A real MMI is a run of short stations, usually around 5 minutes each, where you get a role-play, an ethics scenario, a current issues question, a personal question or a video to react to. Below I walk through real mock MMIs I’ve shared on the channel, station by station, with the examiner feedback on what each student did well and what cost them marks. Use them to see the format from the inside and to sharpen your own answers.
Key takeaways
- Aim to speak for about 3 to 3.5 minutes in a 5 minute station, so there is time for follow-up questions.
- Answer the exact question asked: a public health question wants public health, not a long biology lecture.
- In role-plays, give the person a chance to act first, then escalate if they won’t. That is your duty of care.
- For current issues questions, bring solutions, split into short term and long term, and avoid sounding political.
- Signpost personal answers (three qualities, each with an example) and link every example back to medicine.
- In video stations, quote the video directly to show you were listening and retaining what you saw.
What’s changed since these videos
These videos were recorded between January 2021 and November 2024. Most of the advice still stands, but note:
- Application statistics change every cycle. Figures mentioned in this video were correct at the time of recording.
- These recordings date from 2021 to 2024. Hot topics such as COVID-19 vaccination and NHS strikes reflect the news at the time, so check current issues before your interview.
- Station formats, timings and planning time vary by university and can change each cycle. Check the details your university gives you.
What does a real MMI actually look like?
Every interview season people ask me the same thing. What is it actually going to be like? There are plenty of resources that tell you which topics come up, but very few show you what it feels like from your side of the screen. So I’ve managed to get permission to share several real mock interviews. I won’t tell you which universities they’re from, but the format is the real thing.
Here is what you’ll notice. The examiner reads you a scenario or a question, sometimes sends it in the chat as well, and tells you how long you have. Often that’s 5 minutes. Some stations give you a short planning time first. In one recording the student said the first station went badly simply because they didn’t know how to use that planning time yet. By the second station they had worked it out.
Online interviews can feel awkward. There are brief introductions, then they dive straight in. When your time is up, it just ends. You get moved to the next breakout room and the next panel, sometimes mid-sentence. Be prepared for exactly that, and don’t let it throw you.
One more thing I always want students to hear. Examiners want you to do well. In the first recording the examiner explained that they have a list of prompt questions, and if you don’t mention something, like the Fraser guidelines, they may simply ask you about it. You don’t get penalised for being prompted. Inside, they’re rooting for you. If you want the full breakdown of how stations are set up, read my guide to the MMI interview format.
MMI role-play example: the colleague who comes in drunk
The scenario: you’re a third-year medical student on placement. A fellow student keeps turning up tired, messy and hungover, and has admitted to being drunk. You find him alone in the lunchroom. Go and talk to him.
The actor pushed back hard. “I’m just a medical student, the doctor’s the one looking after them.” “It’s just one drink.” “What if I’m only here for teaching?” The student stayed calm, asked open questions about why he was struggling, kept coming back to patient safety and offered practical stress management ideas: a support network, weekend activities, seeing someone about his mental health and some useful websites.
The examiner was impressed by the empathy and by how firmly patient safety stayed at the centre, even when the actor was being difficult. But there were gaps worth learning from:
- Establish the relationship. Are you close friends, or have you met twice? That changes how you open the conversation, so ask.
- Check the setting. A lunchroom may be full of people. Make sure you’re having this conversation in an appropriate place and at a good time.
- Mention professionalism. A medical student isn’t treating patients directly yet, but still has a responsibility to uphold the reputation of the profession.
- Give him the chance, then escalate. Offer him the opportunity to go and tell someone himself. If he refuses and says he’ll keep coming in drunk, it becomes your duty of care to escalate to your supervisor or someone at the university. Say that out loud.
That last point is the one most students miss. Being supportive is good. Being supportive with a clear line you won’t let him cross is what the examiner is looking for. I cover more of these in my MMI role-play tips.
Ethics station examples: Gillick, Fraser and the Jehovah's Witness card
The 14-year-old asking for contraception
You’re a GP. A 14-year-old asks for the contraceptive pill and asks you not to tell her parents. The student did well here. They talked about capacity (understanding, retaining and weighing up the information, then communicating a decision), mentioned Gillick competence and the Fraser guidelines, wanted to involve her in her own healthcare, and raised safeguarding if her partner turned out to be much older. Safeguarding is key, and the examiner said so.
What was missing? The Fraser guidelines are more than a capacity test. The examiner pointed out that a GP also needs to think about whether she will carry on having sex anyway, whether treatment is in her best interests, whether you can persuade her to tell her parents, and whether not giving contraception would harm her health. The student also didn’t really address the parents. The examiner added that 16 is the legal age of consent and that the guidelines wouldn’t apply to anyone under 13. Know the framework properly, not just its name.
The Jehovah’s Witness card
An 18-year-old arrives with a profound nosebleed. You’ve stopped the bleeding, but she’s in a coma from blood loss and will die without a transfusion. A nurse finds a signed Jehovah’s Witness card in her purse refusing blood. What do you do?
The student started well: don’t assume, look for an advance directive or lasting power of attorney, work out how much time you have, and involve the multidisciplinary team rather than making the call alone. The examiner loved that. What would have lifted it further:
- She’s 18, so legally she’s an adult. What would be different if she were 14?
- Question the card. Did she complete it herself? Was she pressured into signing it? Is family around who can tell you more?
- Name autonomy explicitly alongside best interests.
It’s life or death, so you need to move quickly, but explore every avenue before you decide.
The prescribing error and duty of candour
In another recording, a junior doctor failed to prescribe medication to prevent a blood clot, and a 70-year-old patient ended up in intensive care. The student named the duty of candour, said they would own up to the consultant and, when appropriate, the patient, and explained why: trust, your own improvement and the patient’s ongoing care. They then backed it with a real mistake of their own, teaching friends the wrong answer before an exam and going back with the teacher and mark scheme to fix it. That is how you make an ethics answer personal. For more practice questions, use my ethics interview question bank.
Why you must answer the question you were actually asked
One station asked: tell me about a current public health campaign you’ve heard of recently. The student picked the COVID-19 vaccination rollout and showed brilliant knowledge. How the virus enters cells, how vaccines train your white blood cells like an army, herd immunity. The army analogy made it really easy to follow.
The problem? The question was about public health. The student only got there with about a minute left. The examiner’s follow-up was going to be “why is public health important?” Public health is about looking after the health and wellbeing of a community as a whole, and about prevention and management of disease. That’s what they wanted to hear.
The fix was simple: a shorter intro and more focus on public health itself. I see this all the time. Students know a lot, so they show all of it. But depth on the wrong thing doesn’t score. Before you start talking, ask yourself what the question is really testing.
How to answer an NHS staff shortages question at MMI
In another real MMI, the student was asked how they would tackle NHS staff shortages if they were Health Secretary. They gave a thoughtful answer about why staff leave: feeling overworked, unsupported and underpaid. They brought in real cases and inquiries, and they were careful about the strikes because they didn’t want to sound political. That instinct was right. Coming across too political is a red flag at medical school interviews. Look at both sides.
But it scored three and a half out of five. Why? The question asked you to tackle the issue. It wanted solutions, and the student really only gave one. The examiner’s advice was to think at a basic level. If there aren’t enough staff, how do you get more?
- Short term: recruit qualified professionals from abroad, and look at what agreements could make that easier.
- Long term: increase training places by opening more medical and nursing school places. Mention that this takes a long time to pay off, then move on.
- Retention: find out why staff are leaving and restructure workloads, because you want to keep the people you hire.
- Pay: lobby for it, while recognising you can’t do that alone and need the support of different stakeholders.
Notice the tip about not over-explaining each one. Any single solution could become a whole question in itself. Name it, give one line of reasoning, and leave room for the follow-up. Three solutions is a good number.
How long should you speak in an MMI station?
This came up again and again in the feedback. The student had been timing their answers to fill the full 5 minutes. That’s a mistake. I always say that in a 5 minute station you should speak for around 3 to 3.5 minutes. That leaves time for follow-up questions, and an MMI should feel like a back and forth conversation, not a speech.
On the “what qualities do you have that will make you a good doctor?” station, the student gave a very good answer. Three qualities, clearly signposted, each with a personal example, each linked back to medicine. But it took the whole 5 minutes, so the examiner never got to the follow-ups, like what you think you’d find hardest about being a doctor. Strip the background back. You don’t need every detail of the internship. Keep the bits that show who you are.
The student asked if they could wear a digital watch to keep track. The answer was yes. If you struggle with timing, practise with one. If you want more on timings, see how long an MMI interview is.
Personal and video stations: what scored five out of five
Why medicine and why this university
This answer scored full marks. The student took the examiner on a journey: from originally wanting a science career, to hospital experience that showed them what they found fulfilling, like helping a patient in pain and hearing their thank you, and watching a surgical team work with real precision. Then for the university, they spoke about early clinical contact, the way anatomy was taught, intercalation options and a specific piece of research the school does that connected to where they grew up. That level of detail makes the panel smile. The student on that panel could be the one who does that research.
The video consultation station
The student watched a GP consultation that went badly. The doctor turned away, avoided eye contact, interrupted and dismissed the patient’s request. Then the student was asked what went wrong and how they would do it differently.
They spotted the body language first, then used a direct quote from the doctor: “I have been listening to you.” That’s a great move. Quoting the video shows you were listening and retaining what you saw, so keep a mental note of key lines as you watch. Their approach was also solid: acknowledge the pain isn’t normal, explore the reasons for it, explain the options and respect the patient’s autonomy rather than assuming what she wants. Five out of five.
MMI scenario example: the confused elderly man in the supermarket
Here’s a classic. You’re in a supermarket and find an elderly man in his pyjamas asking which room is his daughter’s. What do you do?
This tests whether you can adapt your communication to someone who may be confused and disorientated. He’s probably wandered off from a care home, so draw on any work experience or volunteering you’ve done with people who have dementia. Then think safety first.
- Check it’s safe to approach. People with dementia who are scared in an unfamiliar place can sometimes become violent.
- Recruit help. You’re in a supermarket. There are plenty of people around.
- Approach slowly and ask if he needs help.
- Move him somewhere safe, like the security area or a bench. There could be water on the floor, and a fall could mean a broken hip.
- Get your helper to call 999 while you keep an eye on him.
- Reassure him throughout.
And the don’ts. Don’t walk by and hope it goes away. You want to be a doctor, so I’d hope you feel a moral duty to help. Don’t skip the safety check: if you get knocked out, you’re now an extra burden, and they have two people to look after. And don’t try to do it all alone. You don’t know where security is, you might not have phone signal, and you can’t keep him safe while running around. Allocating jobs is how you stay effective, because his safety is what matters most.
Frequently asked questions
Do you get penalised if the MMI examiner has to prompt you?
No. Examiners have a list of questions and don’t always need to ask all of them. If you haven’t mentioned something, they may prompt you, for example by asking if you know the Fraser guidelines. They want you to do well.
How long should I talk for in a 5 minute MMI station?
Aim for around 3 to 3.5 minutes. That gives the examiner time for follow-up questions and keeps the station feeling like a conversation. Students who talk for the full 5 minutes often lose the chance to show more.
How do I answer a current issues question without sounding political?
Look at both sides and focus on solutions rather than blame. For something like staff shortages, split your ideas into short-term and long-term solutions and acknowledge that some changes need the support of other stakeholders.
What do examiners look for in a video MMI station?
They want to see that you noticed what went wrong, such as poor body language or interrupting, and that you know how to do it better. Using direct quotes from the video shows you were listening and retaining the detail.
What if I get an MMI question I've never seen before?
Don’t panic. Interviews aren’t an exam you can cram for, and a lot of the marks come from your approach. Talk the examiner through your reasoning, give the key principles, link it back to medicine and be clear.
Preparing for interviews?
Our Interview Programme gives you one-to-one coaching, mock interviews and university-specific practice for MMI and panel interviews.
Video transcripts
Transcript from “Real MMI Example: Medicine Interviews” (27 December 2023)
so last year our most popular video was this one here where we got a real example of what an interview is actually going to be like so you can see it for yourselves and no surprises the comments were all saying could you do more of these so we have managed to get another one for you again I'm not going to tell you which university is from and you can try and guess for yourself but here you can get a feel for what kind of questions are going to be like you can get a feel for what an online interview will look like for you when you sit it and help you prepare for when you
have your MMI so keep watching until the very end because after you've watched it and understood all of the things that I'm going to show you at the end I'm going to show you how you can use that information to maximize your performance all of the training of future doc gears you up to absolutely smash these interviews in the exact format that they need to be so if you want to find out exactly how you can get some one-on-one help to train you to do the interviews in the exact same way and get through that final hurdle to get your offer whether it's medicine or Dentistry you can check out that video that I just
pointed out and that will help you find out how you can get some one-on-one help with with us otherwise we have a fantastic online course as well that you can check out here and that will help give you most of the knowledge that you need to do really well now also what we're going to do we're going to talk about some of the feedback from that and we're going to critique the answers and give some feedback to that student as to how they could have performed better so that you can understand whether they got the question right and also adapt your kind of how you're going to perform with that based on what they said
so enjoy the video now enjoy the interview and then I'm going to show you what the correct answers were and critique this person performance so that you can take those lessons and apply them to your own interview technique to better your performance hi there bradden my name is Daniela I'm going to be asking you some questions today um my first question is you are a third-year medical student on a clinical placement a fellow medical student who is doing rounds with you often shows up to these sessions tired messy hung over and has sometimes confessed to be drunk one day you find him in the lunchroom unaccompanied so you decide to talk to him please enter
the lunchroom and have a conversation with him you have five minutes in this station so your time will start now and so hi Ja um how have you been hey I'm good thank you how are you I'm doing all right yeah well placements kind of tough but I'm hanging in in depth yeah no tell me about it I've really been struggling oh okay um if you don't mean mind me asking could I kindly ask why have been have you been struggling lately um I kind of noticed that sometimes you might come in a bit late into clinical placements or you might look a bit messy that's I want to know why yeah yeah I mean
there's just so much going on and there's just so much to do and like so much I still haven't done like all of the assignments that were drew two months ago and my consultant it's just awful he hates me uh yeah I just I don't know like my mental health isn't great I don't know don't really want to be here to be honest I I can kind of understand how you're feeling because I know it's a bit stressful U being overwhelmed work um not enjoying your supervisor have you tried doing anything about it to address lot of your mental wellbeing well I mean the only thing that really helps is having a drink who doesn't
have a good drink like a glass of wine just sorts it right out all right so me the primary concern is that you should always uh make patient safety first I mean if you're drinking I believe you won't have the capacity to treat patients safely and put patients at risk that's the primary concern and I believe to do with your mental health um I have some stress management techniques um if you would like to hear them yeah well I mean I don't really think I'm putting patients at risk I'm not the doctor I'm just a medical student so like the doctor's the one who's looking after them I'm just here for the ride right I
can see where you're coming from however I believe that you're a medical student and you're there to learn and being intoxicated you're not able to fully learn and absor all the knowledge and in the future it is you that's going to beting the patient and the patients are in your hand so I believe you're in sort of indirectly putting the patient safely at risk yeah but like I'm not really that intoxicated it's just one drink like there's no rule that I can't have one drink before coming into place there like it's not that bad I understand it's just one drink however it's putting patient safety at risk as you should understand at this point because
you're a medical student yeah but what if I'm not even like talking to patients what if I've just come in like just for like teaching uh well this has said it would affect your learning and I believe you shouldn't drink it will affect your learning process and you might put patients if their in however I believe that you you don't have to have a drink now just before you come into the hospital could have a drink maybe during the weekends when you don't have any obligations yep yeah I mean I I don't really get what the big deal is I it helps me it helps me to be more fun and to be you know
feeling much better while I'm here so I don't get what the big deal is can I just ask you because do you think drinking helps your breast levels or your mental wealthy yeah definitely I feel so much after had a drink well I can tell you some um stress management techniques if you don't mind so that maybe perhaps you don't have to drink and you could manage the stress well for instance I know sometimes I'm overwhelmed with work and I like what I like to do is I like to form a support network with my family or friends I can rent about them about all the problems sometimes during the weekends I like to do
activities that helps manage stress such as for me playing golf I don't know for you maybe drinking me but yes and also sometimes um I suggest you but if you're feeling really stressed and overwhelmed at work and it's really affecting your learning I believe you should um go see a mental health nurse and to deal with this and hopefully she or he will give you lots of good advice on how to manage your mental health as well I can also send you some uh I put to some websites which has some good advice about mental health and also yeah stress management techniques So yeah thank you that's the end of your station yeah thank you
okay my next question is please tell me about a current Public Health campaign that you have heard of recently so most recent public health campaign I have heard up is the covid-19 vaccination program roll out and the and covid-19 was a major pandemic that hit the UK pretty hard CA made significant damages to the healthcare system and also create a lot of reforms on how Healthcare should be done so for instance covid-19 is a virus and it spread in and and it is an infectious uh virus that spreads through droplets um the way viruses work is that it it it has sort of a DNA or RNA which is normally encompassed by a protein and
and it has a lot of spikes on the top these spikes uh goes to the receptors of our cells and our cells detect this and incorporate this into them and this and the viruses will incorporate the DNA and that's how they replicate so this was quite a problem because um the covid-19 vaccination relied on H2 receptors uh which can be found a lot at the bottom half of the lump therefore the co uh therefore covid-19 viruses were incorporate Incorporated at the bottom part of the lung which cause a lot of um complications such as fluid buildup unable to remove bacteria or other viruses and ultimately maybe pneumonia and bringing problems that's why covid-19 was really
deadly and it spread really quickly around the UK so in response um the whole world collaboratively gathered together to create a vaccine and what a vaccine does is normally a vaccine takes well more than 10 years to create however this covid-19 vaccination was uh was created one and we didn't want a two years since just amazing how a vaccine works is that a vaccine introduc produces sort of the attenuated or less severe version of the virus for instance just a spike into your body um so that your body's white blood cells with detectors and the white blood cells are basically the army of your body which protects against pathogens or other viruses or bacteria and
it trains and this attenuated Spike which train your army so that it multiplies rapidly in order to fight for fight and recognize for the infection such as the covid-19 vaccination um so the government what they did was they decided to roll out the covid-19 vaccination um the the main aim of the covid-19 vaccination was to create sort of a her immunity meaning that the majority of the population of the UK would have defenses or would be resistant to this uh covid-19 virus um this helps in a way because covid-19 relies on the transmission from one individual uh to another uh and by having her immunity it blocks the chain of this so it prevents a
spread and eventually the covid-19 will sort of die out um there are many implications about this covid-19 vaccination because the government decided right um there were really tot the emphasis on making the covid-19 vaccination sort of mandatory and everyone must have a CO passport in order to visit certain places such as the pumps um and I believe there are some good things and bad things about this covid-19 vaccination being made sort of mandatory for instance um the covid-19 is vaccination has been proven to be really safe and before the roll out it has showed minimal side effects so it's generally safe to roll out for the public it also uh helps to first of all
tackle the covid-19 virus therefore it it puts less pressure on the NHS the NHS would be less over less overwhelmed if sort of like a swarm of people with covid-19 just came in also covid-19 sometimes have long-term effects which are still unknown and by having this vaccine the people will be prevented from having these long-term effects and overall the nhhs will be less swarm in the long run as well um some of the bad things about making this covid-19 vaccination mandatory is that uh first of all it breaches the autonomy of the people who are making these decisions and they have a right to to have treatment uh which they believe to be in the
best interest for themselves that is the end of your station thank you thank you so my next question is the following a 14-year-old patient requests birth control pills from you and asks that you do not tell her parents you are a doctor at the GV practice what do you do in this situation okay your time starts now right so if the 14 year girl came off to me I would have to consider some points I would have to consider if she is capable or has the capacity to make the decision for her own benefit for instance I will use the framework of Gilling competency or the phraser guidelines both of them um covers um testing
If the child is capable enough a child what I mean by a child is anyone under under or the age of 16 year old to see if they're competent enough to make the decision for themselves in particular the phaser guidelin is related to sexual health and treatments for children of this age so I would make I would test I would make sure she's mature enough I'll make sure she understands all the information I gave her make sure she's able to wear up the use the information to wear up the pros the cons and the alternative options of what she's asking and finally make sure she's able to communicate this um with me whether it's to
verb uh verbally written or nonverbal consent um I will also have to think about sort of the pros and cons are giving this um contraceptives to the go for instance um if the go wants to have this contraceptive I will I will have to respect her autonomy um of making because she made the decision and for her best interest so I want to invol her in her own help um maybe I am by not giving the contraceptives to her and causing her maleficence for instance she might um continue to have sort of unprotected sex and it would have sort of a long-term effect on her also by not giving her the con conceptive and she
might become sort of pregnant and this will affect her mental health and wellbeing and the longterm as well and also her family as well also when I'm considering about giving her this concepted I also have to understand that maybe her partner is above the age of 17 or 18 and this could raise potential um issues and if I identify that I would can refer to us to some local children safeguarding issues as well yeah that's my take on it thank you thank you you've still got two minutes so feel free to add anything if you would like to I think I'm happy with B yep thank you okay I'm going to send the next question
in the chat as well for you to read but um I will read it now as well so an 18-year-old female arrives in the emergency room with a profound nose bleed you are the physician and you have stopped the bleeding she is now in a coma from blood loss and will die without a transfusion a nurse finds a recent signed card from Jehovah's Witness church in the patient purse refusing blood transfusion under any circumstance what would you do okay so when the patient comes to me and I've seen the Jehovah Witness chur I believe it's very important not to assume that the patient does not want blood transfusion I believe um I believe I would
look for some science of consent from the patient such as maybe having an advanced directive just in case this happen I get blood transfusion or someone with uh or the patient giv someone the lasting power of aony to make a decision on their behalf um if this is all I will do all of this if the patient is unconscious however if the patient is conscious and in if the patient is conscious and able to verbally communicate with me I will I'll make sure that the patient is able to is capable uh to make the decision on their behalf in their best interest and able to consent yep consent to the blood transfusion for instance I'll
make sure I'll give them all the information make sure they're able to retain the information process the pros and cons of not having the blood transfusion and any other alternative and communicate that back to me whether it's verbally unver or written however if the patient and if the patient is particularly in need of a blood transfusion um and and I have to make a judgment call I will not make that call alone I will cons firstly I would determine how much time the patient has left before they need critically need the blood trans user if the patient happens to have lots of time I will consult with the multidisiplinary team um to see what their
views on this um as one of the pillars is uh non Maleficent or beneficent are providing the best benefits or no harm to the patient and the patient is in critical need after considering these ethical pillars and Consulting the mul multidisiplinary team um um I could potentially give blood transfusion in if we all determine that this is the best C best if this all of this is the best in the best interest for the patient one second please thanks also after or before transfusing blood to this patient just in case I will have some Pro I'll be familiar with the procedures of protecting my rights and the patient's rights for instance if the patient sues
me I'll go to the yep I know what to do in that case so it doesn't put me or the patient in a disadvantage y thank Youk you you still have a minute yeah I think in the beginning when patient is admitted um just because I sto the nose spit doesn't mean there are any other underlying problems and is it is my duty as a doctor uh to put the patient um in situations of not of not harm so so I would try to investigate other underlying conditions before and not just stop at the nose bleeding and make sure the patient is in stable condition thank you thank you that is your time yep all
right my next question is what do you think makes a good doctor I understand that like career in medicine is really challenging and there are a lot of skills in which makes a good doctor for instance a good doctor should be a good leader have excellent communication and teamworking skills be resilient and also have entity as well adopter should have that should be a good leader because normally adopted leads sort of a multi-is team to achieve one function which is to provide the best healthare and safety for the patients um there was one time where I showed great leadership when I was the president of the Malaysian Society I led a small committee members four
or five of us and we organized many many events being a good leader means not only being able to articulate but also being able to listen to all the feedback and that is what I did I set all my committee members down when we're organizing events I listen to all of the feedback and incorporate it in every successive events and I can say that all the events that we organized became more and more successful also I believe that a good lead uh also I believe that being a good doctor you will have to have effective communication skills because often as a doctor you have to communicate with patients of different backgrounds and understanding of the
subject matter and it's very important as ad doctor that you make sure they understand what the treatment entails and if they give consent also you'll be communicating with the multidisciplinary team and other Al Healthcare profession to give effective P health patient health care and having good communication skills mean that there's L less less chance for miscommunication and patient safety error so for instance one p where I showed great communication skills was during the time when I was a volunteer vaccinator um I noticed that a lot of patients who were coming to me were very neophobic and I showed great communication skills with them adjusted my communication skills lowered my I lowered the tone of my
voice and made sure they understand what the vaccination was and the pros the alternative options I it was honors open I showed intergrity to them I told them that yes the vaccination might hurt and might hurt after you receive it for a couple of days and I'm happy to say that a lot of patients consented to my vaccination which show that I have Prett good communication skills as well also uh being a good doctor you should have effective stress management skills for instance a doctor will always have to will be likely to face a lot of stressful situations a lot of powering experiences in which press over time build up would often lead to burnout
and this could compromise the capacity of the doctor to treat patients in a safe manner over the years I can say that I've developed effective stress management skills I have undergone lots of stressful World lines for instance or uh meet doing stress food degrees and all the time I've built up a support network with my friends family by co-workers but I can talk about all of my problems and also during the weekends I carry out activities such as playing golf or playing the piano to relieve my stress I believe uh stress manage this my Stress Management skills will help me in becoming a good doctor as well and also um teamworking skills is very important
as a doctor because often doctors will have to work with a lot of different multi-disciplinary team members each with their own set of values and expertise and it's very important for the doctor to delegate the task appropriately with the different members of the multidiscipline team based on their strengths or weaknesses there was one time where I showed great teamwork skills was when I participated in sort of a survival challenge for my de of edin award where all of the students were divided into five uh groups of five members and we had to survive in the jungle for two days without the intervention of any teachers that was part of the challenge immediately I put my
teamworking and Leadership skills at work I dedicated all the tasks to all of the members equally for instance one member was in charge or looking for food the other was looking for a suitable place to build up shelter all of us show great teamwork skills and fulfilled all delegated task really well and I can say that we were on one of the only two groups out of the 30 groups that managed to complete this challenge that's the end of the station thank you thank you that concludes the first half of your mm yeah how are you feeling oh I just read about the co like 30 minutes ago so I'm glad I have answer for
that I think that's all yeah pretty okay yeah I mean I think there were tough questions yeah but I think that you you handled yourself really well um what think that you did well I answered it in a structured format I related it back to the question for instance how I can become a good doctor um when when presentative ethical scenarios I weigh up the pros and cons um yeah I took my time to answer the questions and what do you think you'd like to improve for next time probably more knowledge on the Hot Topics um yeah and probably when I'm given the scenario um maybe take maybe practicing that understand it quicker reasoning yeah
that's all okay great well I mean I have some feedback for you that I can give you specifically for each question um so we can go through that if you're happy to yeah thank you yeah okay so I completely agree with you I think you did really really well um I think that you remained really calm you had really good body language and eye contact really nice tone and Pace um you took your time um the answers that you gave you related them all back to medicine and why you know certain skills are important for doctors to have which is excellent um I I'm going to go through each of the questions one by one
and just mention a few things that I wrote down for each of them so the very first um scenario it was the role with your drunk medical student yeah um yeah I think that you were very empathetic you asked some really good questions um and then you really focused on patient safety so even when Jack was being very difficult and just kept saying that they didn't really see an issue you always highlighted the fact that he could be putting patients at risk which is really good um and you offered some really good management techniques so you were trying to be really helpful and say hey these are a few things that you can do yeah
um I think some of the things that you could have maybe improved yeah is firstly trying to establish what kind of relationship you have with Jack first so if you're friends obviously then it will be different than if you are just meeting him for the first or the second time so just I guess trying to understand you could just ask what is our relationship like um and then also making sure that you are speaking in an appropriate place and at a good time so obviously I think the scenario mentioned that you were in the lunchroom yeah obviously a lot of people might have been around so maybe making sure that the setting is correct for
you to have that conversation y um a few other things that you could have mentioned are things like professionalism obviously as a medical student you're not a doctor you're not directly treating patients yet however still do have the same responsibilities in many ways to uphold a medical reputation um and then also you could have given Jack the opportunity to go and tell someone but if Jack says no I'm not going to do anything about it it then becomes your duty of care to do something yeah you would have then had to escalate that to your um supervisor or to I don't know a shoor or someone at the University so if Jack says absolutely no
I'm going to keep coming in everyday drunk then it then becomes your responsibility to do something about that y just kind of mentioning okay I will allow I'll give him an opportunity to do something but if not it then becomes my responsibility y does that make sense that makes sense yeah thanks um so yeah those were just a few things that you could have uh touched on when it comes to the public health um question I think really really great knowledge of the covid-19 vaccination program um you gave me a really good intro and an overview of what happened during the pandemic um really great knowledge of how the vaccine works and everything that happen
through the infection of of covid-19 and the effects that it might have on someone's Health um you then spoke to me a lot about the vaccine and how it works and you mentioned her immunity I think um you gave like a really nice um what's the word you you used like an not an anecdote but you referred to the cells in your body of like being an army so it made really really easy to understand what you saying y I think I would have focused a little bit more on public health so you went very deeply into the context and the background and the infection yeah yeah the question itself focused more on what is
public health so you you went into that like at the end when you had maybe a minute left okaying about her immunity the implications yeah you know the consequences of whether it was mandatory or not um my follow-up question was going to be why is public health important so it wasn't necessarily too much focusing on the ethical considerations of it even though it was great that you did touch on that but Public Public Health generally is you're trying to look after the health and well-being of a community as a whole so how do we do that and why is it important for us to do that in terms of prevention and management of disease so
um it would have been great if maybe the intro could have been a little bit shorter and if you focused a bit more on on Public Public Health that would have that would have made that um answer better yeah then coming then to the 14-year-old who is asking you for contraception um again obviously a very difficult question um but I think that you answered it really really well you touched on capacity and you gave me a really nice um overview of what it means to have capacity um and then you mentioned the gck Fraser guidelines y um do you know what they are the phaser guidelines it's like to test capacity for sexual heal for
under 160s not specifically so you were right in saying that you use them when it comes to so the legal age is 16 in order for you to consent to that however anything under 13 is it's so it's it wouldn't apply to anyone who's under 13 because you would be under the legal age to consent if you're under 13 so it only applies to people who are 14 and 15 14 and without informing the parents yeah so then that's the other thing I don't think that you've touched on being the parents you you mentioned a lot about um you know the consequences and what would happen which is great yeah the guidelines specifically they are
so a GP has to assess certain things so capacity is one of them but there are five others yeah you need to assess are they going to continue having SE even if you to them is this in the patients best interest yeah can you not convince her to tell her family or to tell her parents um if not giving them the contraception is going to have a negative impact on their health so those are like a few of the freezer guidelines so those are things that you mention specifically so I would just have a a read again of those um but otherwise you did really well you you touched on safeguarding as well which is
super super key that's really important um and that you wanted to involve her in her own health care as well again that's super important so really well done um question do you have any questions for me at this point well if you don't don't get the time or enough time to answer all the questions on the examiner list and you get minus one minus two I don't think that they penalize you I think they have certain questions there you don't always have to ask all of them we try as an examp examiner you're trying to understand if a candidate has sufficient knowledge and has answer the question well so sometimes you can just assess that
from one question okay sometimes you need to prompt students a little bit more so if you hadn't mentioned Fraser guidelines yeah my next question would have been do you know what the Fraser guidelines are does that make sense and you don't get penalized for them prompting you to say it no no I don't think so okay fair one thing that I always remind students is that examiners want you to do well yes we're assessing students we are thinking yes come on he's hit the phaser guidelines he's told me about safeguarding he's told me about capacity he's told me about consent he's touched on ethics like I'm rooting for you inside I'm like yes Braden you're
killing it so assessors even though they're really Stern in they're often very oppressed and thinking wow he knows what he's talking about so they want you to do well if that makes sense um yeah y makes sense thank you y completely fine yep um okay just moving on to the Jehovah's Witness question yep um again you did really well uh you started off by talking about that you wouldn't want to make assumptions um you check for like an advanced directive or a lasting power of attorney um I really really loved that you mentioned that you'd rely on your team um and that you wanted to figure out how much time you had that was really
really good um a few things that you could consider yep obviously this person or this patient was 18 so at that age legally like what would that mean what would be different if she were 14 uh the patient yeah yeah so because it's an 18year old female they' be considered as an adult and therefore make decisions with themselves legally um something else that you can mention obviously they're unconscious and you've seen that they have this card but do you know if the person if that person completed the card do you know if they work for worst into signing the card do you know anything is anyone else with the is there anyone else that you
could speak to so if this person's just come is Mom around could you have a conversation with family um is there anyone else that you can call who can tell you the validity of this card that you've seen does that make sense so you want to try and explore all of your Avenues before coming to a decision because obiously in this case it is life or death it said um yep yeah they're in a coma from blood loss and will die without a transfusion yep yep yeah you obviously need to be making the right decision fairly quickly but y yeah I mean you you touched on the best interests of the patient which is great
um when it comes to ethics you could obviously you could obviously have mentioned autonomy wanting to respect the autonomy of the patient y yep but I think with the time that you had you gave a really good answer for for that yep good and then finally what makes a good doctor um yeah you gave me leader a good communicator teamwork and empathy and for each one of those you gave me a really good example for how you have demonstrated this in your own life y you yeah you gave me a great example when you were a good leader of communication uh Stress Management teamwork and then you told me how all of this relates back
to medicine so I don't really have any other comments for that question I think that you did really well yep yeah I think you did great okay so thank you for watching I hope you found that useful so now as promised I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to do to use that information to help you with your performance so the first thing like I said please make sure you check out that online course because that is going to give you the fundamental knowledge that you need to then be adaptable to do well at interview it's like a pyramid you know you need a solid foundation at the base then you need to
work on your performance then we get into the nuances of how to deliver the answers best and then we get to the Pinnacle of the difficult questions and what you what to do when you put in a situation where you don't know the answer but those you know you can't start until you've got those foundations so that course will give you everything that you need to make sure that you tick that box initially the next thing is the importance of actually doing some oneon-one practice with someone and if you wanted to check out the future doc program last year we had a 93% success rate in total but of the people on the program once
they actually got to interview we had a pretty much 100% success rate of training them so that they smash the interview to turn that opportunity into an offer but thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video
Transcript from “Real-Life Medicine Interview Example” (3 November 2024)
right it is interview season and as always like every other year we have an example of a real MMI interview to show you again I'm not going to tell you which university it's from you can guess and put it in the comments and I'll tell you whether you're right but you are going to see exactly what the interview format is like a real example and you're also going to see critiques of the answers so that you can understand whether what that person said was a good answer whether they ended up getting a place and then understand from their mistakes and from the things that they did well how you can apply that to your interviews
now if you want some help with your interview and you want it in a specific University format whatever the university I would highly recommend that you check out the future do program we have a 93% success rate for getting people in however once people get to interview the future do success rate is pretty much 100% close to very very close so I'd recommend if you are serious about getting past that final hurdle which is heartbreaking when people get rejected after interview if you want to avoid that and get some help to make sure you are the best prepared possible for your interview check out the future doc program otherwise I hope you enjoy the interview
and I will see you after that session after that recording at the end of this video where I'm going to show you exactly how you can get a really good University guide and where you can get some help as well so enjoy and I will see you after the interview kid so your first question is you're in a group of six where you have been advocated three courseworks of variable nature which are required to be completed as 3 weeks all with the same deadline in your group there are people with different interests in the varage courseworks and you are the lead all be your approaching scenario to do well in work and also meet the
requirements of the various people in your group okay I'll give you five minutes once again to repeat the any title and like repeat the question just to CL I'm standing it right close so I'm a team Le of six um everybody has different interests but not but or I'm we different interest in terms of interest in the work and we have three three set of cor okays he come up to you one minute come up to a 30 second J aome one of the first things I would do in the position of a leader is to um organize an informal social gathering with the group preferably at a cafe where everybody can just sit down
and chat as I'm unaware if my group members would know each other prior to this it's important if we're going to be completing a group project that we' build some for so that we feel that we can ask questions and help within our group members during the project during this meeting um it's important that um we I get a full idea of who my group members are what their personalities are and what their interests are with the project um having been in a leadership position at Key in a CL Key Club which is a community service Club um I know sometimes during a meeting it can be ner rcking to people to talk which is
why I think a c is a good setting as even if somebody's a bit nervous they can still have like an opportunity to grab a coffee or um even if it's something minor they can talk oh I just like a coffee is something small just to mention um or have a nice atmosphere I just feel that that could calm people's LS um so it's important that once I have an idea of where everybody's interests will be in the project um we can compare that to the coursework syllabus um and then start allocating jobs I think at this point it'll be good to write some sort of a group contract just to see um where everybody
it's responsibility to be and to make sure that everybody is happy with um the division of roles and just to confirm that everything that is required will be completed if any issues come up that somebody doesn't want to do a particular role um I'll assess how lengthy the task is and how um what work it will take and I will see if I can split the role with myself and some team members if it's such if it's a big task if not um I wouldn't mind um either delegating it to somebody who people say um is it doing like as much like it or just doing it myself just because I feel as though if
I delicate the task that people are interested first um it'll be done to a higher standard because they're more interested in it um and I feel also my role as leader is tring to support the team and help them um Express their best abilities so I feel like that my supporter role could be filling in the gaps with they fine fine what would you do now you had someone in your group who into discussion was quite overbear or didn't let mother speaked how would you handle that situation um I feel like I've had this um problem before um for example with your um planning of duur expedition um it can be quite difficult and at
times frustrating to think that what you're saying isn't really um be heard but the best thing you can do is just um have a small chat and say um hey this is a group discussion um it's important that we can all have feel that we have the opportunity to talk to one another and that um we are are all heard of this as um what you're saying is important I we do appreciate it but we just need to have other people have the opportunity chalk as well finally what would you do if during a pbl session at Medical School your group and yourself were stuck on a concept and couldn't know it didn't know what
to go next um in this scenario um the first thing I would do is to look at what we know sure and then make like at what we know and what we don't know this and if we can then look at the list of what we don't know we can then find ways to find the answers for example um looking in a text book or online just so see if we can further um figure that out ourselves if it's something that we are truly stuck on we can always ask the PD tutor um as from what I've read from the holor website it's that um they're there to help um progress our discussion and monitor
what we are doing um but personally e best that we do our best to unpick it ourselves I mean in the type if we can so yes I feel like we would look at assess what we don't know and why we don't know it is it a concept we don't understand or it's just some information we just don't had yet um and then we can um there like streamline how minut find the insolution so okay BR to the end of the station well now move on to our next station well once again read the answer to you read the question to you and then you have five be to thinkle up the answer okay so
your question is currently oneing 10 NHS jobs are vacant how would you tackle the issue of Staff shortages if you were employing employed as health secretary give me five minutes minute 30 um haven't spoken to one of the Hol ORS alumni there now a junior doctor um to gain an idea of why they would be participating in one of the junior doctor strikes um I got to the conclusion that the strikes are mainly happening for three main reasons um many doctors and healthcare workers are feel that they're unsupported overwork and underpaid so what I would do as health secretary um is to address these three issues one of further um doctors feeling that they're underwar
no sorry overwar um one of the main things that we would have to look at is um why they feel underw overw words sorry um and and this would um a main reason of this could be um the AER sapping and the NHS currently after um events such as brexit the nurse applications for new nurses dropped by if I recall correctly 96% which is Extreme because nurses go such an important role in the hospital that having a lack of nurses would only increase the stress and workload up every other position in the hospital um furthermore um often when these healthcare workers and doctors are overworked um because they are filling in the positions of say
two doctors they can be it to tow and then leave the profession as many of their colleagues might have already which um then will increase the stress through the um doers are already saying there um furthermore um I feel so that some doctors might feel unsupported um for example with the in the case of um Dr bagara um in that in her case there was um a mishandling of many things in the hospital and ultimately unfortunately led to the death of um one of her patients but the whole responsibility landed on her and um even though along with the blame distributed throughout a lot of the hospital fings and it could be seen that um
she would have felt unsupported in that time and that could show why many other doctors might have left if they felt unsupported unsupported like care um it's also important that if these doctors aren't feeling supported it's not going to lead to a good working environment they might not have it might be it might become sort of toxic as seen with the Francis reports where um it was shown that such a toxic orling environment led to bad patient outcomes and um it was shown that many of the doctors um did not enjoy their job there and it was very evident with the patient outcomes unfortunately so it's important that we can um f saffin to build
and Bill SP recore within the community of the hospital so that um doctors enjoy and Healthcare work enjoy going to work and that they feel it it's a um good experience um another main issue would be um so that would be the issues of um overwork and unsupported and the other issue would be um underpay um the best thing I feel like that I could do would be to lobby for additional support with um for healthcare workers um I would do my best to listen to the current strikes going on um which is important because today um paramedics are doing the nurses strikes um which only adds to the additional stress of other healthcare workers
which I completely understand um I feel so we need to really Lobby for um healthcare worker rights um so that they feel um financially and emotionally supported with their profession as they're carrying such an a heavy workload and the emotional support from many of their patients it's important that they can feel comfortable and that they're provided for with r pick you that's all how we have regression now move on to our next station which is what qualities do you have I'll will make you a good doctor SP okay coming up to one minute said so just to coner the questions what are the qualities not right we begin H I would say that I have
to be name qualities that would make me a good doctor um one of the first qualities would be that I have good communication SKS especially in higher stress environments um an example examples of this would be um when I was participating uh in the Ed BS program which where is a um mental health um advocacy group um I was given the opportunity to be a panelist in front of the governor and other political figures where I live um and I was able to um calling myself down in that scenario as I'm not Norm a person who able to um speak so readily in like for public speaking so I was able to come myself down
and um speak clearly by slowing down my words and I was able to learn the skills to clearly communicate in this environment which was important as at the end of the our panel um several people made a comments on what I had said which was important to me as it wish it showed me that I was clear and people heard my voice I can comment and contined to comment ation about it um in a medical environment this is important because I'm aware um that we'll be dealing with difficult situations and um delivery on troubling news to patients unfortunately I is so B that the patient able to hear you clearly um especially in those stressful
times and um you can deliver the message um with to their full understanding another attribute that I have that makes me that could make me a good doctor is that I have good teamwork um skills um an example of this is do my work one Key Club which is a teun service club and one of its core um values is that you working as a community toer te and um I finally I think I'm a good member of that but because I do my best to make sure that everybody feels included um me I will do things such as organized socials and um really talk to people in the cloud just to make sure that
everybody feels included and they feel that they have um the opportunity to say what they would like to do um to to Rec Community servers and that they feel welcome to join any event that we have that's really important for we as team out a member and it's important that everybody shows that they can join that team and this is very important as in medicine um we will be working on as a multi-disciplinary team and it's um extremely important that you can be a team player as ultimately it's the Heth of the patient that's at the line if you can't work with the team um it it will resol in ATI outcome and with good
teamwork um the process is going to be more streamlined with um the patient care um the last reason why I think that I would be um a good doctor would be that I am very reflective and re receptive to seatat um I'm aware that um medicine is a lifelong learning career and so this is very important that I have a still down um in examp this be in one of my um medical um internships um I was making the slides for psychology and this was my first time doing it I made a lot of mistakes so yes um and it was very important that I got the I listened to the cytologist and really got
a good idea how to um use the resin to put cover slips on uh how to put the right amount of cell Solution on the slides um all of those steps just so that um I could um do my job best ability um and it's important that I was able to learn from these mistakes because I was able to develop a way of reflecting and um prob solent fure mistakes um such as um pre- Counting that the pet and so that I would prevent contamination um of the SL um of the cell Solutions um so this is important as with a do medicine you will always have superiors that will make comments on your work
and it's important that you don't get like angry or frustrated with those comments it's important that you take what they're saying um and really develop your method of um care just so that um you can use others experiences to benefit your own and therefore you'll be giving the best patient outcome to all of your patients and overall develop and more well around it doctor thank to our next station which is well I ask you an opening question there'll be another mission to FL for that to your question is why the do um I just have a quick question will I have five minutes for the questions will five minutes five minutes for in total when
I was originally thinking of the career I wanted to go into um originally it wasn't medicine it was actually actually more Sciences so um as you might be able to imagine I wasn't able to find many Dawn internships um for that career so I found that the next best thing was medical internships um but actually going to these internships helped me find the three well actually the two main things I found fulfilling in a career which is having some practical application of Science and having um a good Community within my job and that could include the patient side and working as a teen and um I found parly medicine to be um so important because
with the patient side I just found it like it made my day to be able to help people in any way I could um when I was in my job for example when I was um Shing and ining um at the a w at my local hospital um evidently there wasn't much I could do within my means to help patients but something that I could do was help a patient um who was in pain to the restroom um evidently it's not the biggest thing that I did but just like there hearing their thank you and just see how like better they SM like it just made me feel like wow this is like fulfilling but
I don't it just sounds cheesy but it just made me happy and I just saw myself like I could do that every day I like making people um having the opportunity to make people more comfortable and like happier um really brought me more peace and just made me feel happier about that and with the um practical application of Sciences um when I was shadowing at the surgery War um on my hospital I observed an orthopedic surgery um where the rib bone was um the used that to repl part of their the patient like bone and just they made I I found out they made a tiny incision on by the brip and I just thought
that was so impressive because it was really only incision big enough to get that well now and that skill and knowledge of anatomy was so like inspiring to me I thought that it was just like incredible how this team of um surgeons worked so sorry quickly um and efficiently and just the pride on their faes when they made the final incision was just like I don't know how to describe it it was just amazing um and having that be the first D you ever saw it will always like stay with me it was like just so precise and I just can can't imagine like how like diligent and how much work out was put in
to get to that breaks and that's the more that I want to be one day just to be so confident and just give like such um a benefit to somebody's like and I guess now might not asked you why would you like to Nur medicine but at whole York Medical School uh me after looking at your early clinical contact that was one of the main things I saw as um I find it so fulfilling to like speak with patients and work in that Community it was really important I found a university where I could get that early clinical aspect um access another reason that I really um enjoyed hure was the way um Anatomy was
taught um I really appreciated how crosssection was used as at close to dissection as I felt that it made more sense as that's the way you learn not mean from the phones out um so I thought that was um a really good choice on your behalf and another reason was the um option to interpretate I saw on your website that you had options to go for the anatomy and that was really of interest to me so um that was um it was good that I had that opportunity in mind there on top of that I saw the research that you do at this school and one of them was to do with sad flies and
back as there a um disease Spector and um coming for the Cayman Islands there's so many sandflies there and if that disease came to cameand it's so important that universities like um hore have vaccines ready so it was important to me that there was a university looking out for topical areas cuz i' like where I come from youan that's all the best for me you yeah it's um on top of that I really L the societies I d-stress by playing the Biola so it was important that I could find a university where I could continue that and play in the OR sh go back I like it um yeah and I also like the weather
a lot colder than Canan so it was great location um oh I love this University thank youi all right so from this one this is your L St come bit F and this one will be a video so I'll share on the screen in a moment and the way it'll work is you watch the entirety of the video I'll give you about a minute or two maybe a minute and a half to just gather your thoughts and then once again I'll commence 5 minutes ask question so in all this say should be about 10 minutes should say just to clarify I watch the minute the the video for like however long or two minutes then
I have question stre him five minutes okay thank you so our technology got [Music] out hello Hello nice to meet you um you know um I'm just back again um yes yes yeah it's not that long since you were last here I know but I'm really not happy with these heavy P you're not happy well no I've been to see you several times and you put me on tablets and you know they're just they're just not working and really thinking I want to Excuse excuse me you've not you've not had the time to take the whole course of tablets so how do you know they're not working I'm just far too busy I have a
really busy hectic life I'm running this major organization that's having a huge compass and you know I've been thinking a lot about the you know I cast their H can't it yeah M that's what I want I want to be ref on so I can have a history it to me works and just get this whole scenario finished and done with I think you're overreacting I think I think that live my life I'm I'm can i d here of what your options are here let's just all right I'll let that op listen to your options first of all tell me what was the problem with taking the medicine what what was the problem now that
you couldn't take the medicine as prescribed well it's I mean busy and traveling always this with me we need to make it a PRI I've already made my mind but I'm not wanting to go down the tablet route it's the Hy okay hysterctomy so the last time you were here we discussed um having a coil that can be quite effective in helping us how people not interested in that well that's a non-medical alternative I really as I say my lifestyle is such that I need to move on a b taking time off work I live I work in a meal environment it's all it's it's starting to be flagged up as an issue and I'm
not prepared to have that compromise my career me I really want to go ahead and have it strictly um see from your records here that you're C2 yes I'm afraid that I'm not prepared to consider even putting your name forward that it's my choice no I you might be young you you might want children and regardless I don't want children I've already read that life CH quite happy it might be your decision if you want children but as a doctor I'm not prepared to make that decision and to verify that decision for you as a doctor you're there to to listen to me H yes help me and I have been listening to you for
a period of 6 weeks now I'm feeling you're not the sentiment I am you have a heavy you have a heavy lifestyle Alice you're wanting somebody to I'm sorry for you I think fix I think I'm going to have to to private I'm sorry in B of what you're asking you're not listening to me um I appreciate your time but this is not working for me so I think I'm going to have to go elsewhere I think that would be for the best cuz I can't help you any further thank you come to that agreement thank you very much thank you okay so that is the end of video so so I'll give you about
two minutes to just process everything in there and we'll have a discussion after in comes up to you one minute and S all right so my first question to you is what did the doctor do wrong in this consultation I feel like there was many thing with that it let wrong um the first thing that I noticed was the doctor had core very poor body language and by that I mean when she was talking to the patient she would often turn around um and avoid eye contact um which would give the impression to the patient that the doctor is not listening and often times the doctor would um speak over and interrupt the patient when
they were trying to explain what they think is wrong and something that really stuck out to me is when the doctor said oh but I have been listening to you I have been um that just kind of like sounds very wrong WR because that whole video was sh how the doctor hadn't been listening to the patient and it could be very frustrating to the patient just to be spoken over not listen to have the doctor like even gas late the patient that they've been listening to them um so I would say there's just like no sympathy for the patient they don't want to listen to the patient there's horor everything to do with communication really
it's a really bad example isn't it yeah so I guess now my question would be how would you approach's consultation let's say is Dr do you're you're sing at the test what are some of the things you would do from the the beginning all the way to the end of the consultation well one of the first things I would do is like ask how they been um as I agree with them that the the medication that I prescribed them wasn't working and I am aware that like severe menal pain might be common but it's not normal so there must be a reason for this um so I would try and find if there's other um
things that they might have such as pclf that could cause their menal pain to be uh worse than normal um I would look through these roots as this the patient expressed that they would want in this directivity um I would explain what that would mean and I would not give them the impression that they are too young where they might have want to have kid children in the future as I feel that's very demeaning and it's not it like kind of puts words into the patient mouth that they might not express that they don't want to have kids so you must respect that um so I would go I would explain that um first of
all that the course of the medication is not done but I completely understand that there is severe pain is compromising their do now um I would explain that this isn't I understand this isn't normal um and I would explain that I think it's best that we um look through rops to see if there's a cause for the issue um because if we find the cause we then find treatment and if it comes down to it I would then see if they can get the hysterectomy if that's the option that they are adamant for as it's important that we um appreciate the patients's autonomy um in this situation why do you think it's important that doctors
and patients have a good professional working relationship um it's extremely important for them um doctors and patients have a good working relationship um as the patient the only way doctors can treat the patient is if the patient um gives an honest review of their symptoms and how they're feeling about the situation and as that's the only way for a doctor apart from like say let test to riew the situation and even for um getting having testing done you need to have the patient's consent and the only way for that to the patient to get consent is if they have that feel comfortable in a situation and they understand what's happening and um they know that
it will ultimately help them and for that to happen they need to trust it all um how would you think Doctors Care adapt their communication like for example in GP but there not really a lot of time you GB minutes moments or 10 minutes how do they now adapt their their communication to those high stress situations that are there wasn't really a lot of time to Del a bit deeper it I feel I don't mean to be harsh in this I think it's good that we can have dedicated time just for the talk is to B and just say this is be the problems but I would then do my best to just like give
the information that I have then ask questions just because I feel like if we get the information first um then the patient can ask as many questions as possible and there's more time for them to get a better understanding and that way feel is a good balle that they can feel heard and they can give as much information as they had but then also get the information that they need um and unfortunately there isn't a lot of time in a GP setting um hopefully in the future um there's more like what people would want to be shce so they SL over will um but I feel like the best thing that could happen is just
to see how much information we can go through as fast as possible just so that the patient feel that they were C and that they feel satisfied with the care they're being given thank you but bring us to the end of being tiet you done it you've Dam the first really well done Isabella how did it go for you um I when I walked in here I was like oh no this is real left bur it out that I don't like I don't know if I was like showing it like off the I nervous I was like if I leave this room I might own away yes um so I think the first question wasn't
the best because I was like super nervous and I was like I don't know how to use this planning time but I feel like after that question I kind of like organize how I use it so I don't know if you saw I was kind of like rute even though there's nothing that I like let me let me mess this up do I hope that worked out with my an better but yeah I think after like the stud station one I feel like that was my best question I think you don't really well well um you know you have such an amazing mow it's always natural to you the way your your passion you always
have a smile you speak very you know clearly and you're very Artic and you know just generally I was really impressed with how you were I can sense whoever cuz I try to do a bit of small talk you just like so like okay but you grow I think with all things and you know this is an M that you grow into a lot of the time but the fact that you're having preparation now and this you I try make it as high pressure as possible BL and far away so these are all things that when you go to all York you'll be prepared for and you know you still have this more coming up
so I think you in the right place and you on the right time frame to work towards it and that was evidence evidence throughout your questions you you say the first question of the for you I actually scored you five out five really yeah did really well so we'll talk through every station in turn now when you first have a question for the group that obviously get something like this in the oror will be probably the the group of all of you discussing but what I wanted to do here is highlight some of the core themes of group work and where things may go wrong on the day in terms of if there's like an
actor in the room that wants to be the overbearing student or the side can they did that like they know makes him it be fun they could make it try make it bit interesting but I think he'll probably be you guys and um the the facilities and the medical she they can't do that because they haven't told you that in advance but I was just like well let's look at all the sorts of pasts that could happen with that group b and you know you started off by saying you will organize a social meeting I really like that it's something that we even do as as as students in a business school we have to
do a lot of group work and one of those is actually you have to now manage your group and make sure that you guys are all social and build out that PO because if you don't have that good Bond there a lot of the time the work it's always like a chore coming to meetings so yeah I really like that and just generally you know had really good eye contact and you have two articulation throughout so that was awesome you're you just appropriately this I mean this is really confident attack I was deping on wear exactly this yeah do do it yeah I'm glad Fe it's like the real thing because you will now be
so much more prepared for it when it comes I guess more about this question I like to how you L to your approach to your own experience that's really good because you're not just telling that oh these are all things I hypthetically do you know I've actually done them and they voted solution so that was really nice the next one question was about prob will deal with some of quite overbearing very classic situation you find yourself in even on the day there may be that person he want to be needer today but and then they may they let you speak so it's really important that you call that out I really appreciate what you're saying
but man if I just contribute here so that was really that one and he about your own experience as well how you dealt with that and then the final question was link to also about pbl and this could be a situation you actually finded yourself and so that was a really good thing that you mentioned about you know what we put down on the board what we know what we don't know cuz that's how I either when I do my CBL sessions at Bristol or lot of the time you will be stuck because they try to present information in a way that media has to piece it together and it's almost like a puzzle so
really there will be time to be like oh I don't know where to go and I think even on the day depending on how they spin it they may give you like a medical you know condition that you have no idea about but really they don't really they don't really want to eat and know anything about it it's just about the approach so that structure is really important so there this was a really out that even Incorporated the whole new yor medical school PBR structure have treat there I was a really last just talk and how did you find when you first got it all your reactions or when I was talking about I think
prle the pbl I was like I feel like I'm rambling here I need to like WRA this up it was I think it was I think it was a good you know it's goodar to to bring those kind of things in it differentiates you from what everyone else will said so okay it's always good to have those little point where you're like oh let me bring this knowledge in just to add that yeah because he did that to R you know he put like little hints and then things that you know interviews we even want to speak about even further and then that were really good so you know don't feel like this rambling I
think it's it's Irrelevant for the for the question that at hand and for the group work on the day you will find that it's about contributing effectively to discussion um you know would your would they ask you a question take some time to think raise your hand real contribution it's also about working with everyone else so if you managed to find out what people's names are addressing them by name saying oh hey that was a really good point you made I agree you know I just going to say that this or what does the group think about this or opening up to discussion that oh guys I just want to quickly mention this but have
we thought about that those kind of things are showing high level contribution it's not just oh let me just relax and then put my hand up on the T right you actually actively engaged which is what they're looking for in their Ming they looking at participation at a contribution so you want to be an active person in this conversation not L than having to take the need if it comes up where you need to take the need cuz to take initiative they feel free to do so and also if it's a thing where no wants to break the silence don't feel like you have to stay in silent and it'll break that silent be like
oh guys so quite a big CID do how do want a tap of it and then you go that was also something that people will look at be like okay so she wouldn't have to take the initiative and be proactive enough that's a good quality and especially something you should do when you have that group workk station any questions about this question or anything else um I think I'm good then cuz I remember how to answer it and it's just like I should and then we had the first mini interview and that question was a critical thinking and of current issues in medicine Tag questions so I combined them both that and it was currently
one and 10 NHS shops are vacant how would you tackle the issue of Staff shortages as a h sec how was um I feel like this was me trying to still figure out how that plan was working so I'm not sure if I assign post properly but I feel like I did my best to kind of like show that I have looked into the issues but um I was really worried about like talking about he War cuz I didn't want to make it to hand of that world yeah because you never want to come across too political when you're outside you that's always a red flag for for Medical School interviews that instead to political
cuz me L looking at both sides yeah and that was a really good thing of and they saying saying you gra the lobby and you you listen which is all the things the government are Curr doing and all the things that they need to keep on doing so I like that bit so that was fine I think this question requir you to provide more solutions so if you think about it you probably spoke about the key principles of doctors being and Healthcare professionals being overworked unsupported unpaid but really what you disagree with this question was provideing more action CL so first of all you would find out you know look at the reasons why that
how would you tackle some of me overworked or it means that you know you need to first of all um if if doctors feel overworked that's probably why they leaving so how do we now structure workloads differently or you know how do we recruit more you know think of it on a basic level if there staff shortage is what you need to do well you need to recruit more and how would you go about recruiting would you open up more Medical School places more nursing school places would you go abroad like at India you know all of these things that are solutions to the situation so why it's important to know what the issues are
and the issues of why star soldiers are happening what this question wanted you to really focus and KN in on was Solutions and he only really provided one which was about being underpaid but I liked how he voted back to important cases and that was really solid I think this be as sharp as possible concise and provide Solutions yes so for this one I gave you three and a half out of um primarily because I think it was a good answer and if it had a bit a question about what are the issues in that staffs are facing probably going to go five out of five cuz you expain small them but this one one
the big more solution okay so I think like I said you know think of the very basic St St numbers are L how do we increase that well one we just hire more staff we get stuff from aboard we increase more places or really is this going to be longterm or no we need to start find out why staff are leaving because we want to keep the staff that we higher we want to retain them and then we also want to lobby for things such as pay that are a bit more complex to get through you know as a Heth I can't do that I know have to do it with the support of various
different stakeholders as we know it is a very important reason why some people feel are leav it so you take it around different solutions at different angles okay any questions of that um so just to like have an idea what solutions could be I could definitely say then if there's lack of sta then um we can see a rather increasing the capacity about schools were just making more Yep um would it be okay just leave it as a as or explain a bit more that that this is a risky one because if you explain more you actually might end up using the whole question because that could be a question in itself so you want
to be careful and say that well one of the possible solutions we could do is increase more training post by having more places for medical schools or building more medical schooles there's another solution of doing that this would mean that we have more doctors in the pack R ready for the you know stuff obviously it Tak a long time to you know train adults up so you have to bear in mind that this could have a bit of a time maybe one of long-term solution I'll propos and then maybe can leave out that saying and this is a long-term solution short-term solutions could be hiring people who are already professional but abroad you see how
breit is causing people to leave the EU laws and I think become more complicat so maybe could go to countries and see what agreements you could have so maybe medical school is more L think about it shortterm and long term there's another way to split up your Solutions okay so then can I say maybe um you could Lobby for um having skill healthare workers to like immigrate to yeah it's what they're doing it's what hospital are doing so hospitals right now are going to India to recruit doctors to come here and really to become a doctor if you're a doctor already qualified in another country such as India to come to the UK you have
to be like an exam which is like one major exam and then you are able to practice it so it's not as restricted as somewhere like the us or the state like if the us all that stuff so it's a bit more freedom flowing here and is one of the things that they are Ted it's some good point to answer okay and then I also that question so would you say like numerically I need like at least two more solutions on think three is always three is always good because three means you can speak for three minutes roughly and then if there's any followup question you have two minutes to talk about them so this
whole interview you will get pH questions so I'd avoid spending five minutes on one question which is something that I noted for summer then he did spend a large majority of time question and you would't be able to provide a really strong open and I always say if you have a 5 minute interview in speak for around 3 to 3 and a half minutes and then that gives you some time if there's any followup questions cuz really you wanted to be like a conversation in the interviewer back and forth and there was some stations where it felt like that and others where it was more about you providing your compehensive AR which was good they
were good ARS but I to be more of yeah TI sensitive oh that's actually good to know cuz I was like try time my answer for five minutes so yes I three three three and a half because you will get fun up question and they will try to ask more questions or expound on more points as well and especially that that studio station they don't really tell you but you will get two questions there so I had to quickly tell you they ask five minutes on a doctor because that really the real thing you'll get two question which is why do want be a doctor why do want come take yours and on the web
side it says you get two questions but but all the time people can think oh I should ask the first question five minutes but it's about timing that work we uh and let Min to be question was what qualities do you have that will make you a good doctor once again really good answer very good answer three main qualities sign post in perfective perfect perfect and um you get back to your own s and your own and medicine as well really good answer only thing I would say is you spent five minutes on this question it well then ask about yeah strip it a little bit back cuz I did have some followup questions about
you know what do you think you would find hards like being a doctor and being B probably further of these things old so just be mindful that you want to have about this one I'd say three to three and a half of this PO you're going to be aiming for if you get a question that's quite big like this and requires you to ride a lot of examples but your approach was right I think maybe strip it back strip it back a bit and say you know don't provide too much background about the internship r or you know I think still keep those like elements in there of the like oh yeah did really good
to play they all do they all smile I think that's good um when we strip the other bits a bit a bit a bit down as well okay um do you think but I'm struggle I struggle to G my time with like this watch is it allowed to like if I borrow like say my dad that whole oh yeah for sure there noad it's not an exam where you you can like have can go through this is a digital watch I I to use this one but a dig will allow you to just know where you are so yeah that's I'll ask show show so this what I give you um before out of fire
um but that was really because um the time yeah even score had I was Str to 3.5 4 but this is not a 3.5 hour it was a 4 hour because of level of detail and you know comprehensiveness of it and just wanted you to strip it back a bit in terms of time yeah and then the four point was a student St sh you know really good answer for why doctor you took me on a nice Journey you know start off from the very beginning you into to your practical experiences it was just a really nice man really nice and show you had the passion in there so really good AR why doctor liked
it very personal as well you exide of that want to do military sech like that now you want to be a doctor and orthopedic surgeon potentially so it was really nice FL and the whole the whole youal squ was really good you've really done your research to the point where you know what research there me now that's the kind of level of detail you want to get so that you can make them smile and that wow yes she know a stuff and you never know the student who's on that panel could be the one so you really have know that just shows that you're you're really looking into the things they're doing I think that
was brilliant really I gave you five five really impressed SL down and then we have the last one which is the individual scenario station where you'll get a video don't know what the video will be just know that it's going to be a situation or scenario that you have to respond to and react how did you find this one that video made me so mad I it's funny cuz we used that video in our training as well so we went our GP placement they showed us this video I was like what like how did they even do this in how did the GP even act that well so it is something that you you may
actually happen on cheating GPS you know there are some you still come that Rapport and I think a lot of it is down to bur out you know not enjoying the job yeah stressed out L enough time I think that's probably the rain you know you could argue that's maybe why they're reacting that way but there's no excuse for it anyway know you're a doctor and your first you know first principle is to always Do no harm and in that consultation they did way more they really a lot of harm not really direct harm but you can just see through the words through their action that P want to come back they be very skeptical
about seeing the doctor and you really identified that you know really well you the first thing that wasable was bad body language and for me exactly you know they were was like this and they they were constantly tapping away their keyboard going like that and just saying how how how do this it was just terrible yeah that was a really good spot from yourself and one thing I would recommend as well which you did was use direct quotes from the video because it shows that you were re listing and retaining the knowledge because when you showed when you do that said okay you actually picked out this coin in the video and that's shown me
why cuz in the all one they say that they they make it they may ask you questions in between the video or towards the end so it might be even bit different to this but generally you have a video you need to respond to so it's always good to always in your mind just keep keep register of some key things that you so that you can bring them up in your answer so they sound even more better them feel like oh yeah I remember in the video they did something like this cuz that you know there was a P with video where they said this blah and I found that this was actually you know
really shocking and XYZ so that's the kind of things you want to do in that in that tap of station um and yeah your approach to it as well was really good you spoke about the whole process so You' want to first of all explore the reasons why they're pain explain the concept of hysteric to me and come to a solution that is both what the want what the patient wants so really looking at what the patient wants so that was really ni and I think for this station once again I gave you a five out of five um really solid really really good and I think you were able to really take into a
you know in that video you able to take it so much and you were able to Now understand what question yeah really really well done really good you do very well GL you worked extremely hard I speak to your Cho Victor and he's always very impressed with what you're doing and I think you know you are coming to having this Mar and then one Rodrigo I have no doubt that you'll smash the interview you you know you really you really are I think the hard work that you've put in is so evident in the way you speak the manner of your responses I think when you even look back at this recing like oh did
I say that well you I'm really good and I think it's just a testim to the hardw workk that everyone's putting in your car and everyone is is putting in but I think it's important that we in this week that you have do not overdo it you know so with with interviews they're not like an exam okay incept that can't cram everything in there will be a question that you may get asked that you may not know exactly may not have come across before but the interviews a lot of that about getting the answer right as your approach and how you come to that conclusion so if you if you get a very wacky critical
thinking question it's not necessarily for you to Panic or you know I haven't been ask this before like talk me through your solution or you know provide the key principles link it back to Medicine be very clear you know that's the key thing for interv there not something you can cram in okay so I think just bear that in mind but you are on a wild of good path and I'm really impress with your performance from coming here as nervous you could even tell I tell when you were in here you a different P different Beast you were like I'm smashing these questions and you did just that so well done really well done not
good okay I hope you found that useful did you guess where the interview was from if so pop it in the comments below I would love to let you know whether you're right as I said there are a few places where you can get some help first of all on the future do website if you go to the free resources page there is an interview guide which you can use and will be very useful for you we also have the future do online course which is a foundation really for all of the core information that you need to know all of the possible questions that you can be asked so that you're covered by at
least having seen it once before that's probably the most important thing is have an exposure to those things so that you can understand how you would formulate it if you got a similar question or at least know a little bit about it but again if you want some one-on-one practice and to be part of that future. program that like I say once people get to interview has pretty much 100% success rate of getting past that and getting an offer I recommend that you check out this video here where we can show you exactly how we can help you and get into your dream University thank you for watching and best of luck with your interview
Transcript from “Real Medicine Interview Example” (12 February 2023)
if you're applying to Medicine in the UK you're probably wondering what an online interview is actually like although there are lots of resources and they can tell you what subjects are going to come up there's nothing out there that's going to show you from your perspective what you're going to experience when you go through your online medicine interview until now I've managed to get permission to share with you a real interview and from the point of view of the interviewee what it's going to feel like the kind of thing that's going to happen and what happens when you do an online interview exactly the progression and how it feels how it happens so that you
can prepare and know exactly what's coming if you want some help and have an interview like this simulated reach out to us because we're doing an interview crash course to get people ready but for now you can watch this video where you can see exactly what an interview is like enjoy try and learn from it as much as possible and hopefully it can help prepare you for your real interview on the day so you're going to see everything as the interviewee sees it so the questions as they pop up the stations as they rotate through them they different panels as they move through those but otherwise I hope you find this useful let's see if
from going through the video you can guess which university this interview belongs to but otherwise enjoy and I will see you at the end hi my name is Peter and I'm the other Assessor hi I'm annoff and this is where it's like looking down at any point is taking notes okay that's fine okay so your first question is can you tell us about a time when you've disagreed with someone at home school or work so what happened and how was it resolved um uh I guess I have a pretty good example for this um I have a pretty close personal friends we've been friends for a few years now I think probably six seven eight
years um and he was quite strongly against taking the covered vaccinations um and it was just the code of vaccination specifically it's not anti-vaxx he's had his uh shots when he was younger but um what when this came up well obviously it had been coming up quite a lot throughout covered you know I was saying you need to get your voice and vaccines there's people falling oh you might fall ill we're concerned for you and throughout literally the last whole two years he's just been saying no I'm not getting vaccinated I'm not doing it and from from my understanding now it's just because he's against Pfizer and these big pharmaceutical companies he has some kind
of uh predisposition against feeding into these Mega pharmaceutical companies and obviously me being the medical friend in the group I've I've tried to speak to him separately like out away from everyone else like you know this is this is going to be good for your health I understand that you might have these uh you might have these problems with these companies but at the end of the day it's it's fair and good and you know it's not like you don't interact with these sort of companies in another scenario for example he uses Instagram and in my opinion that could be just as harmful or more harmful than feeding it to Pfizer honestly and you know
well we we did have a big conversation about this and we did go back and forth but uh at the end of the day I recognized that he was just so stead like he was so stuck in his view there wasn't really anything I could say to him that would be able to convince him otherwise and unfortunately he still hasn't got his vaccine and as a result he didn't manage to go on a trip with the rest of the group to Europe so he was left out during that and that was quite unfortunate that I haven't been able to convince him but I recognize that if I kept pushing and trying to get him to
do this I honestly like we've been going on for two years it's not going to change anything and I didn't want to keep patronizing him because clearly he wasn't going to change his mind which is quite unfortunate honestly the doctors to need to be able to be good at working with other people yeah well I think um it's important to be able to work with difficult patients just because at the end of the day as as doctors we're trying to work in their best interest and sometimes they may be difficult simply because they don't understand the situation so it's important to make sure that the patients that you're speaking to fully understands you know what's
going on with them what options they have available and what's happened so far so that they fully understand the situation and um then then they might be able to uh come to see what what you're saying as the doctor what recommendations you're making they might be able to understand it a bit better um and it as as the doctor you're just there to be the caregiver you're not you're not there to um you know change ideologies you'll you're just there to help improve the health of a patient so obviously if the if they're very um strongly against an idea for example just because of religious background or some kind of something that's happened in the
past um I think it's it's good to be able to deal with that without um becoming without bringing uh um sorry without angering the patient I think it's important to be able to explain this like explain your Viewpoint correctly and in a way that they can understand so that they can potentially um bring down the level because if they if they understand the situation if they understand you're there to help them then they're less likely to be difficult thank you and my last question is can a doctor ever have too much empathy and respect for a patient's views too much empathy and respect for patients use um I think definitely too much respect for a
patient's views I can see that happening um for example if if it's something relatively minor um like oh I'm scared of needles I don't want to get this injection and then the doctor's like okay you don't want you don't want it okay we won't do it I think that's that's that's a bit too far um in that case it's kind of unreasonable where like if if you haven't asked to see you know why why I used to go to these needles why do you not want to if you just sign up if you just straight away um conform to whatever the patient wants without finding out why or finding out what the reasons are then
it can be harmful because at the end of the day you know potentially this injection could have been very helpful for I don't know finding out some some more details about the condition that they have or um something else along those lines um and in terms of too much empathy um that's a difficult question honestly I think I think it can become a problem at some point um obviously if you're hi sorry I'm getting out to kite okay that's fine sorry well the next question um It's A Hard hypothetical scenario so I'm going to read out to you first okay one of the junior doctors on the hospital Ward the day after um his surgery
a 70 year old man is transferred to intensive care of her life-threatening pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot in the chest during a routine meeting the consultant reviewing the complication identifies that one of the junior doctors has failed to prescribe the medication required to prevent this type of blood clot so the question is firstly how will you respond personally knowing that your lack of action has had serious implications for a real person um well I think I believe it's called duty of candle where it's expected of a doctor to be on about their mistakes so I think especially if I was in this situation personally I would I would make sure to say to
the consultant and when appropriate to the patient look I've made this mistake I failed to prescribe this uh medicine this is this is on me um so yeah I think I would go to the consultant and explain that and I think it's important to earn up in that situation because it's it's quite serious or even if it wasn't serious I think it's important to end up just for the sake of clarity you probably answered this but just in case you had anything else to add to it why do you think it's important for doctors to delay this duty of Canada so earning up to their mistakes yeah I think it's important in I think two
main ways so one being transparency to the patient and the public it ensures help or it helps ensure that the patients trust the doctors because if they're if they've made a mistake and they're trying to cover it up or they're not making it obvious or they're just not telling you as a patient um then they're going to they're going to lose trust because obviously you've gone and made a mistake and then you're not telling them they're just next time they might not even come to the lectures because they they've they've had bad experiences in the past now they won't trust the doctors because they think oh they're just gonna lie to me or they're just
not going to help me because they made a mistake last time um and it's also important in terms of um I think your own self-improvement as well you need to be honest that with that mistake and um being able to be honest with that will help you improve in the future because then people can help correct you with that um and I guess as well it would be important for the sake of the patient and that specific scenario and the care that you're going to deliver to that patient because uh if you've made a mistake for example um I guess it's not exactly the scenario but if you've given the wrong prescription rather than not
a prescription at all then it might have different side effects and different interactions with some sort of other care that you might have to provide to the patient um so yeah I think there are definitely multiple reasons that you should have to be as clear as you can with any mistakes that you make okay thank you your next question is how would you inform your fellow staff members um so following on about the scenario that I read at the start okay so I think um as I said I'd probably go first the consultant just because he's the one that highlighted the problem in the first place um and yeah after I've spoken to him unless
he's already made this disclosure that I've made the mistake I think um maybe I'm not sure if this would be the most appropriate places obviously I haven't been in the scenario myself but potentially at the next MDT meeting because then everyone that's concerned with that patient's care is going to be present and then you can you can be completely honest with everyone look I've made this mistake this is what's happened as a result of my mistake um and then everyone everyone who's concerned will be enlightened us to the situation and then we can move forward there with dealing with the problem and everyone can work together as the MDT to be able to provide the
best care considering the situation that's happened okay thank you and have you ever made any mistakes that have impacted other people and how did you overcome this yeah so I I made I made a mistake back in it was during my a level so I as I would often read ahead in class um I would be quite well informed as to the subjects that we're covering and especially during tests that would help me out quite a lot and as a result my friends that I had in the subjects they would come to me for help with revision or if they found something particularly difficult they'd say hey can you can you explain this to me
or can you help me with this question so um what ended up happening I think this was I believe it was to do with muscles uh there's like two marks at the very end of this paper and the teacher told us beforehand because um we hadn't covered it in class at the time but they still gave us the question for whatever reason and the teacher was like okay good luck and learning go look go and learn it yourself and obviously my friends came to me said look this is you've already covered this can you help us with this instead of course yeah so I sat down and then I taught them through it like I
explained the process and when it came to doing the exam I thought it was pretty all right I got marks at the end of the day but then um they came and spoke to me afterwards and said you told us the wrong thing all of us got zero marks on that question and obviously at that point I I felt really bad because you know I've gone and told the wrong things so I made sure uh to get go with them together again and uh see what the answers they put and then I also asked the teacher can you come and help us with this just because I tried to explain this and I did it
wrong so I want to make sure that I'm right this time uh can you come and help us with this um as well as that so yeah I got all of their answers together and made sure to see what they said um I also asked the teacher for the mark scheme so I could see what the mark scheme wanted me to say um and I also had the textbook and spec up at the time just so we could make sure that 100 that we've got this right for the next time thank you thank you thank you foreign so the first question is what are your qualities that would make me want you as my doctor
okay uh can I just have a second to think about it of course okay I think I'm ready to come out okay okay so first and foremost I think I'm quite an empathetic person I believe that I will be able to facilitate your needs as best as I can I'll try to understand the situation that you're in and taken into account all of the uh everything about you so that I can provide the best care to you and um in light of all the resources and everything that we have access to in that scenario um furthermore I'm quite an academic person and I enjoy learning I will use that to make sure that I do
the best of my abilities during my time at medical school to become the best doctor that I can and throughout my career as a doctor I will continue to develop my skills so that I'm up to date on the best information that we have available at the time and I would use this to make uh educated decisions and recommendations about your care okay um and yeah I think I think overall I will put you at the center of everything and make sure to keep you informed about all decisions that we make about your care and make sure that you're involved throughout the entire process so that you're informed uh sorry so that you're able to
make the best decisions that you believe uh are appropriate for you okay yeah so you've mentioned some good qualities there like can you describe how you demonstrate these qualities yeah so um one scenario in which I think I've demonstrated empathy is during my um during some work experience I completed during last summer I was at a care home for a week or so and during this time I was speaking and speaking with the residents there building relationships with them and one resident in particular stood up to me um this elderly lady she happened to be from Bangladesh um and as a result she only spoke Bengali she didn't speak very much English I think all
the English I heard her speak during uh my time there was asking for a spoon um luckily I'm also from Bangladesh and I can also speak Bengali so I did spend quite a lot of time speaking with her finding out about her situation and um you know just having spending some time with her because as she told me she was becoming incredibly isolated none of the terrorists that could speak Bengali in none of the residents that could speak Bengali and um her daughters um I think she had two daughters both in uni age um they rarely came to visit and she'd been there for years and I just can't imagine how awful it would have
been to be sat there for years and barely having anyone to speak to you throughout the day so I made sure that during my time that I would I would uh make sure to see that she's okay and be able to provide any help that I can you know I'll ask if she's feeling okay if she wants some food or if she wants some help from a specific carer sounds like a good display of empathy so um but what qualities do you have that you think could could impair your performance as a doctor and how would you deal with those um I think something that is kind of um something that might affect me in
the future is I haven't really had to deal with any kind of significant um I I guess in this uh in the specific scenario me being a doctor I haven't had to deal with a patient's death that's been my responsibility uh obviously me just being a gap year student at the moment but it's something that I I look for not uh I I see forward to that uh being a potential scenario in the future and it is something that's potentially kind of scary as obviously I haven't had to deal with something like that before but I believe that I tend to be able to make uh the best use of the resources I have access
to and I recognize that there are support groups that I can speak to if I have any problems with these and obviously I can speak to my colleagues friends and family if I'm having any particular struggles to deal with these sort of sort of things that I'll be able to talk about and I'll be able to deal with it better okay and another thing you think you'd find the hardest about being a doctor was anything else you think you'd find hard about being a doctor um I'm not sure if it's what I would say I'd find the hardest obviously I don't know what it's like to be a doctor I'm not a doctor yet so
but I do recognize there are multiple things that can be difficult about the job um something that I've had a bit of experience with during some other work experience at the hospital local hospital I spent quite a lot of time at a e shadowing some doctors there and the pressure of the situation was uh very obvious and very upfront it was quite clear that everyone was under pressure everyone's very stressed out there's so many things going on so that is something that I I did notice quite a lot during my time there however I feel I've generally dealt with stress quite well um in my previous years such as Jeremiah a levels and gccs through
physical activity or my own Hobbies what's the next question now thank you for the next question um it is can a doctor or medical student be opposed to covert vaccination um I I believe if you would like to go into work at the moment in the UK you are required to have your approved vaccinations um and this is this is just because for the sake of the patient obviously if you're uh if you're a doctor or medical student you're consider being exposed to so many different patients in a hospital where it's likely to that you're going to be exposed to someone potentially with covid um it's important to be vaccinated so that if you do
happen to become exposed to it and catch covid you're going to be less symptomatic and therefore less likely to be able to pass it on to someone else later down that line and that's important because obviously there are going to be different patients who are vaccinated and who aren't and most importantly it's going to be for those patients who aren't vaccinated for whatever reason they happen to have because if you as a doctor are going around passing over to patients obviously that's I guess it would be going against your non-maleficence uh pillar of autonomy because you are pretty much directly just causing harm um I believe that I've I mean I have a close personal
friend who's quite uh who hasn't taken their equivalent vaccines they're just quite against that general idea they're not anti-vaxx they've had vaccinations in the past but they're specifically against coping vaccines um they have some kind of uh predisposed disliking for Pfizer and this big pharmaceutical companies so they've chosen not to get covered vaccines and I've had a bit of experience dealing with that however I think in this scenario if you're a medical student or a doctor it's pretty much it's unexcusable not to have your vaccines um as you're always dealing with these patients and you need to be I think trying to practice what you preach if you're trying to practice good health you should
be getting your regular getting the most updated vaccines and obviously you're going to be recommending that patients get vaccines for their own health okay so you've mentioned some really good points about covered vaccines and um why doctors should have them um so another question is why is it compulsory for doctors to be vaccinated against hepatitis B um so Hepatitis B in particular isn't something I'm too familiar with um especially considering it's not on any kind of GC serial level spec that I've I've experienced in the past um from my limited understanding I believe it can be passed on Through Blood contact or some kind of bodily fluid contact and if it if it can be
transmitted through that kind of process um being a doctor it would mean that because you know you might have to take blood samples or from multiple different patients during a day or throughout your life or your career it was one mean that you're incredibly more likely to be exposed to that kind of thing compared to the average person just because you're seeing so many different people and you're having to do these uh take these blood samples and two it's going to also make it more likely that you're going to pass it on to someone just because when you're taking these samples and that's more likely there are a higher chance of having contacts that can
result in transmission thank you very much um uh another question I have for you is how freely can a doctor Express their personal views um I believe that it should be they should judge the situation and do it appropriately I think that sometimes it can be appropriate for example if a patient says to them you know I'm unsure what decision to make your dog would you think I should do I think in that case it's very appropriate you know they're clearly asking for your opinion and they want they want some expert opinion in this situation and I think in that case then it would be kind of rude not to give your opinion um however
there are definitely situations where you shouldn't um for example I don't know if if there's a patient who's transgender for example um I think it would be quite appropriate for a doctor to just kind of out of Noah mention oh I'm part of the support group that helps deal with people um coming to terms with their birth gender I think in that case it would be very inappropriate and potentially even harmful uh to the patient and especially the patient doctor relationship because sufficient will become offended and probably become offended in that scenario and uh it would probably lead to a breakdown of trust and just cause further harm to that patient yeah um so does
a doctor have a duty to [Music] um yeah I would I would I would say that doctors have a duty to be a role model I think um being in a position to be able to give care uh I think it's quite a privileged position and uh it's important that one other so there we have it did you guess which university that interview belonged to if so pop it in the comments and I'll tell you if you're right I hope you can see exactly what that's like now so you can see it kind of is a bit awkward at the start there's some brief introductions but they just dive straight in they'll cut you off
halfway through when you're ending with that particular breakout room and you move on to the next set of people it just abruptly ends and they move you on so just be prepared for exactly that sort of thing like I say if you want some one-on-one help to prepare for your own interview reach out to us by checking out the link in the description below otherwise we have more videos where you can find out exactly what you need to know for preparing for your interview so check out this video here which gives you all the resources that you need and then I've got a YouTube Interview playlist here that is going to help you prepare and
expect what's going to come up so thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you over in one of those videos
Transcript from “Practice MMI Scenario Medicine Interviews: Work Experience” (31 January 2021)
Okay, so now we're looking at an MMI scenario. So, you're in a supermarket and find an elderly man in his pajamas asking which room is his daughter's. What would you do? So, we need to consider some things here. So, firstly, you're aiming, the skills that you're trying to put across are some skills that you've gained, hopefully from either work experience, particularly volunteering, if you're caring for people, typically people do things in elderly care homes, so that they get experience talking to people whose communication skills are impaired.
Usually they'll have come across somebody who has dementia or has some sort of cognitive impairment. And then this is adapting your communication skills to that sort of person who may not understand things, is a bit disorientated, because clearly somebody who's in a supermarket asking about where their daughter's room is in their pajamas has probably wandered off from a care home. So, when you approach this, you need to demonstrate your understanding that this gentleman may be confused. And also, you need to understand that patients with dementia, especially when they're scared and in a situation that's unfamiliar to them, they can have a propensity to become violent. So, we need to make sure that it is safe to approach, that this man's not going to hurt you, because we would deal with the situation very differently if they were.
And is there anybody nearby, you're in a supermarket, so there are plenty of people nearby that can help you out. So, basically asking somebody to offer some help with dealing with this. Okay. And then, so we'll start the intervention. So, start by approaching slowly and asking the patient if they need help, or the elderly person in this situation.
If he's confused, we want to get him to a safe place. So, let's say it's in a supermarket aisle, you know, there's potential for, let's say, water to be on the floor, he could slip and break his hip, for example. So, you want to take them to the security area, or maybe a bench where they can sit down. And then you need somebody to call 999. So, ideally, it's best to utilize the person that you recruited, who's helping recruited, and get them to call while you keep an eye on the person to make sure that they don't hurt themselves or cause themselves any more danger.
And while this is going on, you need to provide reassurance to the patient. Like I say, they'll probably be scared, so make sure they're safe. Now, sort of the don'ts are, fail to act on your moral duty. So, you know, there is no, there's nothing saying that you have to help this person, but you want to be a doctor, you want to be the kind of person that wants to help people. So, I would hope that you are the kind of person that does feel a moral obligation to help this person who's in need.
So, another thing that you don't want to do is walk by. You don't want to just completely ignore the situation and hope that it goes away. You are kind of volunteering yourself as that person in society who's the one who's going to step up and take action towards helping this person. And then the other thing is not checking it's safe to approach. So, again, if you get hurt, say this person is, although being an old person with dementia, they might be quite strong, they might hit you.
And let's say in the extreme scenario that they knock you out and you become unconscious. And who's, you know, what use are you to anybody in that situation? Firstly, you are an extra burden because now they have to look after two people and you've not done anything to make the situation better. So, making sure it's safe is really important. And the final thing is not getting help.
You have lots of things that you need to do. You don't know where security is in the supermarket. So, you're going to struggle to take them there. You're going to struggle to keep an eye on them because ultimately their safety is the most important thing. So, you need to keep an eye on them and make sure they're safe.
And you can't multitask by doing that and also trying to find, maybe say you don't have phone signal and you have to go outside and call 999. Loads of things that can happen. So, getting help and ensuring that jobs are allocated appropriately is another way to be effective. Because essentially, effectiveness in providing patient safety or person safety in this case is the most important thing. So, there we go.
That's how you should approach a situation like this with MMIs.
