Looking for top tips for a Brighton and Sussex medicine interview? You’ve come to the right place!
Interview format: MMI
Applying to Medicine for 2018 entry? Book a space on our newly announced MMI Circuits!
Book an MMI CircuitBrighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) uses Multiple Mini Interviews to assess candidates. There are five separate stations, each ten minutes in length. The stations are assessed independently, and successful candidates are those that achieve at least a ‘good’ score on each station.
1. Link your experiences with the broader aspects of medicine in the UK
The interviewers want to assess your broader understanding of healthcare in the UK in conjunction with your personal experiences. A key way of practising this is by reading key publications such as Tomorrow’s Doctors and Good Medical Practice, making sure you’re clued up on the six Cs and NHS Hot Topics.
The assessors do not want you to know everything, rather they want to test whether you are able to think and be aware of your experience in the broader context of medicine.
An example would be the principle of patient safety. Think about what this means for healthcare professionals. How is safety improved and how can it be compromised? How are safety standards assessed in hospitals? Then reflect on when you have observed in your own experiences.
2. Practice verbalising your thoughts about medicine with others
A key function of the MMI is to check whether an applicant can make intelligent and useful contributions in a conversation. There are two main parts to this: having an original idea and then verbalising that idea. The second part is what many candidates find challenging.
The best way to overcome this is by regularly speaking with family members, friends or teachers about aspects of healthcare that may be present in the news or your work experience. This doesn’t mean that you should practice regurgitating your answers but rather you should practice developing your own original thoughts on a topic and structuring an answer before communicating it to somebody else.
Remember that the quality of your answer is only as good as the assessors’ understanding of your answer. So use straightforward language, speak clearly and slowly without rushing and always take a few seconds to plan the structure of your answer before speaking. You can always ask the interviewers to explain the question if you don’t initially understand what you are being asked.
3. Make sure you know your medical ethics to stand out in your Brighton and Sussex medicine interview
You may have a station in your MMI that focuses on ethical scenarios – so make sure you’re clued up! You can read all about the four pillars of medical ethics here:
You can also practise your ethics interview answers in our Interview Question Bank.
Words: Asaad Qadri
