Personal Statement

My first encounter with medicine was at the end of high-school when I spent more than
one month at my fathers ophthalmology clinic during the summer of 2012. The
University Entrance Examination had been the key to my motivation, as I was eager to
discover medicine and apply the concepts which I had just learned.

Having completed my core preclinical years in Basic Sciences, as I understood the

enormous potential of various discoveries in the field of both Cellular Biology and Gene
therapy, I realized there was a gap between many theoretical aspects of medical practice
and the actual patient care. The clinical experience from the following years made me
understand that I had to do my best in trying to lessen this gap.

During the Internal Medicine core rotations I was determined to spend as much time as
possible in the hospital by taking history, performing physical examinations, assisting the
residents with minor procedures, suggesting a diagnosis, observing various treatment
strategies and patient responses.

In the summer of 2015 I participated in a study at the Colentina Clinical Hospitals

Cardiology Department under the supervision of Dr. Anca Dan, a Romanian leader in the
field of Arrhythmology. I had the opportunity to actively be a part of a team and bring my
contribution to medical research. I worked with two of my colleagues, we assigned each
other a role, we selected a group of 30 inpatients and we gathered history data, performed
physical examinations and a series of investigations which included ECG, Cardio-ankle
vascular index (CAVI) test, 6-min walk test and In-Body test. We collected and
standardized the data in order to find a correlation between socio-educational factors and
cardiovascular disease. While doing my work at the research department, I have assisted
at three coronary angiography interventions, a catheter ablation procedure for atrial
fibrillation and a triple valve repair surgery at C.C. Iliescu Institute of Cardiology. This
entire experience brought me higher perspectives regarding medical education and made
me realize that my academic training in internal medicine has just begun.

I want to apply for a clerkship at Mayo Clinic because I am planning to pursue an

advanced training program in Internal Medicine upon my graduation, as I became very
interested in Cardiology during the 4th year of medical school. I am convinced that this
experience will further improve my medical education and by the end of the clerkship I
will have found new paths for my future training.