Physician Scientist Personal Statement

The role of a physician scientist is a life-long journey of identifying the right questions and solving problems in healthcare hoping to lead to positive changes in the community. I learned the importance of asking the right questions early on—from my middle school physics teacher. Emphasizing critical thinking, he offered extra points to students who found errors in the textbooks. Most students thought he was joking, but because of this I started reading more carefully. I made it my job to pay attention to the details and to ask questions when things didn’t add up. I ended up finding a couple of errors in the examples presented and as well as misrepresentations in the figures. This analytical approach forever changed my attitude towards learning.

I began to think about ways to apply the optimized and fine-tuned components in engineering to patient care. Studying bioreactor designs, airflow simulations in the lung, and circuitry connected to cardiac tissue, I viewed various organ systems and molecular pathways as a series of reactors intertwined with numerous interactions that have yet to be discovered. With this engineering perspective, I became more involved in research while asking clinically-oriented questions. I realized I wanted to become a physician scientist—to meld medical knowledge with this crucial strain of scientific inquiry that has sustained my curiosity and passion for the field since I was a teenager—and to be able to bring that research to help advance patient

Although this simply implies making regular doctor’s office visits, my concern amplified my interest in my project to explore platforms to model hepatocyte behaviors and liver diseases. At the same time, I realized how the sacrifice she made from the beginning of my life impacted my own perspectives of the medical field. When I packed my whole life into a giant suitcase and moved to New York City alone, she was the only one who supported my decision, despite the stereotypical view Asian society has towards women going abroad to pursue advanced degrees, especially in engineering. Unlike my mother, who had to pause her college education multiple times for financial and social reasons, thanks to her support, I am the first one in the family to pursue a doctoral degree. My mother’s support also motivated me to be the first person in the school after curriculum change to obtain both my master’s and bachelor’s degrees in four years, with scholarship and honors. It also taught me that an individual can make positive impacts and return the same support to socioeconomically underserved populations. My desire to share and multiply such an impact strengthened my pursuit of a medical degree. I love that this lifelong companionship can also exist in a physician-patient relationship and that I get to help people like my