Optional Statement Feedback/Crticism Forum

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Anonymous User
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Optional Statement Feedback/Crticism

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:08 am

The following is my optional statement for my top choice school. Honest feedback or criticism would be much appreciated.

I was born in Karachi, Pakistan with congenital dyserythropoietic anemia, or CDA, a rare anemia with only a few hundred reported cases worldwide. In essence, my blood cells were leaving the bone marrow before they were fully developed, leading to a decreased capacity to carry oxygen and my life threatening anemia. There are three reported types of CDA, and, as luck would have it, I had none of these three types. I was an anomaly within an anomaly, and the doctors were baffled.

As it turned out, the physicians in Pakistan had neither the knowledge nor the tools needed to adequately treat me, and so my father decided to move our small family to London. What followed, however, was beyond anything my parents, being poor immigrants with almost no money to their names, could have hoped for. Over the intervening years in London, I was given the best treatment, in the city’s best hospitals. Every month, I was taken to the hospital, where my blood would be removed and replaced with new blood. Eventually, the doctors made the decision to remove my spleen, and, if necessary after that, perform a bone marrow transplant. These procedures were not only risky, but costly as well. Had the National Health Service of the United Kingdom not covered the costs of all my treatment, my parents would not have been able to afford them. In the end, the surgeries were successful, and I survived to see the almost 21 years of life that I have now attained.

In my adolescence, when others would ask me why I wanted to become a doctor, I would reply with this: that the medical profession has done so much for me, and that I wanted to return that service to others. However, as I have become more politically cognizant in the United States, the country I now call home, I was struck by my own misconceptions. I realized over time that I don’t want to necessarily help people by myself providing healthcare – I want to bring into reality a society in which all people, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, had equal and indiscriminate access to the healthcare that I had been so fortunate to receive. What separated my case from them? My parents, too, had been poor immigrants. Thousands of babies have similarly life threatening diseases – calamity has never discriminated between socioeconomic classes. Despite my love of the sciences, I want more than anything to fight on the front lines of a healthcare battle that I have seen grow and become increasingly urgent during my adolescence. This, in the end, is why I want to practice law – to protect those who are at the fringes of our society and are the most in need of protection.

paperworkjim

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Re: Optional Statement Feedback/Crticism

Post by paperworkjim » Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:24 am

I wish I had criticism, but I don't. This is a perfect diversity statement and you should submit.

DrGlennRichie

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Re: Optional Statement Feedback/Crticism

Post by DrGlennRichie » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:35 am

Personally not a fan of that, but sure AdComms would like that.

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