Episode 6 - ERAS Round 1: Personal Statement, Scores & More

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Hello, hello, and welcome to the Emotional Millennial. My name is Annie, and I'm so excited that you're here with me today. I have gone through an immense amount of personal growth throughout the past year, and I'm no longer not talking about it. Our world needs more authenticity, honesty, vulnerability. And with this podcast, I'm simply doing my part.

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All right. I today am going to talk about my first round of eras applications. Basically just kind of lay it all out there for you guys. My scores, my grades, how many programs I applied to. I'm going to read my personal statement, and, I don't know, give you all the tea, let you know as transparently as possible what this experience was like for me. Round one, I'm gonna explain where I think I went wrong and how I adjusted along the way. I don't know. This is bringing up a lot of past memories for me. So this is definitely straight up and not going to be a good time. But I'm doing it for you guys because I know that there are people out there that need to hear this and need to talk about it. And you guys need to know you're not alone and also don't make the same mistakes I did. I guess. So here goes nothing. So I decided I wanted to apply to obstetrics and Gynecology during my third year, and I was super excited about it. I love women's health, wanted to be a surgeon, et cetera. You get the picture?

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I met with a bunch of advisors. I actually met with three different advisors multiple times to try and make sure I was on the right track, because I'm like, I can't mess this up, right? I want to do everything right. So I did my best to do that. My step one score is a 239. My step two score is a 255. I was in the second quartile of my graduating class, and I did have quite a few honors and high passes within my 1st 2nd year, and then my third year clerkships, but I'll go into detail about those in a second. All right, I got my MSPE right here in front of me. So here we go. Okay. Important to note, I had no extensions, leaves, or gaps in my educational program. I had no class failures or retakes. I was able to pass every course on the first time in Med school. So, heck, yeah, go me. Okay, so during my first year, I passed mainly everything. Well, in my school, we had either honors or pass for the first two years. And so the only thing that I honored during my M one year semester one was my AFCP two course, which is like anatomy and clinical foundations of wait, anatomical foundations of clinical practice.

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The second part of that I honored, and the rest of my M one year, I just passed everything, which is great. Whatever. My M two year, first semester, I honored male and female reproductive system. I also honored GI and renal. And then during my two year, second semester, I honored neuroscience, two evidence based medicine, behavioral science, and I passed everything else. So cool. During my third year, one of the things I'm actually incredibly proud of myself, I actually would say it's probably one of my biggest achievements is that I was able to get Exceeds Expectations in every single one of my clerkships. And so I thought that was really freaking cool. And I was really proud of myself for that. In clerkships at my school, you were able to pass high pass or honors peeds. I got a high pass. General surgery. I honored internal medicine. I got a high pass. Obstetrics and Gynecology. I honored ophthalmology, highpass neurology pass. Psychiatry, I honored family Medicine pass. I think for Neuro and Family medicine, you could only pass or honor me. No, I don't know. The grading was weird for those two because something was covered.

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But regardless, doesn't really matter. So overall, I ended up in the second quartile of my class. And my comments were good for each of my clerkships, too, because I did get, like, that Exceeds Expectations grade. So obviously the comments were reflective of that. Okay, now I'm going to read you my personal statement. Maybe I'll regret this later, but I think it's important that we share this kind of stuff because we all talk about personal statements and people are, like, weird about hiding them. So, I mean, obviously this one didn't end up working. I guess. So take this as you will, but here we go. My fascination with human anatomy soared to new heights when I assisted in an organ procurement and cradled a beating heart in my palms, feeling the pulsation steadily coming to a halt. In those moments, I vividly remember telling myself I simply could not pursue a career that did not involve the operating room. Ha ha. Now I am, but that's fine. A career as an obstetrician and gynecologist seamlessly weaves together my aspirations of becoming a surgeon, a teacher, and a patient advocate. My experience in the operating room further expanded my love for teaching and resulted in my continuous involvement in peer tutoring opportunities throughout medical school.

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I discovered that I particularly enjoyed teaching anatomy when I spent countless hours with students in the gross anatomy lab. It was thrilling to share the excitement with my most recent student when they honored their anatomy exam. Experiences like these have reaffirmed my passion for medical education. I am eager to maintain this commitment during my training both inside and outside of the operating room. Next paragraph. Although I love being a teacher, I recognize that I will always be a student. In one particularly meaningful patient encounter on my internal medicine rotation, I have the opportunity to care for a woman who presented with severe delirium tremons in a sincere attempt to understand her situation. I spent significant time listening and learning at her bedside. Unexpectedly, tears filled both of our eyes as she confided in me the painful details of her abusive relationship. I could feel her shame as she admitted that she was unable to see a way out. Yes, as a student, I was filled with frustration at the lack of resources available to her, and I recognized I had much to learn in order to best assist her. Through caring for her, I learned the importance of treating an individual as a whole rather than as a diagnosis.

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Next paragraph. The raw emotion this woman evoked within me created a moment of self reflection in her. I realized I saw a familiar isolation. In my past, I had felt the isolating impact of my own anxiety. Though it was difficult to confront, I sought help to conquer this obstacle. Overcoming this has shaped me into a better clinician as it enables me to empathize more deeply with my patients. It has also granted me a heightened awareness of the clinical manifestations of psychosocial issues. Both internal and external circumstances are capable of muting a patient voice. I am proud of myself for pursuing treatment, and as an obstetrician and gynecologist, I will encourage and support those under my care to do the same. Last paragraph. I wish to train at a program that pushes me to utilize my energy and passion for teaching, operating, and empowering women to actively participate in their care. I hope to gain knowledge and experience that allows me to better interact with individuals across a diverse range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. As a future physician, I understand the magnitude of my responsibility and potential to influence healthcare, and I plan to advocate for expanded access to reproductive health services.

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My goal is to become a clinician who always takes the time to understand and improve the complex lives of my patients. Mic Drop that was my personal statement. I guess this is obvious at this point, but I'm not ashamed of my anxiety and I'm very proud of the fact that I was able to overcome it, particularly during medical school, and I always intended to include it in my personal statement because it is something that I value so deeply and that I wanted to make sure that wherever I completed my training, they agreed with that and they're accepting of that. My values are so important to me, and I don't think having mental health issues is like anything that holds you back, especially if you're aware of them and you're taking care of it and like you're stronger from it. That's my personal opinion. You can have a different one, whatever. But a lot of people that obviously I showed my personal statement to, they're like, you always have to be careful about including stuff about mental health. And yeah, I totally agree. And in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have included that. But I'm proud of who I am and I'm proud of what I have overcome.

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Or what I'm working to overcome. And as I said in my statement, like, I do believe it makes me a better physician. Like, I'm able to recognize it in other people and I'm able to help other people better because of it. So, yeah, I mean, whatever moral of the story is, my battle with anxiety is a very large part of who I am and why I am the way I am today. And I would never change that about myself. I would never hide that about myself. And I do not regret including that in my initial personal statement because it completely aligns with who I am as a person who I want to be seen as. And if a program doesn't like that, then I don't like you either. Alright, next, deciding where to apply all that good stuff, OB GYN and deciding where to apply. This is going to be controversial, but here we go. I believe as a comprehensive OBGYN physician, it is important to take care of women in all aspects of their lives and all of the choices that they make. This includes being very well versed in using contraception and knowing, you know, how to deal with abortion and being able to give medical abortion surgical abortions like these are things that as an OBGYN, I personally believe me my opinion that if I were to graduate as an OBGYN physician, I feel it is my duty as the doctor for my patients that I know how to provide all of those services for my patients.

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With this in mind, I did not realize until it came down to me applying to OBGYN residency programs that not all programs include that in their curriculum. That is shocking to me still to this day. But I created the list of programs that I wanted to attend. Based on that fact, I didn't feel comfortable going and getting my training at a program that wouldn't provide me with that. These are my personal values. You can have different ones. That's fine. There's something called the Ryan program, and this is a program that teaches you comprehensively about all this kind of stuff. The more like controversial things. I don't think birth control or abortions should be controversial, but unfortunately, politics have made them. So the Ryan program is not present at every residency program. I think it's only present at like 70 of them or so. This is probably not totally correct. So I apologize for that. But there are over like 330 something OBGYN residency programs across the United States, and no more than 80 of these programs offer this comprehensive training right away. My list of programs that I'm applying to is much more slim than I don't know, I guess what it would be if every program offered what every OBGYN should be trained in.

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So with all of this, I also want to add that these Ryan programs tend to be at very prestigious academic institutions like Harvard or Mayo. Clinic or the University of Michigan. These places that are very challenging to get into. But because of my values and the training I wanted to receive, these are the places that I applied. Okay, so that's the moral of that story. With that, I ended up applying to 53 programs total, and my subtotal was $1,057. My USMA transcript fee was $80. And so I ended up paying $1,137 to apply to these residency programs. I ended up having, like, I think after all of the rounds of interviews were supposed to go out because OBGYN has, like, two days where they release all those interviews. I ended up having two TW two interviews. One of them was my home institution, and the other one I actually didn't receive right away. I only received it after I sent a letter of interest, so you could say I was devastated, to say the least. Okay. With this, I met with my advisor again, and I'm like, Yo, I have two interviews WTF is going on.

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Okay. Does my app suck? I don't know. And I then applied to 20 more programs, like, a month after the due date. And then from those 20 more programs, I received two more interviews. So I had a total of four interviews, two of which were from programs that I was not initially even interested in attending. Let that sink in because that was painful. Okay, now back to my eras application. I guess my descriptions I did, like, dashes, and that's how I explained things. I think my first round of my eras application descriptions were, like, a lot wordier than my second round. I guess I can, like, count up my experiences and, like, let you guys know how many I have of each. Okay. We have five work experiences, eleven volunteer experiences, and now I'll do my research experiences. I had nine research experiences on my first application. Peer reviewed Journal articles, abstracts. I had two that were published. Peer reviewed Journal articles abstracts. Other than published. I had three poster presentations, 12345 six oral presentations. One, two, three. So, yeah, that's like the nuts and bolts of my eras application. I think the main things I regret from the first time around were one talking about my anxiety and my personal statement.

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That was like the first or maybe my only red flag, I would say. And then the other thing that I think I would have changed, looking back is kind of shortening up my descriptions of each of my experiences. They kind of are, like, long, bulky, and so I think a little bit more difficult to read. Maybe people don't want to pay attention to them as much. Okay, so I guess that's it. If you have any questions or other things that you would like me to talk about, shoot me an email. Theemotionmillennial@gmail.com also my website emotionalmillennial.com. I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. I really tried to be as transparent as possible. Read my personal statement. I mean gave you guys my grades. I don't know. I think it's really important that we see which applicants don't match and shedding light on an application like mine and seeing where did I go wrong? What should I have changed? And I mean I stayed true to who I was but obviously it just didn't work out for me so yeah, I hope you have a great rest of your day. I appreciate your time. Transcript for this episode will be on my website and I don't know that's bye.