Medical School Interview Questions

These are the questions which were asked at medical school interviews over the last two years.

1. Why medicine?
2. Why us?
3. Why not study to be a nurse?
4. What is the difference between a nurse and a doctor?
5. What experience do you have working with people?
6. Are there doctors in your family?
7. Who have you talked to about doing medicine and what did you learn from them?
8. Is medicine a rewarding career and why?
9. What subject did you struggle with at school?
10. What type of volunteer work have you done?
11. What are the recent changes in the NHS?
12. What do you think about those changes?
13. Why did you not get into Medical School last year?
14. How will you keep yourself motivated over years of training and studying?
15. Why do you want to work with sick people?
16. How can you cope with high levels of stress working on the wards?
17. How do you know medicine is for you?
18. What about the exam related stress in medical school?
19. What other type of stress do you have as a doctor?
20. What sacrifices do doctors have to make?
21. A career as a doctor can be exhausting and stressful. What would you do to help you deal with stress?
22. Are you prepared to work long hours?
23. What will you do if you don’t get into medical school?
24. Can you convince me that you can cope with the workload in medical  school?
25. Do you understand what the life of a doctor involves?
26. What is unique about our medical school?
27. What is your specific goal in medicine?
28. What stimulated your interest in medicine?
29. What do you want to specialise in?
30. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
31. What would you do as a doctor when your bleep is going continuously and you have five or six things to do which are urgent?
32. How do you multitask?
33. Give me examples of situations when you had to multitask?
34. How do you feel about telling bad news to a patient?
35. How is politics currently impacting on the NHS?
36. Do you agree with the decisions the NHS is making?
37. What is the most serious problem affecting medicine today?
38. How do you cope with situations when there is not enough time to finish a task?
39. How are you going to contribute to this medical school?
40. How do you balance work with all your hobbies?
41. How do you deal with your emotions?
42. How would you deal with your emotions as a doctor on the wards?
43. What is the difference between the Welsh NHS and the English NHS board?
44. When was the NHS founded?
45. How would you cut down waiting lists?
46. Apart from funding, what are the biggest problems facing the NHS?
47. How would you solve these problems?
48. Who is our present Minister for Health?
49. Do you think he is doing a good job?
50. What is the Work Time Directive?
51. Do you think doctors work too many long hours?
52. What are the challenges facing doctors today?
53. Have you read any articles about advances in medicine? Tell me about them?
54. If you were the Minister for Health and you were given ten billion pounds, what would do with it and why?
55. Apart from treating patients what else does a doctor do?
56. What are the advantages and disadvantages of coming to a new medical school?
57. What are the most important advances in medicine over the last fifty years?
58. What previous experience have you had of learning in a small group?
59. What have you done to prepare yourself to be a doctor?
60. Why should we accept you over the other applicants?
61. What experience have you had working with people?
62. What subject did you struggle with at school?
63. Have you prepared for this interview?
64. Have you any practical experience of working in a hospital?
65. What did you learn from it?
66. Why do want a Intercalated Degree?
67. Have you shadowed any doctors?
68. What did you learn from it?
69. What do you think you will struggle with at medical school?
70. How will you deal with stress at medical school?
71. What work experience do you have?
72. What have you learnt from it?
73. How did you get your work experience?
74. What did you do on your work experience?
75. What are the most common diseases of the elderly?
76. What is Alzheimers?
77. What are the signs and symptoms of Alzheimers?
78. How did it get its name?
79. Which is worse being a patient with Alzheimers or being a relative of the patient?
80. What was the negative aspect of your work experience?
81. What skills did you learn from your work experience?
82. Do you think the government looks after the elderly population?
83. What changes are the government making to help the elderly population?
84. Do you think the elderly should have to sell their home when they go into care?
85. What is the difference between PBL courses and lecture-based courses?
86. You did the Duke of Edinburgh last year. Can you tell me the most important contributions you made to the team?
87. What did you learn from it?
88. What can go wrong with people working in a team?
89. What are the key members of a team and why?
90. Tell me about a particular event in your life and how it affected you?
91. When did you first think seriously about studying medicine?
92. What leadership positions have you had in school?
93. What would you change  about yourself if you could?
94. Describe your personality?
95. How would a friend describe you?
96. What are your hobbies?
97. What people have influenced you most and how?
98. What do you have to offer that others don’t?
99. Give evidence that you relate well with others?
100. What is your biggest achievement in life?
101. How do you handle stress?
102. What do you do for your community?
103. Give me an example of a time you contributed to a team effort?
104. Tell me what makes you angry?
105. Tell me about the last time you were angry?
106. How do you cope with criticism?
107. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
108. How will your weaknesses affect you as a doctor?
109. What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?
110. Give me an example when you showed empathy and an example of when you showed sympathy?
111. Are you born with empathy or is it something you acquire in life?
112. Is it right for doctors to have empathy for their patients?
113. What is the biggest obstacle you have overcome in your life?
114. Tell me five things you want me to know about you?
115. Are you a leader or a follower? Give examples?
116. What do you think you will like most and least about being a doctor?
117. Why do you think so many people want to be doctors?
118. Please give me an example of an activity you have undertaken which demonstrates that you are self-motivated and conscientious?
119. What are you doing in your gap year?
120. How will it help you in medicine?
121. Why does Africa have such an epidemic of Aids?
122. Is it ever acceptable to lie to a patient?
123. What do you like about genetics and why?
124. When can doctors ethically divulge confidential information?
125. What would you do if a doctor gave you orders that you know will harm the patient?
126. What do you think of Euthanasia?
127. Is it ethical for doctors to strike?
128. When is termination of pregnancy morally acceptable?
129. How would you describe the relationship between science, medicine and  art?
130. A 55 year old married mother has cancer and has six months to live. How would you tell her?
131. How would you calm a nervous patient?
132. Who should not be cloned and why?
133. You are a junior doctor and the consultant came in smelling of alcohol.
134. What would you do?
135. What is the Hippocratic Oath?
136. If you were a doctor and an underage girl asked you for the pill and she did not want you to tell her parents, what would you do?
137. If you were a doctor and a 14 year old wanted an abortion and she did not want you to tell her parents, what would you do?
138. Should doctors be allowed to pull the plug on terminally ill patients?
139. A 35 year old man has aids and tells you, as his doctor, that he does not want his wife to know. What would you do?
140. Do you think people who smoke should be treated in the NHS?
141. How does smoking damage your health?
142. What diseases do you get from smoking?
143. What are the symptoms of Heart Disease?
144. How would you treat heart disease?
145. What advice would you give to patients with heart disease?
146. What is the definition of obesity?
147. What are the complications of obesity?
148. What advice would you give to a patient with obesity?
149. Why does UK have such an obesity problem?
150. What can we do about it?
151. Should people with obesity be treated in the NHS?
152. Should obese people be paid to lose weight?
153. What are the duties of a doctor?
154. What is a profession?
155. When are there situations when the law allows a doctor to break confidentiality?
156. When are there situations when doctors are legally obliged to maintain confidentiality?
157. What are the arguments for and against genetic enhancement?
158. What are the arguments for and against reproductive cloning?
159. What is ‘Gillick Competence”?
160. What would you do if a friend on the course seemed depressed?
161. What teams and societies will you join at university?
162. How would you tell someone bad news?
163. What does MRSA stand for?
164. What did you gain from our open day?
165. What would you say to a team member who is not pulling their weight?
166. A 50 year old man has cancer and has been given 12 months to live. He is on diamorphine for pain relief and lives at home. He wants an injection to help him finish his life. He feels he is a burden on his family. What are the ethical issues for the doctor in this scenario?
167. Should assisted suicide be made legal in the UK?
168. A 55 year old man who smokes needs a heart operation. He refuses to give up smoking. Would you do the operation?
169. A Jehovah’s Witness refuses a life saving blood transfusion, but his wife is a non-Jehovah’s Witness and wants him to have one. What would you do?
170. Mary is an 18 year old girl. She comes to see you with her mother and tells you she is pregnant. She has a long term boyfriend. She is very upset and doesn’t know what the best thing to do is. Her friend had an abortion and she doesn’t know if she could have one. Her mother wants her to have an abortion. Her mother thinks she won’t be able to look after a baby and stay in college. What would you do if you were her GP?
171. What are the four principles in Medical Ethics?
172. Reasons for considering IVF treatment as ethically wrong?
173. Should the surrogate mother be allowed to keep the baby?
174. Take us through your personal statement?
175. Do you think doctors should be allowed to work in the NHS and do private work?
176. What do you understand by the term postcode lottery?
177. Should GPs/primary care groups act as fundholders?
178. A mother comes in to casualty with a child who is bleeding profusely and refuses to allow you to give a blood transfusion to the child. What would you do?
179. What does the term “informed consent” mean to you?
180. What do you know about the European Working Time Directive?
181. What advances in medicine can we look forward to during the next twenty years?
182. What roles can computer technology play in medicine?
183. What is holistic medicine?
184. How does the environment affect health?
185. How would you dissuade someone from going into Medicine?
186. Why do so many students drop out of medical school?
187. What would you most like us to ask you today?
188. What one question would you like to ask others who want to study medicine?
189. How does diet affect health?
190. What is anorexia?
191. Why do so many teenagers suffer from anorexia?
192. What advice would you give to a friend who has anorexia?
193. What problems do the elderly face?
194. What do you know about AIDS?
195. Why is it so hard to treat AIDS in Africa?
196. You are a third year medical student sitting exams and you see your colleague cheating. What would you do?
197. What did the doctors you have spoken to think about medicine as a career?
198. Did any of the doctors try to discourage you?
199. What did they say?
200. What are the implications for doctors of an aging population?
201. With the NHS funding problems, is it right that the NHS do sex-change operations when there are long waiting lists for hip replacements?
202. What do you mean by patient confidentiality?