Here are a few tips to help you succeed
Whilst this might be easier said than done, the fact you've made it so far shows you will be able to succeed and get into medical school. Be confident in yourself and the answers you give - the medical school knows that you have the qualities and skills they are looking for. Your interview is an opportunity to sell yourself and demonstrate that you're not just a good candidate on paper, but also in person. A good thing about MMI interviews is each station is completely separate - so if you do badly at one station, don't worry too much about it because you can move on and have essentially a fresh start.
It is never too much effort to be polite - not only for the interview but also in general! You have one chance to make a good first impression and for an interviewer who is seeing perhaps 100 or more applicants per day, it is important to stand out in any way you can. You should dress for an MMI like any interview, in smart businesswear unless the medical school specifies a certain dress code (even then it will be smart dress of some description). Introduce yourself at every station, shake hands with the interviewer, ask them how they are etc. Be friendly and smile at them - whilst this might be hard to do, especially if you are nervous, to them it will help separate you from all the other candidates.
Every candidate is going to have practiced for the interview and so you rightly should! Practicing your answers will improve your ability to communicate your ideas effectively in a short space of time. Whilst it is easy to prepare for some questions and you might be able rehearse answers for questions about your motivation, work experience and volunteering, preparing a rehearsed answer for this detracts from your actual passion and makes you seem robotic. Instead, just have a few points prepared for these types of question so you can adapt your answer accordingly and still let your personality come across. MMIs are partly there to test how well you think on the spot and demonstrate a range of skills and qualities under time pressure. If everyone was to rehearse answers, all the candidates would just seem the same!
The STARR technique is a useful framework for answering certain questions during an MMI interview. STARR stands for Situation Task Action Result Reflection. Situation refers to an example you will have for the question or scenario. The task is what was involved in this situation - this could be a particular goal you wanted to achieve or a problem you had to overcome. Therefore the action are the steps involved in or what you did to help complete the task. Result is the outcome of the action - what you achieved. Finally, reflection is what you have learnt from the whole process and how you can apply this in the future. The STARR technique will obviously not work for every type of question, but it will give structure to some of your answers and can be adapted accordingly to other questions types.
An MMI station which often comes up will ask you about a hot topic - this could be anything from the NHS to current scientific affairs. A good way to prepare for this station is to read up on a variety of topics. With the COVID-19 pandemic dominating the news this year, it is very likely you could be asked a question about the pandemic if you are applying this year. The more you read the better placed you'll be to answer a wider range of topics in a concise manner, whilst answering the question directly. Reading one journal or news article a day is a good place to start and also looking up the four pillars of medical ethics, professionalism of doctors and the way the NHS is run. During my St. George's interview I used the example of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to answer a hot topics question - I had written an essay about this not too long ago so I had plenty of articles I had read to use.
Posted by Nathan
