Please help with my letter of motivation....

I'm studying medicine in Germany and I would like to do a clinical elective in Malta next summer. For this, I need to write a "Letter of Motivation"....and I would greatly appreciate some help. I will send the letter to a central organization that will forward the application to various hospitals, that's why I don't know the name of the contact person or the name of the hospital....therefore I had to use the expression "your hospital" which sounds a bit weird to me....do you have any suggestions which expression I could use instead?

It would also be great if someone could correct spelling or grammar mistakes....and don't hesitate to tell me when I have written some silly crap that should be removed or rewritten. I would also be thankful for some suggestion of what I could add....



Thanks a lot, Moritz



Enough talk, here's my letter:







Dear madam or sir,





I am a 4^th year student of medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in Germany. I would like to apply for an elective period of 30 days in September 2006 in your hospital.

I have completed electives in internal medicine, rheumatology and psychiatry, but I would like to do my fourth and final elective period in surgery, a subject in which I already have some experience: I did my alternative civilian service in the emergency room of the surgical university hospital of Heidelberg for 13 months. I learned a lot about clinical work during this time, and the experiences I had there were one of the reasons that made me decide to study medicine. I regularly do nightshifts in a surgical ward in the university hospital of Munich as a part-time job besides my studies.

I would like to do a clinical elective abroad to learn more about hospital organisation, provision of medical care and medical education outside Germany. I am considering to specialize in surgery after I have qualified as a M.D. and I think it would be very interesting for me to learn about surgical practice in other countries.

I hope to learn a lot from clinical staff in your hospital and to be present at rounds and in the operation theatre. I could help with physical examination, history taking, drawing blood and other procedures during my elective period.

I also have some experience in medical care because I worked as a paramedic in Hamburg and as a facilitator for disabled people in London before I started studying medicine.

I am reasonably familiar with laboratory work which is required for my doctoral thesis in heart surgery. The topic of my doctoral thesis is the comparision of a new kind of coronary artery bypass graft with established grafts through various methods.

I would like to do my elective period in Malta both because fellow students who went there have spoken highly of their clerkships and because I am fascinated by Malta’s culture and history. I went there for holidays four years ago and I would like to return for a longer time, hopefully next summer.


Yours faithfully,