Personal Statement Help!

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Hello! I am currently filling my application for the Accelerated BSN program at University of Washington and boy it is not a walk in the park! We are required to write a personal statement of not more than 1500 words. One of the topics to discuss and reflect upon is Cultural Humility and it's three principals! They want one to describe a healthcare experience where one have worked with a patient, family, community, or population much different from themselves and where their beliefs and values differed in some ways! And what, if anything, one would do differently if faced with a similar situation.

I have researched on this topic and googled a lot of articles and examples on it so as to grasp the idea fully but i still feel like i'm missing something since i cant quite come up with an adequate healthcare experience!

Please, anybody with any experiences or ideas they can share on this so that i can understand it better would be highly appreciated! The deadline is in less than two weeks and almost on panic mode!

Thanks!

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Anyone else's experience is not going to be relevant to your personal experience, so I am not sure what you are looking for. Do you have any healthcare experience, or experience working with people from different cultures?

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Also ... to add to what Pixie.RN said ... it might help you to think about "cultures" broadly. "Culture" does't just refer to our ethnicity or country of origin. Your example could be about working with someone of a different religion ... or from a different socio-econmic situation than you come from ... or someone with a very different set of moral values than you ... etc.

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I agree with the above posters that this experience really does need to be your own. I think you may be overthinking it. Take a step back and take out the words "healthcare experience" and just ask if you can apply these principles to ANY experience that has happened in your life. If it's something that has happened in a clinical setting, great. If not, then explain something that has happened outside of a clinical setting.

Usually, with nursing admissions, they can tell when someone is just blowing smoke for an acceptance. If you don't have an experience because you haven't worked in healthcare, don't make something up that isn't genuine. They are asking you to explain something that speaks about you and your values, and why you want to be in the field.

Good luck!

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Called a PERSONAL statement for a reason.

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