Personality Questions Flashcards
What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths: working with others, persistence/motivation, independence
Weaknesses: asking for help, can sometimes get way too absorbed into topics and find it hard to give them up.
- I think one of my major strengths is getting along with people and communicating well. I think I am generally able to work with just about anyone and understanding that everyone has different ways of communicating and different ways of showing different emotions. I am very good at staying positive and encouraging people in reinforcing ways.
- EX: One major example is working with my friend on this brain tumor project who’s bipolar and one of my best friends. So, he goes through major periods of being so excited about the project and about life in general and then would totally forget about it and not care at all. It’s challenging at times when I wanted to get something done and he just wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but I was able to very sensitive to that and to learn more about his needs.
- I am very independent – I have always prided myself on that. I was the first one to walk to school alone in my grade and the first one to start taking the subway alone. I wrote my high school essay about how I would make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every single day after school because I prided myself on not having to depend on my parents at all.
- I am very persistent, sometimes too much so. I find it hard to let things go when I am doing academic assignments, but it drives me crazy when I can’t figure something out or something doesn’t feel right.
- I think one of my biggest weaknesses has been I find it difficult to ask for help when I am struggling with something. I think this goes hand-in-hand with maybe putting too much pressure on myself at times to figure out problems. I have gone a long way with this and a lot of the times when I ask for help it used to feel more like admitting weakness or that I wasn’t good enough, but that’s a little childish frankly. I think my brain tumor (and I actually wrote my college essay about this) helped me in a way to ask for help more, but it’s still something I struggle with and I am trying to get better at.
- Getting way too absorbed into specific activities.
What travels have you taken and what exposure to other cultures have you had?
- Soccer Team and NYC
My exposure to other cultures started at a very young age with my soccer team really. Living in New York allows me to meet people from everywhere, whether it’s having conversations with taxi drivers and getting to know them or eating food from places all over the world, I think it’s incredibly special. Something I cherish. - Squash Travel
I have been fortunate to travel a lot, I actually travelled a lot for squash when I was younger, so I played in the Italian Open twice, I played in the German Open, I played in the British Junior Open. I also did a trip to Asia where I was able to play. My grandma when I was younger loved to travel, so she was an NYU professor and she was allowed to travel each summer and teach in a different city. So, I went to London with her and to Paris and we would walk around everywhere and she somehow had more endurance than me even at her age when she was in her 70’s. Hopefully, I get to stay in London longer, but I have loved exploring the city and there’s something special about meeting new people and experiencing different places.
Thinking of examples from your recent past, how would you assess your empathy and compassion?
- Empathy as deeper than sympathy
I see empathy as deeper than sympathy which is just feeling bad for someone and it’s ant to have sympathy as well. But I see empathy as the ability to really put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to feel for them but also caring enough to understand why they might be feeling that way. What’s going on in their life? And doing anything you can to help and show you care and be there for them. - Squash Practice
An example would be on the squash team repeatedly having to deal with people coming late to practice or acting out or being a poor sport. The first thought cannot be this is unacceptable this person is terrible. It has to be – why are they acting this way? What’s going on in their personal life? How were they raised? How can I get through to them by speaking their language? - This is Water
Whenever I think about this question I always come back to David Foster Wallace gave a Kenyon university graduation speech called “This is Water” and he was talking about our default settings in life are always to think about yourself and how this affects ME and my frustration or tiredness, but it’s so important to be conscious of that default setting, and to give other people that same benefit of the doubt. So I think he gives the example of someone driving crazily and cutting you off and maybe they are rushing to the hospital or maybe the SUV-driver has had an accident in the past and this is the only way they can get up the courage to drive.
As a pre-med , what skills have you learned to help manage your time and relieve stress?
- Planning ahead
Yeah, it’s difficult frankly. I think coming to the conclusion that you don’t have to do everything every day and not to put too much pressure on myself was difficult at first. I would end the day having done a lot but not having finished the one thing and getting down on myself about it. One of the main things that I did at Middlebury that helped me was every Sunday night, I would stop doing work and spend 20 minutes writing my exact schedule and when I was going to do everything in advance. It’s weird to describe, but it just felt like a weight off my shoulders, I don’t have to constantly remember oh I have to do this then this then this, but what about this one task or errand. This allowed to relax because there was enough time in the week for me to get everything done, I just had to be efficient. So that was the activity that took the most stress away from me honestly. Working is the easy part, it’s the stress about getting things done in time with deadlines that is more difficult to deal with.
If you could be granted three wishes for making the world/society/ your community a better place, what would they be and why (or, If you were given a million dollars to achieve three goals, what would you work on and why)?
- Wealth Disparities
I am pretty passionate about income and wealth disparities, and it’s very stark in New York City. Our society is obviously set up in a way that allows wealthier people to continue to gain money through social connections, through privileges like being able to pay for better schooling and college, being able to invest money and get returns. This is also very intertwined with the racial wealth gap – 10x disparity (17,000 vs. 170,000). I would fund public education and enacting policies to lessen residential segregation. - Tribalism
If I had to choose another it would probably ending the rampant tribalism and inability to think logically that afflicts us. It’s fueled by rampant spread of disinformation so that might be where I start in terms of holding social media companies responsible somehow for false information on their platforms. It’s mind-numbing where we have come where we struggle to agree on anything. The whole pandemic response was marked by both incompetence but also just both sides took positions and the anti-mask movement because tribal. If we can’t come together and be reasonable during times of disaster then it’s not a very hopeful future.
What do you do for fun?
- Athletics
I love playing squash and soccer. Obviously, I have played squash for a while and I love it and it’s great way to keep active. And I love playing soccer as well with my friends. I used to play in the Spring at Middlebury and I was planning on joining an adult league in New York City before the pandemic and I definitely will when it’s over. - Music + App / Movies + Grandma
I love listening to music and watching movies – my grandma was actually a film critic and she would always come over and watch movies with us and she was very opinionated so she would always tell us when the movie sucked or when it was the best movie she had ever seen.
Favorite artists: Thundercat, Steve Lacy.
Really enjoy jazz – I just watched a Miles Davis documentary and I really love Kamasi Washington and Herbie Hancock.
Favorite Movies:
Documentary: Searching for Sugarman
Movies: Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Do the Right Thing, The Lives of Others
Animated: Kung Fu Panda - Spending time with my dogs
-Posey – 6 months old we got her last summer as a yellow lab
-Pepper – 11.5 so she’s been with us for a while and they have a funny and cute relationship and I love spending time with them. - Ceramics
I really liked doing ceramics in high school and did some in college as well. One of my best friends from high school actually just opened up his own pottery store so I have been going over there and working a little bit.
What is “success” in your opinion? After 20 years as a physician, what kind of “success” would you hope to have achieved? Please explain
- Having goals as a professional is important
I think one main reason I have seen doctors give for physician burnout is that the actual process of getting to be a doctor is obviously very difficult that it feels like the end goal for some. And then you get there and feel like “what now?” So, it’s a good question and it’s really important to me that I have goals for myself as a physician so that I not only become and physician but I become a good one and set high standards for myself. - Connecting with patients/Keep improving and finding ways to make myself a better doctor
Specifically, for me, I really want to become an expert in connecting with patients, allowing them to feel comfortable and I at the end of that period, I would like to have a lot of patients who I stay in touch with and have some sort of personal connection with. One of my main goals is also on the research side where I want to find ways to do research to help doctors become better at their jobs and to better predict and manage diseases. One thing I really do not want is to feel static or like my job is the same every day.
If you could invite four people from the past to dinner, who would they be, and why would you invite them? What would you talk about?
Fritz Haber
-I have been interested in him ever since I listened to a RadioLab episode. Ethical questions. He I think was Jewish in Germany but worked as a scientist and came up with the chemical weapon chlorine gas that was used during WWI and was used on to kill Jewish people during the Holocaust. Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas.
Michael Lewis
-Undoing project
Confirmation bias – physicians thinking that their procedure has worked even though there’s no evidence.
Availability Bias – you think shark attack more likely
Really informed my view of the world and my ability to understand that I am not perfect.
♦ Rodriguez
Searching for Sugarman. Beautiful story of serendipity
♦ Eric Topol
- Role model for me in ways to connect artificial intelligence and healthcare. I saw him speak at the UCL AI in healthcare series and he was the main speaker and I am so impressed with him.
Other:
♦ Steven Pinker
-I really admire him and I have read many of his books, like Language instinct arguing that language is innate.
Does your academic record reflect any major challenges? If so, what are they and why did they occur?
Sophomore spring was my greatest challenge because of the insane work of Grilleme. Taking organic chemistry and would have to deliver food the night before exams. One night I had to deliver until 2AM. Terrible website I would always be taking calls from people.
