Big List of All Med School Interview Questions- Part 1: Panel/Traditional Interview

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Hello all- here is the ultimate compilation of traditional/panel interview questions, which is arguably the largest collection of medical school interview questions in a single document.

Link: Big List of All Med School Interview Questions- Part 1: Panel/Traditional Interview

Why this collection is useful:

1. Panel/traditional interviews can only cover so many topics of discussion and from a limited number of standard questions.
2. Medical schools tend to organize their interview questions based on certain categories- which I've tried to emulate in this guide.
3. The sheer number of questions & comprehensiveness of areas covered allows for a thorough understanding of the interview process, while at the same time acting as a large reservoir of practice questions for applicants.

That being said, the collection is currently organized into the following categories:

• 1. Personal Questions
• 1.1 Personal History
• 1.2 Personal Details
• 1.3 Relationships/Interactions with others
• 1.4 Personality & Character
• 1.5 Behavioral/Situational
• 1.6 Personal Experiences: collaboration/teamwork/leadership
• 1.7 Personal Experiences: character
• 1.8 Goals & Plans
• 2. Application Related
• 2.1 Knowledge of Program/Specific motivations
• 2.2 Motivation/Commitment for Medicine
• 3. Experiences: education/medicine/healthcare
• 3.1 Academics
• 3.2 Healthcare, Volunteer, Extracurricular Experiences
• 3.3 Knowledge of field/realistic view of profession
• 3.4 Knowledge of Healthcare System/Issues (Canada)
• 4. Ethical questions
• 5. Other
• 5.1 Current events/World/History
• 5.2 Weird/out-of-the-blue/creative questions
• 31 Questions I Wish I Had Asked: from Organization of Student Representatives Association of American Medical Colleges, January 1992

Things to note:

• There are sometimes comments or "sample answers" at the end of questions- these are sample response and/or advice from people with more insight and knowledge than myself (successful applicants, current medical students, admission committee members).
• Please note that this is only the first release of the guide. The questions have been through a "brief" first pass (which still took  long). There will still need to be some changes, including (but not limited to):
• There are sometimes questions that are only relevant to US medical school applicants (this guide was originally meant to assist with both Canada and US interviews).
• Redundancies, badly worded/bad/unnecessary questions which need to be filtered out in a more thorough review.
• Better/more efficient categorization of questions.
• The "Ethical questions" section is not as expansive since I will be releasing an additional collection of MMI questions which will have a large number of ethical scenarios/questions.

Release info:

Version 1.0 (April 5th, 2013): Initial release

Acknowledgements: this collection was based on more than a dozen sources, anywhere from premed101, SDN, various medical school admissions websites, etc. My goal was to at least attempt to put together a much more complete and organized collection of interview questions based on every available source.

...and just in case:

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Again, please feel free to share your opinions/concerns/comments/criticism/etc. I always welcome feedback (which I really don't get a lot of). 

Part 2 will be a collection of MMI questions, and an accompanying guide for answering interview questions (both panel and MMI)... which may take a lot longer to put together.

Matt

Interviews & raging times at the lab

I've been having trouble finding time to work on anything for the blog- been completely overrun by research & interview prep.

If you've read my last post regarding my past interview at a med school, you would have seen this:

I recently interviewed at the same med school recently, with (almost) the exact same panel:

...which leads me to believe that all interview panels for that school are composed of three characters: 1 friendly, 1 stoic, 1 skeptical, who've been instructed to appear that way. In any case (after having learned my lesson last year), I was a lot more prepared and the interview went much better. I sincerely hope I can change the title of the blog sometime in the future.

My job has also been keeping me busy. After (actually) working nights, weekends (see How I got my first research position), I'm finally at a point where I can take a breath and relax a bit (although I'm still deep within the never-ending pit of research clusterf**k)... which means I finally have some time to work on the blog.

Updates to come (more like notes to self):

1. Big List of Med School Interview Questions: the most comprehensive collection of interview questions, for both panel and MMI. 

-I admit my own interview prep has been preventing me from putting this together for release, but I hope to get this out soon- hopefully some people will still have a chance to use it.

2. Big list of "Back-Up" Plans for Premeds- Part 5: Pharmacy? Optometry? Podiatry?? If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment/email.

3. More ragecomics & memes.

4. An investigation to determine why (all of a sudden) the blog's daily view counts have more than doubled.

Matt

Big List of "Back-Up" Plans for Premeds- Part 4: Nursing

This is Part 4 of my Big List of "Back-Up" Plans for Premeds series, intended to give a brief introduction to some alternate careers in health care that premeds might consider pursuing.

I would like to introduce nursing as a career, and accelerated nursing programs that you can enter after having completed some university work. 

What does a nurse actually do?

• Nurses perform a wide range of duties, from:
• Technical- i.e. monitoring the patient's vital signs, I.V.s & medical devices, collecting samples.
• Administrative/Educative- maintaining records, triage, educating public & families.
• Clinical- assess the patient, evaluate care diagnostic testing, dispensing medication, small procedures.
• Counseling support for patients and families as well as personal hygiene.
• ...and many more. There are thousands of things that nurses do and I can't compress that into a neat list.
• Nurses work in a variety of settings- direct care, research, education, public health, etc. Find out more at the Canadian Nurses Association.

I think one of the greatest benefits for nursing is that there are a lot of things you can do with a nursing degree after graduation- there are a lot of choices that you can take advantage of. Furthermore, the role and scope of nursing is always expanding in Canada.

Possibility of further training

• With further training, nurses are able to extend the scope of their practice. There are advanced training opportunities available for Registered Nurses, such as:
• Anesthesia assistant, advanced life support (cardiac, pediatric, etc) certificates
• Procedure-based training such as ultrasound, sonography
• Research training- clinical research associate
• Clinical nurse specialist
• Administration
• Nurse practitioner- NPs act as primary health care providers, functioning autonomously at a similar level of scope and authority as family physicians/physician assistants/etc. You can become an NP by going through advanced programs (usually Master of Nursing, Nurse Practitioner programs) after becoming a RN.

With that said, since this is a "Back-Up" series I will only write regarding Accelerated Nursing programs which have shorter time frames (~2 years) than regular nursing programs (~4 years).

Important points regarding Accelerated Nursing Programs in Canada:

• Generally 2-year long programs entering at Level III (third year) of regular nursing programs, includes both theory and clinical components.
• Often require X number of university credits (usually 10 full course credits= 2 full years), and ~B averages (~75%, 3.0).
• Prerequisite courses generally include physiology, anatomy, psychology, statistics. Check school websites for details.
• There are plenty of accelerated nursing programs, ranging from 1.8 to 3.5 years in length.

For the purpose of this post, here are some Accelerated Nursing Programs at major universities (all 2 years or under):

Less than 2 years:
UBC- Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, with advanced standing
Western- Compressed BScN Program
McMaster- BScN Basic- Accelerated Stream (20 Months)

2-year programs:
Alberta- BScN-After Degree Program
Memorial- Bachelor of Nursing Fast-Track Options
Dalhousie- BScN Degree Accelerated Options (2-3 years)
York- 2nd Entry Bachelor of Science in Nursing
U of T- Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Queen's- Advanced standing track program

Potential salary & Job security/market

As you may already know, nurses usually have no problem finding a job. In 2010, 93.4% of RNs were employed in nursing, 1.8% outside of nursing, while only 2.7% were unemployed. For Nurse Practitioners, 97.3% were employed in nursing, 0.6% outside of nursing, and only 0.9% unemployed. Considering there were 287,344 RNs and 2554 NPs in 2010, I would say the job security for nurses look great.

Salaries are based on:

• Seniority/experience
• For example, hospital nurses in Ontario are paid according to a "grid" where salary increases with each year of experience for RNs.
• Starting salary is $30.17/hr ($58,831.50 annual), while after 5 years it's $36.12/hr ($70,434.00).
• Amount of additional training
• RNs with advanced training are paid slightly more, along with increased flexibility and scope of their practice in terms of locations, hours, etc. For example, salary for NPs range from $80,000 to +$100,000, which is significantly higher than average RN salaries.
• Location
• Similar to other healthcare professions, pay differs from province to province.

Nurses have a huge variety of options in employment and practice along with great job security- which makes nursing all the more attractive as an alternative profession in healthcare. Consider nursing before thinking about leaving Canada for international medical schools that are associated with increasing restrictions & difficulties (along with a huge price tag) of coming back to Canada.

Matt