Medical Interview Questions: Motivation

The purpose of this blog is to ensure that you stand out when it comes to one of the most important medical interview questions: why do you want to study Medicine? So, to show admissions tutors that you really, really, really want that medical school offer, read below to find out our top five tips for interview success.  

1 Keep a reflective diary of all your work and volunteering experience

Doing work experience is one of the most important ways in which you can figure out if a career in medicine is really for you. Medicine is an extremely diverse career. It will be useful to try and get as many different experiences as possible. From these you can get an insight into what it’s like for medics day to day. What are the highs? What are the lows? Will you enjoy it? Think about why it has helped confirm a career in a caring profession is for you. What were you most excited by and what were the challenges?  As you can see there are lots of things to think about. Keeping a log of your experiences and practising talking about your reflections will help you to articulate clearly and calmly what you learned in the face of those scary medical interview questions.

2 Practise talking about your work experience

This is one of the key ways you can demonstrate your motivation for medicine, and conquer the medical interview questions. Use examples from your work experience and/or volunteering that you have done to show that you have observed life as a medic- and that you liked what you saw! Try and think of three key things that you learned or were inspired by. Practising will ensure you are able to get across your key learning points succinctly.

3 Speak to junior doctors

Get an idea of what their day to day life is like. This will show you have a clear insight into what a career in medicine is really like. Ask any junior doctors you have contact with what are the best and worst things about working as a doctor. You need to show the admissions tutors you have a realistic idea of what these are, that you accept there will be challenges in your career, but that you think the good things outweigh the bad. By responding to medical interview questions confidently and proving you know what you are getting yourself into, you’re showing the interviewers that you’ve got the necessary coping mechanisms to deal with the challenges to come.

4 Speak to medical students

Get an idea of the kinds of things they are learning and what their life is like. What are the good and bad points? Try and get a range of opinions if you can. Ask your school if they are in contact with any previous medical school applicants from previous years and try asking them what kind of medical interview questions they had.

5 Read about medical advances in the news

These could be the future of your practice! Keeping up to date demonstrates your interest. There are lots of other ways you can demonstrate your interest in medical science, but this is one of the simplest! You can also demonstrate your interest through carrying out an extended piece of research, for example through an EPQ.
Top candidates will impress interviewers by doing these five things and increase their chances of getting into medical school!

Uploaded by Beth on November 6th, 2015