Parents' Guide: Medicine Interview

Has your child received an interview offer from one of their medical schools? Want to help them practice before the day?

This page will provide you with information on how best to help your child prepare for their Medicine interview – from watching the news together to practicing interview questions.

How can I help my child prepare for their Medicine Interview?

The prospect of an interview can seem incredibly scary, so your support is particularly important. There are many ways you can help your child prepare for their interview.

 

Watch the news together

One of the best things you can do to help your child is to encourage them to keep up to date with current affairs. If you sit down to watch the news in the evening, encourage them to sit with you, or listen to the radio in the mornings, or even download a news app onto their phone.

An important part of medical school interviews is NHS Hot Topics – so try having a conversation with them about the big medical news stories of this year on the way home or during dinner. What do they think about the junior doctors’ contract? Do they know what the Zika virus is? These are really useful ways to get your child used to vocalising their opinions and speaking about Medicine aloud – great interview practice!

Interview them!

This can be a fun way to get your child ready for their interview. Take a look at our Medical School Interview Question Bank to get an idea of the kinds of questions asked. You could print off a selection of pages on Ethics or Empathy, and after their answers, go through the answer guide together with a pen to see which things they covered and which things they could include next time. Practice makes perfect, and this will help them a lot with their interview technique.

Help them relax

Running through tricky problem-solving questions (‘how much does a mountain weigh?’) is also a really good way to calm their nerves if they’re feeling particularly anxious about their interview by tackling difficult questions in a familiar environment. Help them to relax by chatting through the questions or answers in a calm atmosphere at home – and once they’re used to the question formats you could then try a slightly more serious practice interview.

Encourage them to form their own opinions

It’s important that you encourage your child to form their own opinions, and to feel confident expressing them. If you don’t agree with them, don’t criticise but instead ask about their thought process, or prompt them to consider the other side of the argument. When it comes to their interview, they’ll feel much more comfortable communicating what they think to a panel if they’ve been able to discuss these things openly and honestly with you first.

Consider interview courses

While Medicine interview courses or tutoring aren’t necessary to a successful interview, it may help your child once they’ve become used to practicing with you. We run a variety of MMI Circuits, Interview Courses and bespoke Interview Tutoring to assist, as well as an Online Mock Interview to recreate the real experience.

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Learn More:

• Medicine Interview Question Bank
• Interview Courses
• MMI Circuits
• Interview Tutoring
• Online Mock Interview