Chapter 10 Perfect "Why Our School?" Phrases
"Why have you chosen to apply to Georgetown University School of Medicine, and how do you think your education at Georgetown will prepare you to become a physician for the future?"
(Georgetown University)
"Please briefly explain your interest in the Keck School of Medicine."
(USC)
Yes, it's true that you can get a sound medical education at any of the 129 schools accredited by the Association of American Medical Colleges. But do all these schools believe they're created equal? Of course not. Since your AMCAS essay is by necessity unspecific about which medical schools are your ultimate goal, many medical schools include secondary essay topics asking you to explain why you're applying to their programs in particular. As the following perfect phrases show, the best "Why our school?"statements go beyond the marketing verbiage found on schools' Web sites and focus on the applicant's personal knowledge of the program and its people.
I have chosen Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine because it uses its rich teaching resources to benefit both its students and the larger community. Because OHSU lectures are taught by practicing physicians, students can gain firsthand exposure to the "end product" of the medical education—practicing physicians—while gaining real-world knowledge from them. I have personal experience with the quality of OHSU professors through my mentorship under Dr. Frederic Beecham, a cardiac surgeon at Doernbecher Children's Hospital and OHSU. Because he took the time to patiently explain the anatomy of the heart to me, I developed a strong interest in cardiology, which I hope to pursue at OHSU. OHSU's personal approach to teaching ensures that students are continually shown the practical importance of what they study—as well as how much more they still have to learn! Finally, I also admire the positive impact that OHSU has on the community. By emphasizing healing and community service—such as the required third-year rural community health clerkship and the Physician Assistant Program—OHSU trains students to value giving back to their community as public-minded future physicians.
Part of the oldest Catholic- and Jesuit-sponsored university in the United States, Georgetown University School of Medicine shares my values. Its four-part longitudinal curriculum in clinical ethics and courses like "Religious Traditions of Health Care" and "The Role of Physician-Patient Relationships" instill a foundation of public service and principled integrity. This moral vision is also reflected in the liberating learning environment that Georgetown has created for its students. The pass/fail grading system will empower me to achieve in a less competitively stressful environment, and by reducing lecture-time requirements and giving me the freedom to choose my own electives, Georgetown allows me to take responsibility for shaping my own education. Georgetown's location in one of the most concentrated medical research hubs in the world is another compelling attraction for me. Situated within 10 miles of the National Institutes of Health and home to the Lombardi Cancer Center, Georgetown offers a cutting-edge five-year track for research-oriented students like me, in which I can spend an intensive 12 months between my second and third years pursuing my research interests. With a Georgetown education I will be well prepared to become a medical leader in the new century, no matter what it brings.
Born into this world weighing a mere two pounds, I was rushed to McMaster University Medical Center (MUMC) where the pediatric staff fought round the clock to save my life. When my parents told me this story when I was a teenager, McMaster rose to the top of my short list for college applications. As a McMaster undergraduate I watched surgeries in MUMC's operating room, worked in its medical library, and as a student volunteer learned team skills watching MUMC's pathologists and residents share information in the GI rounds. Having learned, volunteered, and worked at McMaster, I know it well enough to unhesitatingly name DeGroote School of Medicine as my first choice for medical school. DeGroote is world renowned for its curriculum and excellence in obstetrics, pediatrics, and family medicine, and its department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics is Canada's largest. Its innovations in problem-based learning, evidence-based health care, and small tutorial group learning demonstrate its commitment to practical, creative education and medicine. Shouldn't the institution that brought me into this world be the one that gives me the skills to maximize my impact in it?
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine offers me a truly comprehensive medical education. At Feinberg not only will I gain a strong basic science foundation, but I will also be able to explore nonscientific medical issues, from health-care system reform to the ethics of stem cell research, that empower future physicians to be effective in the ever-changing health-care system. Northwestern's Patient, Physician, and Society curriculum appeals to me because it focuses on interactions between patients and physicians as well as between physicians and society—the "one-on-one" and "one-to-many" relationships that interest me most. Because I have not decided on my medical specialty, Feinberg's multiple, uniformly outstanding facilities and expertise in all medical fields will give me the broadest opportunity to make an informed choice. Besides a well-rounded education, Feinberg's integrated, cross-disciplinary curriculum offers the ideal mix of traditional and problem-based learning. On the one hand, problem-solving skills ultimately determine the success of diagnosis and treatment, but before students can solve medical cases, they need the background information and guidance that focused lectures and discussion groups provide. Feinberg's curriculum integrates the best of both methods. Finally, through its Community Health, Devon, and Chinatown clinics, Feinberg will expose me to a great range of clinical experiences in one of the most diverse cities in the world. Through these free clinics Feinberg students who, like me, are interested in internal medicine can practice their clinical skills side by side with Northwestern physicians. I choose Feinberg because it is the complete medical school—offering rigor of instruction, wealth of resources, and values aligned with who I am.
As I researched Ohio State University College of Medicine, I learned about a school with a rich history of medical education innovation. But the more I learned, the more it was OSU's sheer diversity of resources that attracted me. With the Medical Center's fifteen clinical departments and six science departments, I can be assured of finding an area of medicine compatible with my ambitions. To help me define those ambitions, Ohio State offers two innovative curricular pathways to match my learning style and educational goals. I'm excited by the "block"-based body-systems focus of the integrated pathway because of its blend of lectures, case-based discussion, and clinical exposure. This interdisciplinary curriculum will enable me to become a truly well-rounded physician deeply grounded in analytical and managerial skills, medical humanities, and behavioral sciences and thus be ready to participate in all aspects of health care. Through OSU's Community Project I can begin gaining clinical exposure in my first year (the OSU High Risk Perinatal Teen Program is especially attractive to me). Similarly, student assistantships will enable me to advance my education by participating in cutting-edge research opportunities at OSU, which U.S. News has ranked among the top 50 research schools. After comparing more than seven medical programs, I have concluded that my full potential as a physician can best be realized through the resources that Ohio State offers.
Dr. James N. Thompson, MD, former dean of Wake Forest Medical School, once wrote that teaching medical schools must answer two crucial questions if they hope to address medicine's "moral imperatives" in our age of managed care and cost control: "what kind of person makes the best possible physician?" and "what constitutes the best possible training for that person?" I am applying to Wake Forest Medical School because I share Dr. Thompson's belief that these are medicine's central questions and because I believe that Wake Forest Medical School provides the most effective answer to them. What kind of person does make the best possible physician? Wake Forest's answer is its forward-thinking pedagogical philosophy, which inspired a redesigned curriculum built upon Dean Thompson's "ABCs" of aptitude, beneficence, and competence. By combining the best of the traditional and problem-based medical school curricula, Wake Forest integrates clinical exposure across the four-year learning experience—the perfect educational environment for students like me who are committed to becoming holistic caregivers. The innovation behind Wake Forest's new curriculum is a tradition at Wake Forest, the first medical school in the nation with a department of medical genetics, the institution where the first reimplantation of a severed human hand was performed, and the first medical school to completely adopt a problem-based learning curriculum. More importantly, given my interests, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is one of only 1 percent of U.S. cancer centers that have been designated as comprehensive cancer centers by the National Cancer Institute. With such expertise and resources within arm's reach, you can rest assured that I will take advantage of Wake Forest's optional fourth-year Scholarly Project and will pursue a funded summer research opportunity in one of the medical school's cancer research projects. In short, at Wake Forest, I can be assured not only of acquiring a thorough, innovatively conceived foundation in medical knowledge, but of plenty of opportunities to conduct cutting-edge cancer research and gain clinical oncological exposure.
I believe the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine offers me the best environment in which to pursue my goal of becoming a caring and compassionate osteopathic physician. PCOM is one of the best and largest osteopathic schools in the country, and has the distinction of being the civilian organization that produces the most physicians for the U.S. military. The PCOM students, like Lynn Christic and Erin Chang, I spoke with during my campus visit in April enthused about every aspect of the school, from the integrated curriculum and hands-on clinical exposure at PCOM's health-care centers to the flexibility in clerkship-related electives and the proactiveness of the Office of Student Affairs in supporting career placement. Everyone I talked to mentioned the optimal blend of classroom and clinical experience in PCOM's curriculum and the mixture of case methodologies and presentations, which injects a critical reality into the classroom. Last, given my research work on Alzheimer's at Gettysburg College, PCOM's interdisciplinary Center for Chronic Disorders of Aging is exciting for me, and I hope to participate in research at one of its collaborating institutions. For all these reasons, I know PCOM is the ideal school for me.
My specific interest in Uniformed Services University School of Medicine came into focus when I joined Radrix PharmaTherapies in 2006 as a protein biochemistry research associate developing heat-shock protein-based vaccines for cancer and chronic viral diseases. While learning molecular biology from Dr. Nathaniel McCain, I discovered that he had conducted research in the pathology lab of USU's Dr. Devin Ritterbusch. Dr. McCain energetically corrected my misconception that military medicine is only about combat casualty care and described USU Med School's impressive facilities and beautiful campus. He assured me that researchers weren't required to wear uniforms; in fact, many are civilians. The more I researched USU, the more I saw it as an institution comparable in every way to the leading health science centers, offering everything from a strong medical curriculum to world-class basic science research. For example, I discovered the depth of USU SOM's MD/Ph.D. program, which will enable me to build on the strengths I have gained at City of Hope Cancer Center and at Radrix. Speaking with USU second-year med student Alice Sierra, I learned about the great team-building and community opportunities available through Alpha Omega Alpha and the Courage to Care Health Campaign, and Professor Anil Jain enthusiastically described the clinical and research experiences that await me at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress and the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine. And I would be dishonest if I denied the appeal of USU's tuitionless education and guaranteed four-year officer-grade salary!
I want to study medicine at the University of Washington because it is the best school in the United States for training family practice physicians (U.S. News & World Report). I have explored the "WWAMI" (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) program firsthand at the university's Idaho and Pullman, Washington, campuses. Attending classes in anatomy, physiology, and neurology, I was impressed by Washington's capable, caring professors and the quality of its students. Because of the importance of research in my post-MD goals, Washington's sixth-place ranking nationally among research-oriented medical schools and its second-place status behind Harvard in NIH research funding are powerful draws for me. On a practical level, Washington's WWAMI program will give me a high-quality medical education without incurring tremendous debt, and this will allow me to focus immediately on my post-MD professional goal: serving underserved populations. Ideally, I will practice in a small rural town (10,000 or less) in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest while spending six weeks a year serving in underdeveloped countries. In this regard, the university's Rural/Urban Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP) WRITE program and International Health Group are big factors in my decision to choose Washington. Spending four weeks in a rural medical immersion experience after only my first year of medical school would be a really priceless educational opportunity.
When I first joined the USC Post Baccalaureate PreMed Program, I frankly didn't know what to expect. Going back to school with undergraduates, moving home with my parents, commuting to USC by train—it was a bit overwhelming at first. Today, I can say that my two years with the students, professors, and especially the advisors of USC have made all the difference in my medical school journey. In fact, my experience at USC is what prompted my interest in earning my MD at Keck. That interest solidified into a definite decision to apply when I learned about Keck's educational philosophy. Keck infuses the traditional with the practical by pioneering the introduction of clinical experiences during the first year. Working one on one with patients is why I chose medicine in the first place, so Keck's clinical emphasis will enable me to hit the ground running with a patient population—Los Angeles—that is one of the most diverse in the world. Keck's innovative curriculum, based on the thematic "standardized patient" model involving cases, small-group learning, and independent study, will give me the relevant education I will need to hone my skills as a compassionate health-care provider. And, since my interest is in clinical research involving biomedical technologies, I am also excited about Keck's expanding research in this area and the four new research facilities on the Health Sciences Campus, including the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute. As one of the top 25 medical schools in the nation for federally sponsored research, Keck offers me extraordinary possibilities for developing my own research topics. Research strengths balanced with an emphasis on compassionate clinical care—Keck is the perfect fit for my interests and future plans.
When I learned about Stanford's unique scholarly concentrations model I knew I had—to use a little consultantspeak—found my "power alley." Health Services and Policy Research will help me to define how technology can change health care by improving access to care and patient quality of life. Courses like "Rethinking International Health" and "Innovation and Management in Health Care" are thrillingly relevant to the themes I helped Professor Dumas develop in his monograph, A Future for Health Care. When Dr. Ernesto Villon spoke about Stanford at the Sorbonne in 2006, I was impressed to learn about Stanford's amazing student-to-professor ratio and the freedom it gives students to define their focus. The optional fifth or sixth year will enable me to earn a joint degree (MPH), and Stanford's emphasis on independent research will let me explore my interest in technology and health care and learn from thought-leading faculty advisors like Dr. Alain Enthoven, the "father of managed competition." Stanford balances all these strengths with early exposure to clinical care and to patients—both my starting point and ultimate purpose in choosing a medical career.
The oldest medical school in New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School is my first choice for medical school. First, NJMS's Jubilee Curriculum, integrating basic sciences and clinical experiences, captures exactly the way I want to learn medicine—holistically. To gain the clinical experience I crave, NJMS's Physician Core course will let me get started in the first semester of my first year. NJMS's teaching hospital, The University Hospital, and its Level I Trauma Center—New Jersey's busiest—offer me exposure to the wide variety of patients I'll be serving throughout my career. Because I'm moving from a career in graphic design and advertising back to my science roots, I've enjoyed learning how to conduct research over the past 18 months at Rutgers. NJMS's stem cell initiatives and opportunities in counterterrorism and biodefense-related research are very exciting for me. To join NJMS and become part of its rich history and tradition of excellence is an opportunity I would cherish.
The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine is an ideal fit for me on many levels, but particularly in its small and diverse student body, extraordinarily close relationship with the larger university, and emphasis on treating human disease through an integrated approach to discovery and patient care. By focusing on the relevance of basic sciences to clinical medicine and by emphasizing problem solving, small groups, and patient contact, Pritzker's curriculum appeals directly to my strengths. Biomedical research is my passion, so Pritzker's tradition of cutting-edge research, Medical Education Research Grants, and its wealth of conferences will enable me to translate that knowledge to the bedside. Similarly, because knowledge of human physiology and disease is continually expanding, the school's new Pritzker Curriculum Initiative, location within the university's biological sciences division, and full-time teaching faculty assure me of interdisciplinary exposure to the latest developments in science and medicine. Not least, I'm eager to attend a medical school in Chicago, whose richly diverse inner-city population will expose me to the most urgent medical challenges.