Patient Communication Personal Statement

In addition to working as a Clinical Research Associate, I wanted to gain exposure to other medical fields, not only emergency medicine. Positioned outside the ED’s research work office was the emergency department’s psychiatric unit. Having taken courses like Looking back on Growing Up and the Science of Happiness, I wanted to gain exposure to psychiatry, particularly the effects of early childhood trauma on the incidence of psychiatric disorders during adulthood. Motivated by my interests, I joined the Initiative for Social and Psychiatric Initiatives (InSPIRES) at the Bellevue Hospital Center. While working at Bellevue Hospital gave me the opportunity to interact with a diverse array of patients, ranging from homeless to underrepresented patients, working with the InSPIRES team, I got the opportunity to meet and interview inpatients and outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder. My experience interacting with psychiatric patients helped me emphasize my interests in medicine and expand my understanding on the importance of patient communication. Seeing the in-unit psychiatrists sincerely talk and joke with each patient demonstrated the unique, intimate relationship forged between patients and doctors, but also what being a doctor really meant, beyond the medical aspect. Similar to my experience at Mount Sinai, during my time working in the 18N inpatient unit at the Bellevue Hospital Center, I met a patient, whom played a

It was through my experiences, from working as a volunteer in a city-wide event to my research and clinical experiences, that helped me to not only emphasize and expand upon my interests, but also better understand what a doctor really was and the intimate relationship formed between patients and doctors. Like the doctors I met, as a doctor, I hope to emphasize the importance of positive patient communication as a part of the patient’s overall