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Griffiths guide Med-School Interviews 2011 edition How to prepare The questions

Griffiths guide Med-School Interviews 2011 edition How to prepare The questions they ask & the answers to give How to deal with case studies 2 Contents Why you need this book 5 How to use this book 5 Four things to do before your interview 6 Insider dealing 9 Dress for success 9 The waiting game 11 The initial rapport technique 11 The handshake 12 The long walk 12 Dirty tricks 13 Body language 14 4 types of interview questions 16 Top 10 questions 17 Top 5 interview mistakes 24 Relaxation techniques 27 The repeating the question technique 29 The putting it in context ploy 29 66 typical questions 30 Answering ethical case studies 54 Questions you should ask 64 Finishing 65 What if the interview was unfair? 65 Full list of 153 questions 66 Help me help you 76 3 "To be a great champion, you must believe that you are the best. If you're not, pretend you are." - Muhammad Ali 4 A word on copyright I have decided to make this book available in Adobe pdf format as I believe it is the most useful format for candidates. Nearly everyone has access to Adobe reader on their computer so the work is easily accessible. Also students can use Adobe tools to copy and paste passages they find particularly useful or print out passages or pages. However I am also aware that this format makes it very easy for this work to be copied and/or distributed to other people. I have faith in my future fellow medical colleagues that my copyright will not be abused in this way and I remind you that if you help another candidate by providing them with this text you may be depriving yourself of your own place at medical school. You have paid for this, let others pay aswell if they take the interview as seriously as you do. Finally, please be aware that not only is breach of copyright actionable in the civil courts but under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 it is also a criminal offence punishable by fine and/or imprisonment. I will seek the maximum remedies available if I become aware of anyone copying and/or distributing this work in part or in whole without my permission. The entire contents of this book are Copyright, © Peter Griffiths 2006 and 2010. 5 Why you need this book At some stage you may have been given the interview advice “Just be yourself” or “The interviewers just want to get to know you as a person”. Unfortunately unless you are already very well prepared indeed for your medical school interview, this advice is likely to lead you to interview failure. What exactly does “be yourself” mean? Does it mean you should talk to the interviewers as you talk to your friends in the pub? No, of course not. The fact of the matter is that we all project different personas or aspects of our personality in different situations. This does not mean we are being false or “not being ourselves”, it is just a part of normal human and social interaction. The aim of this book is not to persuade you to be somebody you are not. Its purpose is to help you realise your full potential and show you how you can project your best possible characteristics in the interview. And that is exactly what the interviewers want to see, your best possible characteristics, for no interviewer is hoping that a candidate will do badly when they walk through the door. Remember there is intense competition for medical school places and you can be sure that a lot of the candidates you are competing against will be taking the interview very seriously. They will be making a lot of effort researching and rehearsing their answers. If you want to maximise your own chances of success, then you will have to do the same. This book is an aid to help you do that. By having all the information you need in one place, this book will save you a lot of time. However you will still need to put the effort in to prepare yourself. Good luck! How to use this book This book provides a lot of the typical questions you will be asked in your medical school interview. Suggested answers are provided to many of them. The purpose of the suggested answers is NOT for you to learn them and repeat parrot fashion in your interview! 6 The purpose of the suggested answers is to show you the style of a good answer and to make you aware of important issues or areas which the med schools may be looking for in your answers. By all means use the answers given in this book as the basis for your own answers if you feel they are appropriate to you. However, adapt them to your own specific circumstances and above all put them in your own words. If you try to use language or words in your answers which you do not normally use then you will just end up sounding contrived and rehearsed. Practice your answers so that you feel comfortable saying them in your own style. Nevertheless, having said the above, there is also a lot of useful factual information in this book. For example, the qualities of a good doctor as given by the GMC, information about PBL, historical achievements in medicine, ethical issues etc. etc. This information is provided for your convenience so feel free to memorise it exactly as it appears here and use it in your answers. Four things to do before your interview. 1. Research the med school Find out all you can about the med school where you have been offered the interview. There are two reasons to do this. Firstly because you may be asked questions such as “Why did you apply to this school?” or “What interests you about the course here?” and you will look decidedly silly if you don’t have an answer. Secondly, at the end of the interview you may be asked if you have any questions to ask the interviewers. You really don’t want to ask a question to which the answer is easily found on the university website. This will just make you look lazy and like you really didn’t have much interest in that med school in the first place. Try to access as many different sources of information about the med school as you can. Look at their website, look at the hard copy of their prospectus (which often contains different information to that found on the website). Re- read carefully any letters or information they have sent you during the application process as these may also contain useful information. 7 2. Research the interview You are trying to discover two things, firstly, what is the format of the interview? Will you be interviewed by a single person or a panel? Will the interview be very formal and have you sitting in a chair in front of a row of interviewers behind desks or will it be a more informal arrangement around a coffee table? Will there be any kind of case study you will have to prepare/comment on? You will probably have been told all this by the med school at the time they offered you your interview, but if not try and find out. Don’t be afraid to ring the med school directly to find out if necessary, they are usually quite helpful. Secondly, can you find any clues as to the kinds of questions you may be asked? It is very unlikely that you will find exact questions but many med schools are surprisingly forthcoming on their web sites etc. about the general topics or areas that questions may cover. If you apply to St. George’s University of London for example it should come as no surprise to you in the interview if you are asked questions about the importance of research since this is emphasised on the St. George’s web site. 3. Research yourself One of the most frequent mistakes that candidates in interviews make is not being able to talk sufficiently convincingly about themselves. Scrutinise your personal statement that you made on your application form carefully. Be prepared to elaborate on all aspects of it. For every personal achievement, activity or hobby you have mentioned, be prepared to answer the following questions: Why did you do it? What skills/qualities did it require? What are the good and bad things about it? What have you learnt from it? Would you do anything differently with the benefit of hindsight? 4. Do mock interviews If you are lucky enough to have been offered several interviews from different med schools then you will probably find that your interview technique improves from the first to the last. Practice makes perfect. However you cannot afford to waste the first interview or two as “practice” interviews and hope uploads/Finance/ griffiths-interview-guide.pdf