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So, you’ve submitted your application to UCAS and it’s time to start panicking about interviews. Well, there’s no need to panic because, surprisingly, interviews aren’t actually that hard when you know what you’re doing. Read on for tips, from someone who got through!
As they say, preparation is key; as someone who went through every type of medical interview offered, I feel like I’ve had enough experience to share what does work (but also what doesn’t work) when it comes to interviews.
I managed to get 4/4 interview offers, which isn’t very common. I then went through my interviews, got straight rejected from two universities and got two offers, one from my firm choice (where I was one of the last people to be interviewed) and one from a university I didn’t even know had a medicine school until I went to apply.
Types of interviews
So, in my experience as a medicine applicant, there are only three main types of medical interview: MMI, group discussion and panel interviews.
- MMIs are multi-station interviews that focus on a wide variety of questions, ranging from medical ethic discussions to role-playing patient scenarios.
- Group discussions usually focus on answering a statement individually and coming to a group decision.
- Panel interviews are just your standard interview: you get asked questions by one or two interviewers.
Make sure you research which type of interview style each university you apply for uses.
Work experience
It’s a common fact that most of the time to even get an interview you need to have work experience. However, with COVID-19 still largely looming over us, some of you might be thinking ‘but I didn’t actually manage to do that much’. Here’s tip number 1: it doesn’t matter how much you did, it’s about what you learnt. Interviewers LOVE when you reflect on your experiences because guess what? You have to do this throughout your healthcare career: reflect on experiences.
Read the news
Something I didn’t know was necessary until I started interview-prepping: case studies. Although a question never came up on the case studies mentioned on The Medic Portal, I found that slipping recent healthcare news into my answers seemed to work when it came to impressing examiners. So, it doesn’t hurt to throw in a few (relevant) facts.
University specific content
If you’re the average medical applicant, you’ve spent a lot of time on The Medic Portal, and if you’ve done enough digging you will have found the specific interview tips for each university. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THESE. Common questions are common questions for a reason, these are the baseline questions that the universities expect you to be able to answer, so make sure you have an answer prepared (even if you’ve only got a rough idea).
So, those are my tips! Good luck! Hopefully some future doctors will be able to say these helped them! These tips may also help those applying for courses such as dentistry and veterinary medicine 😊
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