Medical Admissions Essay: How Am I Qualified? - Continued

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Medical Admissions Essay Categories:

Why Medicine? | How Am I Unique? | How Am I Qualified?

Clinical Experience

Some degree of hospital experience is usually expected, though it's more essential to the "testing your interest" aspect we discussed in the last section of the course than to your qualifications. The main point you're trying to convey here is that you will work well with patients in a clinical setting. If you have had opportunities to engage in more hands-on work, then you should by all means include it, particularly if you are pursuing dentistry or are interested in surgery as a specialty.

Research

A strong research background helps your case, because the laboratory is such an integral part of the medical school experience. It's not possible to prove your intellectual capability through a short description of your projects, so that's not the real goal here. Instead, you should try to convey such intangible qualities as creativity, initiative, and original thinking. Note: You should limit technical details to only what is necessary to establish context.

The way to convey such qualities as creativity and original thinking is to focus on your contribution rather than your research topic. For example, you could describe a situation where you recognized a flaw in a procedure and had the initiative to show your supervisor how efficiency could be improved. No matter how minor your contribution seems, it's better to focus on some tangible input that you had than to describe the project as a whole. As always, the key is to delineate your active role.