. I'm talking from personal experience. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my bung hole. And I had multiple people tell me that my reasons were the EXACT reasons they were looking for.

And as for healthy patients, it's a "relative" thing. Compared to medicine, g-surg, neuro, etc., ortho patients are pretty damn healthy. be it spine, sports, joints, or trauma. And I'd be willing to bet my next pay check that the MAJORITY of orthopods (in this universe) would agree with me on this one. Patients here are leaving the hospital going to rehab, while medicine and g-surg patients are on their way to hospice care
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SharpTool, I really find it hard to believe that you haven't heard this from an attending (outside of sports).

another take here...agree with all of the above posts, but more so with Micky: I do think you should mention athletics as one of the reasons you chose ortho but i think this is best if you save it for the interview. I disagree that majority of ortho patients are "young and healthy" and if you mention this it could backfire because it is simply not true unless you do sports. Do joints, trauma, spine, and you'll have more old broken down farts than you know what to do with. So this is a stereotype and if a joint guy is reading your PS he would laugh at the young/healthy generalization.

The problem with the introduction you guys are discussing is that it's been done so many times before. Mention it in the middle. You want a statement that grabs someone's attention. The old "I first became interested in ortho when I tore my ACL playing college ball" is just so unoriginal, however true it may be. Just because something is true does not mean it has to be on your PS. You want an attention-grabber that is not unusual but that is also not one that they've heard a thousand times.

Just my take. I personally think the PS is so insignificant. Don't stress too much about it...do what feels right.

BigErn,

Props to the DIII athlete. I played at Baldwin-Wallace - Same conference as Mount Union
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We had a slightly larger following. At home, we usually played in front of 5-8,000 people every week. And for the big games, we squeeze close to 10,000 into the stands. So it wasn't that bad.

Thanks guys. Bone Jock, that was exactly my plan, to use the injury as a brief, "personal" introduction as to what sparked my interest in ortho (emphasis on brief). Of course its not the only reason I want to do ortho. All of my other reason's are not that personal, they are exactly the same as everyone else's. Talk about a boring statemet. But then I could give the "I just want to improve humanity, one bone at a time" line.

Bone Jock: I played DIII football at Hopkins. It was fun but it was painful to see just your parents in the stands for football games, while the those prep school lax guys got 10,000 people come see them.

BTW trackshun: Miami won the national championship last year.

I culd not agree more with bone Jock (T, by the way it's good to see you online and there's a new development we have to talk about soon.) Be honest in your PS. If college sports was the spark you can talk about it but don't dwell on it too much. Bottom line is that we all dig ortho for the same reasons: chicks dig orthopods, we get to play with power tools, and most of our patients leave the hospital (not necessarily in that order). You just have to find a more eloquent way than that to write it down.

I disagree (in part) with Micky and Trakshun:

I too played college football. I opened my personal statement with an extremely short paragraph about our all-american linebacker who sustained the infamous terrible triad and was back playing competitively 10 months later. Would I dwell on college sports. Heck no. But this was one of the key events that "sparked" my interest in ortho. I used this as a diving board into a more in depth discussion of why I wanted to do ortho (young healthy patient population, people who are "sick" but want to get better, the ability to "fix" many of the problems you see, etc.). Now if I rambled on for an entire page about my glory days. . . .that would have been a bad PS. But my college football experience was the center of conversation during at least 50% of my interviews. At a few places, that's all I talked about for the entire interview!! Especially at the places where the Jock:Nerd ratio was high. At other places they could care less about that experience. But be proud that you did more in college than study. Not too many people can say that they played college sports. That may be the one thing that sets you a part from the other 6'2" guys, all dressed in black suits. Mention it, but don't dwell on it. And it SHOULD NOT be your primary reason for going into Ortho. Just my two cents. By the way BigErn, where'd you play?

Hey Micky, I dig your comments, they are right on. Some help on PS. Keep it short and to the point. Dont bullshit because they see right through it. Unless you were a starter for the Cornhuskers last year winning the national championship, dont mention sports being a reaon you went into ortho. The key is to get their attention in the first paragraph since realistically you have 15 seconds of their time. Just make a PS what it is, PERSONAL. Talk about yourself, tell a brief story about who you are, be careful with comedy as an intro because it could backfire. Be sincere and come across with a little humility. Talk about why you think you will be a good doctor, not just a tool. Describe your personal, again emphasize that word, attributes that will make people interested in getting to know you. Most importantly, do not go over one page on the ERAS sheet. Good luck :smokin:

I wouldn't focus on this injury/football thing. When you talk about why you chose ortho, you may want to bring it up but keep it short. Like you said, they've heard it too many times and will put them to sleep. They could care less that you tore your ACL. I myself dozed off reading your post. Don't dwell on it and I wouldn't even mention the specific injury (ACL) that you had. There must be other reasons you like orthopaedics. I broke my arm when i was 11 and i'm sure this had something to do with my decision to do ortho, but I didn't mention it because I had better reasons to write about. I also had my appendix out when I was 13 but didn't do general surg, and had otitis media when i was 8 months old but didn't do peds. I would write about what you like about the practice of orthopaedic surgery.

You will have plenty of opportunities to tell them about your injury during your interviews. Every interviewer will ask you why you chose ortho, and if you want to you can throw in your ACL injury at that time. But don't write about it. It's incredibly boring.

just my thoughts.