Ep 525 Supplemental Essay Help

Pharmacy Residency Podcast

If you want my one-on-one editing and help with supplemental essays, email me at [e-mail] I charge $25 per 250 words via Venmo or PayPal.

Answering supplemental essays is hard as you haven't written many narrative essays in pharmacy school. The best way to answer many of them is to use the STAR framework in behavioral question interviewing so that your answer has all the pieces it needs

S. Situation

T. Task

A. Action

R. Result

Here is what was on the Word Document in the Video

University Medical Center – New Orleans –

Reflect on a challenging situation (personal or professional) that required you to question your values or assumptions and utilize your knowledge and reasoning. How did you deal with the situation? What did you learn from the experience?” STAR Interview

UNC Health

All candidates, please answer question 1

1. Describe an intervention, change, or contribution that made an impact on patient care and/or a pharmacy practice, and what you learned from the experience. STAR Interview

All candidates, please answer 1 of the questions below:

2. Describe a personal challenge you have faced, one which you feel has helped to shape you as a person. Examples include a moral or ethical dilemma, a situation of personal adversity, or a hurdle in your life that you worked hard to overcome. STAR Interview
3. Describe the personal attribute that you are most proud of that would benefit your co-residents and colleagues at the UNC Medical Center (Humblebrag answer / STAR Interview)

Situation – Introduce the Situation to set the scene and provide context

In media res – in the middle of the story

1. Descriptive detail – multiple senses, e.g., sound or smell – baby monitor screamed like an 18-wheeler’s horn // food bank with a hungry man coming to help his family
2. Time frame – 4 minutes without oxygen / one day left of food

Task – Describe the task. What needed to be done and why?

1. Clear the airway, call for help, administer CPR – get the child breathing again
2. Get this person some food or some food

Action – Explain the action you took.

1. CPR – a mistake by just breathing into the mouth vs. nose and mouth / pyloric valve stenosis / only saw the feet of the first responders, which were the police and later the EMTs
2. Talking to a supervisor to get them a day or two of food and then show them how the process works with a distribution center

Result – Describe the result in terms of the benefits realized.

1. Wrapping the story – surgery the correct and the success of the child now
2. You would educate more people about the food issue and how they can resolve it