Medicine Interviews

I have an interview tomorrow!

Argh, nervous :S But I feel pretty prepared, also, isn't everything easier the second time round? :P

For advice you can see my incredibly comphrensive, and possibly a bit intimidating, posts on interview preparation:

http://youngwannabedoctor.blogspot.com/2010/09/interview-preparation.html

http://youngwannabedoctor.blogspot.com/2011/02/interview-prep-2.html

http://youngwannabedoctor.blogspot.com/2010/11/useful-links.html

But please don't let these scare you, a friend told me that it was slightly worrying how much preparation there seemed to be, BUT PLEASE DON'T FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO DO ALL OF THIS

Every Medical school has different expectations and interview techniques, and at some places you won't even get asked a question about current medical news, whereas at others you will be expected to know big headlines from that week.

So, as usual, research is the key.

I had an interview at the same place last year, and managed to get an offer, so hoping for the same!

Best luck for everyone with interviews and those who are waiting to hear, if you have any questions about particular universities, post below and I will try my best to answer

Interview prep 2

Hello, the interview season has been going on for a while now, and I hope you've all had some!
Here a few more links for useful books/websites:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12177084
In keeping with current affairs, here is a very article explaining the NHS reforms and how there going to happen. Worth a read as it is very probable a question about it will come up (I recommend checking the BBC health news page daily anyways)

http://www.medical-interviews.co.uk/interview-questions-medical-school-interviews.aspx
Here is another batch of questions to help you prepare for interview, these ones are perhaps more relevant than the last ones I posted as they are all related to medical school,I think preparing an answer to every question would leave you very very prepared!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medical-School-Interviews-Practical-Questions/dp/1905812043/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1297607078&sr=8-2
A very good book for interview preparation, the analysis of the questions is really useful and it covers a lot of topics. However, I went to an interview recently and practically everyone had this book! So try not to give word for word answers because the interviewers may start to notice a pattern.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Succeed-Your-Medical-School-Interview/dp/0749461381/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1297607078&sr=8-5
This is another good book, but I found it less useful than the ICS one. It went into technique and how to answer questions more in-depthly, but didn't cover as many types of questions as the previous book, it's up to you where your weaknesses lie.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Medicine_at_University#Interview_Preparation
I find the Student Room very useful anyway, but this page in particular has lots of information on applying and interviews.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/What_you_should_expect_at_a_medical_school_interview
If you have interviews coming up, then the page above will be invaluable. It has information on the way interviews are carried out at all the different medical schools, the people who will be on the panel, the types of questions they ask etc. Worth a look for your medical schools.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Medicine_Applicants_Stalking_Page_2011_Entry
Finally, here is the medical applicants stalking page. If you easily stressed don't visit here, but it essentially has all interviews, offers, rejections, BMAT/UKCAT scores and the such for every University.

Good Luck and I hope everyone gets an offer! :)

Useful Links

I thought I'd just do a general post of useful links for the BMAT, interview preparation, UKCAT and whatnot, so here goes:

http://www.medicalinterviewsuk.co.uk/medical-interview-questions.html

On this website there are A LOT of questions, however not all of them are relevant as this site is for general purposes, and includes questions for consultant posts etc. Make sure you can answer all of the questions relating to medical school, and if you scroll down there are topics on medical politics and clinical governance. You OBVIOUSLY will not need to be able to answer all of these, because you are not a real, working doctor! So don't panic, I'm just recommending them as something you might want to brush up on to impress interviews.

http://www.nice.org.uk/

What is NICE? Was a question I have seen pop up all over the place, well in short they maintain "clinical excellence" throughout the NHS. That may seem quite general but they do things such as produce new guidelines and protocols as medicine advances. They also make recommendations on how to reduce the costs on the NHS, and how to best to treat patients with certain conditions etc. Have a look around the website and especially the "About NICE" pages which explain what they do and how they do it. You can also bring in your knowledge of NICE if being asked about how you would improve the NHS, or how you would control the budget in this financial climate.

Check the page the week / day before you're interview as many big changes to the NHS will be posted here, and you are expected to know about them.

http://www.nhs.uk/News/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

Now this is an EXTREMELY useful page, in fact I would recommend signing up for the weekly health news alerts. It provides the"truth behind the headlines" and basically shatters any budding news stories which aren't true, and stops you looking like a fool if you bring it up in interview. Also if you sign up to receive the 10 top news stories that week, than you don't have to worry about trawling round the BBC health website for stories of interest.

Interviewers will EXPECT you to know what is going on in the Media, in terms of the NHS, health guidance, new treatments, breakthroughs. Of course they're not expecting you to understand all the science behind, just keeping up.

http://www.gmc-uk.org/

GMC stands for General Medical Council, and you want there people as your friends, they get you jobs. After your F1 as a trainee (but fully qualified Doctor) you register with the GMC meaning you are officially a qualified (even though you kinda were before, NHS = bureaucracy). They maintain a good quality of clinical practice, and come up with reports such as "Tomorrows Doctors". They can also fire you if you show misconduct and advise on medical schools on whether to take you or not.

http://www.gmc-uk.org/education/undergraduate/tomorrows_doctors_2009.asp - this ties in with GMC, seeing as they produce it. PLEASE read this, it outlines what skills, qualities etc you need to a good doctor. You will most likely be asked about it or the GMC because it is to do with us, medical students. It may be long, but it's useful.

http://student.bmj.com/student/student-bmj.html

Everyone else is reading this, you need to as well. I chose the student part because apparently it is a bit easier to understand if you aren't fully trained yet. You don't need to memories any articles, just spool through it check it regularly. Also if you spoke about any topics in particular you were interested in on your personal statement, you might find some interesting stuff on it here. There's an app as well if your an iPhone freak like me.

http://www.mmc.nhs.uk/

This is where you apply for everyone job and all that jazz. Look through, look at how training for Doctors/ surgeons is structured. If you are interested in any particular specialities look at the training pages for that. Just use it, it will be good for interview, it will be good in interview if you know how the rest of your training is going to pan out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/

This has pretty much everything you need to know for GCSE science in preparation for the BMAT, and has little activities for most topics which makes revising less mundane.

Well I'm gonna go continue revising for the BMAT, so good luck for all those doing it on Wednesday, and if anyone has interviews.

Bye!