Interest in Medicine

Background, motivation, and personal insight
Ethics
Interest in Medicine
Teamwork
Experience
Medicine and society
  • Do you read any medical publications?
  • Tell me about any medical advances and issues you have heard about recently.
  • What is the difference between primary care and secondary care?
  • What is the ‘postcode lottery’?
  • What interests you about the curriculum at [Medical School]? What previous experiences have you had of learning in a small group setting?
  • When you read the [Medical School] prospectus, what appealed to you or interested you in the course here?
  • Tell us what attracts you most and least about [Medical School].
  • What do you know about the course at [Medical School]? Why do you think it will suit you personally?
  • What do you know about PBL? Why do you want to come to a PBL medical school?
  • What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of a PBL course?
  • I expect you have thought about problem-based learning. Why do you think a PBL course will suit you personally? Tell us about 2 other aspects of the programme that will also suit you.
  • What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of coming to a new medical school?
  • This course will require a good deal of independent study, how have you managed this approach to learning in the past?
  • Why do you think problem-based learning will suit you personally?
  • How does this PBL school differ from the others?
  • What previous experiences have you had of learning in a small group setting?
  • What ways of learning work best for you? How does this fit with this medical school?
  • Do you read any medical publications?
  • Tell us about Hippocrates.
  • Can you tell me about a significant recent advance in medicine or science? Why has this interested you?
  • What do you consider to be important advances in medicine over the last 50 / 100 years?
  • Can you tell us about any significant medical stories in the media at the moment?
  • Tell us about something in the history of medicine that interests you.
  • Have you seen a film or read a book recently that has made you think, and why?
  • What do you think is the most important medical discovery in the last 100 – 200 years, and why?
  • If a benefactor offered you a huge amount of money to set up a Medical Research Institute and invited you to become its director, what research area would you choose to look at, and why?
  • Can you tell us about a book or a film that has influenced you as a person or made you think, and why?
  • Tell me about someone who has been a major influence on you as a person / in your life?
  • What do you think was the greatest public health advance of the twentieth century?
  • Can you describe an interesting place you have been to (not necessarily medical) and explain why it was so?
  • Do you think putting a man on the moon money well spent? If yes – why? If no – how would you have spent that money?
  • Tell me about a non-academic project or piece of organisation that you were involved in. How did it go?
  • If you had to have a gap year and could go anywhere in the world or do anything, what would you choose to do, and why?
  • How do you think the rise in information technology has influenced / will influence the practice of medicine?
  • If you could invite 3 people, alive or dead, to dinner, who would they be?