Gaps in Education

Did you take a gap year before medical school? Are your studies taking longer than expected for one reason or another? Delays and gaps are common enough, and can be understandable, but without an explanation, it can be a red flag. To not explain it, or at least mention it, could seem like you are hiding something. Needing to take time off to care for family members, for example, is something very understandable. You will want to address why you were unable to care for that person and continue your studies.

You could even turn this into a positive. A personal statement is a chance to express who you are, what you are capable of, and why you are a great fit for the residency program that you are applying to. That means you can show your future potential through past growth. What did you learn over the gap?

Here’s an example: let’s say you were in an MD-PhD program and your research hit problem after problem – never going the way you hoped, always slowing you down. Surely this is a great way to highlight your perseverance. You kept going, and even though complications necessitated more time, it never stopped you. You kept solving problems and enduring whatever curve-balls were thrown at you. You have just showcased your ability to troubleshoot problems and that you rise to meet a challenge.

You don’t have to take your residency CV, your personal history, your academic record, and address every, single, little gap or circumstance that might raise an eyebrow in any of them. Small cracks don’t need big bridges.

Low Scores

If you have a low USMLE score, or lower grades in any of your academic endeavors, that appears elsewhere in your application, you should definitely find a way to address those, however briefly, in your statement.

Tell a story of how you learned to fail better, what your low score taught you, and how you are improving and working toward being better – ideally, how you have already achieved an improvement in your life and career. This lets the committee know that you are improving, and that you are aware of these shortcomings.

The red flag comes from not addressing them. With no mention of a low score, anybody reading your application might start to think that either you don’t know about this problem, that you are hoping they don’t notice, or that you simply haven’t improved at all.

Your addressing this point in your personal statement will mean taking space to demonstrate the steps you took to address this. Did you retake the USMLE? Did you ask your instructors about the possibility of getting extra credit? Show that you proactively worked on your setback! It’s important to be specific about the ways you have moved on from those low scores.

Without such clear demonstrations, you send a message that you are complacent and stagnant. You don’t want that. Show them a proactive you.

Experience Deficits

If you are applying to a specialty with a lot of experience in that area, that’s terrific. Say you’re looking into being a pediatrician and you want to apply to a residency in pediatrics. Well, if you have a lot of experience working or learning at a children’s hospital, or on a pediatric unit, that’s great! But maybe your CV doesn’t have that.

What do you do?

Well, you have to bring this up. Not necessarily in terms of saying, “I know I don’t have a lot of experience in this area,” but rather, showing why you don’t have a lot of CV-friendly experience in this area.

Maybe you’re going into pediatrics because you volunteered with children at a library or in a women’s shelter. You have had a lifetime of experience working with children, including tending to their illnesses, but not in a way that shows up on official documentation.

If you’re looking to go into a primary care specialty like pediatrics without experience specific to that specialty, link back to experiences you have in other primary care specialties. Did you work with children through family medicine or internal medicine? Maybe you were in emergency medicine and had to treat a child, and discovered that you had a knack for calming children down in harrowing circumstances. If that’s the reason for your late interest in pediatrics, that’s actually a great story and might hook the readers of your statement.

In other words: you might not have been in “pediatrics” officially, but you still got experience working with children. Use part of your personal statement to show that experience that doesn’t appear nakedly on your CV.

So, that’s one way of running down the red flag. What if you don’t have any experiences related to your field?

Well, that’s quite unlikely, but at that point, there’s a personal question you need to ask yourself: why do you want to be in this field if you’ve never pursued it before now? Can you answer that question? Can you answer that question with positive passion, in a way that truly shows why you need to do this?

Great. Now write that down.

You also might need to accept the fact that you need more experience, in which case you might need to reconsider the specialty you are applying to.

There are a lot of highly-competitive specialties – like dermatology – and if you are applying to one of them without the concrete, demonstrable background in that specialty, all you will do is waste time and money applying. That’s just a fact.

It might be hard to accept, but it could be too late to get into a program where you have no foundational knowledge. Go with something where you do have the experience.

Multiple Exam Attempts

This is another “unexplained equals bad” category. Like low grades or a lack of experience. As with the others, if you had to attempt exams multiple times, it’s best to offer up an explanation.

Working in an explanation into a personal statement can be tricky. You have a lot to accomplish in about one page of writing, and you don’t want to just jam in an explanation. Don’t do this:

Bad example:

“That’s my life, in a quick nutshell, and I think you can see why I have an affinity for family practice. My experience, through work, academics, and my personal life, have all led me to this area.

Also, I had to take the USMLE Step 2 twice because I wasn’t satisfied with my score the first time and my top three schools required an extra two points to hit the cutoff, and I figured I could hit that mark – just to clear that up.”

That’s tacked on and awkward.

Better to fold it neatly in, like this:

Good example:

“Family practice means understanding family life, and knowing where your priorities lie. I understand this as much as anybody. My dad has suffered from health problems his entire life, and I have made it a priority to help him with his medications, and with physiotherapy over the years.

Sometimes this takes its toll on me, too. I had to retake one of my exams because of a particularly harrowing time in my family’s life; I helped with dad and my studying fell off. Since then, I have found a tutor who helps me keep my studying on track, regardless of how much I help my family. It’s still a priority, and I can’t give up on them.”

That connects your troubles with your qualifications, and note that you need also to show why you won’t need to re-take exams in the future.

Repeated Classes

The personal statement is also the place to explain any red flags in your application, such as gaps in time or a leave of absence. When addressing any red flags, explain what happened succinctly. Be honest, don’t make excuses, and don’t dwell on the topic. Whenever possible, write about how you have matured or grown from the adversity or what you may have learned and how this benefits you. If you have failed a Step exam or one course in medical school, this likely isn’t something to address in the personal statement. However, you should be prepared to discuss any failure during an interview. By the same token, it is best not to address one low grade or poor attending evaluation in your statement. 

Have you taken a longer path to medicine? If so you might address why you made these choices and what you found so interesting about medicine that was lacking in your former career.