Licensed Professional Counselor

LaSalle:

A personal statement that includes the following: You have made the decision to apply to La Salle’s Master’s Program in Professional Clinical Counseling. This is a professional program designed to train you to become a licensed professional counselor (LPC).  In your statement, please include what professionalism means to you with regard to you becoming a LPC.  In addition, please include some information about yourself, your intentions concerning your academic and career paths, why you choose the La Salle’s Master’s Program, your expectations of the program, what you will contribute to the program, and what you believe you will eventually contribute to the mental health field.

When I first set out on finding a career path that was right for me, I sort of had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t exactly sure of what that something was , nor did I know where to start. It wasn’t until I started training at the Penn Medicine Excellence Academy that I found the right path for me.

The academy was dedicated to developing the most understanding and compassionate individuals to work as patient service representatives at Penn Medicine. The entire experience not only involved technical training, it also included extensive patient sensitivity training. At first, I thought: “How can you teach someone compassion?”  I grew up believing that compassion along with a host of other traits was just an innate quality that one possesses. It wasn’t until I got deep into the training process that I discovered that the purpose of the course wasn’t to “teach” sensitivity or compassion, but rather to exercise our God-given gift of understanding.  

Through a series of mock interviews with well-trained actors, I along with my peers went through an assortment of nerve racking interviews, which in the beginning left us all shaking. It wasn’t until the final round of mock interviews that some of us actually realized that our main area of contention was basic understanding. We realized that once we actually listened to the patient we were able to truly understand his or hers plight, ultimately forming solutions.

I took the knowledge from the training and applied it to my current position as a Patient Service Representative in the Head and Neck Cancer division of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology. I was able to apply all of my “sensitivity” training to real life patients who were often dealing with life-threatening cancer diagnoses. In my interactions with these patients, I found myself being in some ways a liaison on their road to recovery. I helped to counsel them on everything from their care coordination to support groups. I found myself wanting to help them as much as possible during such a difficult time.