Medical Schools invite shortlisted Graduate Entry Medicine candidates to interview. But what is the interview process like, what are the common interview questions, and how can you prepare?
What Is The Interview Process For Graduate Entry Medicine?
Some Medical Schools use the panel interview format, where you’ll be asked questions on a number of topics by a panel of clinicians and academics. It can last anything between 20 minutes to an hour.
Other Medical Schools use the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) format. During the MMI, you’ll complete a series of stations with different questions or tasks in timed conditions. You’ll get some time to read instructions and prepare before each station.
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Practice is essential for your interview prep, so you should work through plenty of common interview questions. You need to be fully prepared to perform at your best – and increase your chances of receiving an offer.
As a slightly older and more experienced applicant, you should have a lot of skills and education to draw from. Think about how you can use your undergraduate studies and/or past employment to showcase your aptitude and suitability for Medicine.
Graduate Entry Medicine Interview Questions
Example GEM interview questions can include:
Why do you want to study Graduate Entry Medicine?
Why do you want to study at this Medical School?
What do you want to achieve from a career in Medicine?
What aspects of being a Doctor appeal to you/don’t appeal to you?
Applicants will typically expect to have an interview adapted to one of the following formats:
Live in-person – usually conducted at the school and lasts up to one hour. You might be interviewed by a faculty/staff member, as well as current students.
Live virtual – held online via a video conferencing software and lasts up to one hour.
Hybrid (applicant choice of in-person or virtual) – in this case, applicants can choose their preferred format between the in-person and virtual options.
Asynchronous (or recorded) virtual interview – also referred to as recorded or on-demand, asynchronous virtual interview means there is no person present during the session. Students are asked to answer questions based on pre-recorded or textual prompts, which will later be shared with reviewers. Despite being less common, some universities, including University of Nicosia, use an asynchronous virtual video assessment with a structured evaluation in their selection process.
Within each of these formats, there can be different interview structures:
One-on-one interviews
Group interviews
MMI interviews
If your GEM interview follows the MMI format, you might face some of the following common MMI stations:
Demonstrate your motivation for Medicine as well as your interest in Medicine. Interviewers want to be certain that you really want to study Medicine and that you’re fully aware of how challenging a medical career can be.
Give evidence of your suitability for Medicine. It’s vital to demonstrate that you have skills and qualities which make you a suitable candidate. These include communication skills, teamwork and empathy. You might also get asked personal insight questions about, for example, how you deal with stress or failure.
Make sure you have some knowledge of the Medical School and can discuss unique features of the course and/or the university that appeal to you.
Practise talking about your work experience. Interviewers will be more interested in how you reflect on your work experience (i.e. what you learned from it) than in where you did work experience or how many placements you did.
Familiarise yourself with medical ethics, NHS hot topics and current medical news. You aren’t expected to be a medical encyclopedia, but you need to show that you’re aware of key issues in the world of Medicine.
Make a good impression by dressing professionally and displaying positive body language. If you have an online interview, make sure you know how to use the technology required and find a quiet place to set yourself up.
Practise answering common questions to prepare, but don’t script exact answers and learn them off-by-heart. Interviewers won’t like it if you seem too rehearsed.
