X School of Medicine values diversity in all its forms.

How will your background and

experiences contribute to this important focus of our institution and inform your future
role as a physician?

We are all differentiated from or connected to one another by individual inflections that
constitute our diversity. Explain how your relationship with your own diversity and to the
diversities of others manifests in your personal and professional activities.

At the University of Michigan Medical School, we are committed to building a superb

educational community with students of diverse talents, experiences, opinions, and
backgrounds. What would you as an individual bring to our medical school community?
Do not exceed 1500 characters

How do you plan on contributing to the Lewis Katz School of Medicine Community?
LKSOM seeks an engaged student body with a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences,
perspectives, and interests to enhance the medical school experience for everyone. Please use
the space below to describe what makes you unique as an applicant, an obstacle that you had
to overcome, or how you will contribute to the LKSOM community. (2000 charact)

Do you consider yourself a person who would contribute to the diversity of the student
body of Tufts University School of Medicine? (1000 characters)
I grew up in a country governed by an exclusive group of individuals known as the Castro
family. This group claimed to guide themselves by the principles of a communist revolution, and
the majority of the people from the rural town where I was raised, defended these ideals. For 16
years, teachers, coaches, and neighbors told me about the strength of the Castro’s political
movement, almost always ignoring the weaknesses because that is what they (and I) were taught.

However, according to the Cuban government, my family belonged to a small fraction of the
population named the Parasites as we possessed “opposing beliefs.” As a result, we were often
prohibited from “the privileges of the revolution:” We could not participate in government-
funded communal activities or enjoy….

Nevertheless, I attended school, played sports, and even became friends with people whose
ideologies were profoundly different from mine. I learned with time how to listen to them, how
to respect their different perspectives, how to understand the circumstances they were enduring,
and how to set apart our differences and bring together our similitudes. At some point, I even
enjoyed explaining to my family why many of our viewpoints were not entirely correct.
Today, I hope to bring what my experiences have taught me to a career in medicine, as I want to
partake in a medical care in which patients—regardless of their race, cultural background, or
political ideology—enjoy of that sense of belongingness I lacked through part of my childhood.