I’ve had several questions on how to approach the secondary essay diversity prompt. In considering your strategy and content, I’d recommend you ask yourself the following question: 

What ethnic, religious, racial, gender, language, socioeconomic, or sexual orientation aspects of me, my family, or my experience make me distinctive?

Please note that experience is part of the question I have posed. An applicant I mentored a few years back wrote me concerned that she did not fit into a minority category and thus, could not answer the prompt effectively. I suggested she consider an experience that targeted the prompt’s theme, and she wrote a strong essay about her successful efforts to increase diversity during sorority rush. I crafted one of my secondary essays on my experience hearing Spike Lee speak in person. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box.

I’ve written before about the importance of premeds’ getting clinical experience. Not only is robust clinical participation critical to obtaining a medical school acceptance, it’s also important to ensure you like working with patients before heading down the long medical training path. 

During this pandemic, working as an EMT, scribe, or certified phlebotomist can be risky. So how can you get clinical experience without being in the clinic?

Here are three ideas:

1. Become a contact tracer –  I tweeted last month about a great Johns Hopkins training opportunity. Working as a contact tracer is a way to do a good deed, learn to convey difficult information to lay people, and make some money. 
2. Work on a crisis hotline (phone or text) – Many people are, understandably, in distress right now, and learning to assist those having emotional challenges will help you as a future physician.
3. Work on a COVID information hotline – There is a lot of misinformation floating about. Conveying accurate scientific concepts to the public is, again, an excellent skill to have in your tool box as a future doctor. 

Check out my goofy, less-than-one-minute video about the importance of getting clinical experience here.