A physician residency application is more than metrics and your track record to that point in your career. It is the story of your journey in medicine, detailing where you’ve been and where you aspire to go.
How do you create a personal statement that stands out from the hundreds program directors will scan in weighing whether or not to give a candidate an interview? These essential tips on how to write personal statements for residency offer a jumping off point.
Explain your path, purpose
When done right, a personal statement is the most unique aspect of your residency application. At the most basic level, a residency application personal statement should include:
- Why you chose medicine—what are motivating factors and experiences that led you to become a doctor.
- Why you chose your specialty—what drew you to a field.
- What you’re looking for in a residency program—what type of training environment are you looking for and how does a program align with your aspirations and the type of opportunities that matter most to you.
- What you can contribute—highlight the skills and experience you’ll bring to a residency class.
- Your long-term career goals—where you see yourself going in the specialty.
Simply answering those questions in a dry formulaic format may not serve to distinguish you as a candidate, however.
“The way I think about personal statements is that 85% of them are neutral,” said Sanjay Desai, MD, the AMA’s chief academic officer and a former internal medicine program director. “Five percent can hurt you, but there’s just 10% that I think can lift your application. You want to be the one that they actually want to keep reading. The one that when they read it, they think I want to meet this person.”
Show who you are
You can assert that you’re a great fit for a program, but if you can cite a real-life example of an attribute, what does this look like in practice? A personal statement that simply says you are dedicated to the field and moves on from that statement isn’t going to resonate. An anecdote that illustrates your dedication is going to get the right kind of attention.
An AMA member, Mark Meyer, MD is senior associate dean for student affairs at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
In reflecting on the message you want to convey with a personal statement during an episode “AMA Making the Rounds” podcast, he said students should offer “a meaningful patient encounter where you can really convey to the letter reader or personal statement reader what makes you tick, what makes you somebody that they might potentially want in their program, that they can trust in the middle of the night and caring for a critically ill patient.”
During an education session at the 2025 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago, Dr. Desai said to stand out, applicants must “make sure that the personal statement is actually personal. The litmus test is that if we can cut and paste your paragraph into somebody else’s personal statement, it’s not personal enough.”
In crafting an authentic personal statement, the consensus among residency program directors is AI should be avoided.
Follow the road to residency
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Explain any red flags
In some ways, a setback can be a positive, particularly if you can show some resiliency in the face of it.
Formerly the chair of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), Deborah Clements, MD, spent three decades as a family medicine residency program director. In speaking to future residency applicants, she advised that neglecting to address a misstep on their application in their personal statement is a missed opportunity.
“If you had a challenge in medical school, address that challenge,” said Dr. Clements, an AMA member. “Do that in your personal statement. Better to be up front about it and know right away because we're not going to miss it. Then we're going to wonder: Why did they avoid talking about that? You don't have to belabor it but certainly address it.
“From my perspective, I prefer a candidate who's had a little bit of difficulty somewhere because I know how they respond to a challenge. I don't want the first time you’re challenged to be when you're in my residency program taking care of my patients and you don't know how you're going to react.”
For applicants who are in the process of researching programs, FREIDA™ is the AMA’s comprehensive residency and fellowship database and captures more than 13,000 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited residency and fellowship programs.
Seek outside eyes, opinions
Ask people to read your personal statement when it’s in draft form. Ideally, you are going to be able to find classmates and faculty members who can give you objective, honest insight.
“Having people that are experienced in the space read these statements is so important because they will be able to react in a way that will offer good judgment,” Dr. Desai said.
When the personal statement is in final form, it’s vital to have a set of outside eyes—ideally more than one person—look at it for typos and grammatical errors.
“You don’t want to be in the 5% of applicants [who are hurt by their personal statement],” Dr. Desai said.
