The Interview Advice Every Premed Needs to Hear

Session 378

Join me today for my November 2019 AMSA talk in Austin, Texas. Find out what every premed should know before their medical school interview.

Today’s episode is from my YouTube channel which you will find on premed.tv. Subscribe to my channel, leave a comment, and get a chance to win a 45-min consultation with me!

Also, be sure to grab a copy of my books The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview and The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement.

Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.

[04:20] The Goal of the Medical School Interview

When you are interviewing, you are there to really show off who you are as a person, why you want to be a doctor. And hopefully that interview will turn into an acceptance.

The goal of the medical school interview is to dance.When you dance, one person leads, one person follows in the interview, the interviewer is leading and you’re following, it’s a conversation.

They’re asking a question, you’re answering it.

“Where students go wrong with the medical school interview is the leader leads and asks a question and you step right on his or her foot because you have an agenda.”Click To Tweet

But where students go wrong is they want to have it their way. They want to know the interviewer how empathetic they are and how dedicated they are. But when you’re doing this, you’re just stepping on their feet the whole way and they walk out limping.

They feel beat up because you thought that your goal on interview day was to prove that your empathetic and hardworking, compassionate, dedicated, motivated. That you know you want to be a doctor, that you’re going to be an amazing doctor.

That’s not the goal of the medical school interview.

It’s to follow the leader in a conversation. And so when the leader asks why you want to be a doctor, the goal isn’t to say that you’re the most compassionate person ever. That you have empathy and you love science so much. You could stay up all night studying organic chemistry and you know you’re going to be an amazing medical student because you love science. But students do that.

At the end of the day, you want that interviewer to remember you.

[07:14] What is Your Seed?

Going back to being memorable for who you are and the story that you tell. So why do you want to be a doctor? It’s not because you want to help people and like science. It’s not.

And yet half of you will say that in your interview. Trust me, I’ve seen it a thousand different ways, some very fancy ways of saying I like science and I want to help people.

But at the core, that’s what you’re saying and that’s not a reason to be a physician. It just means you like science and you want to help people.

I got into an Uber many years ago and I asked the driver how he was doing. He’s like, I’m doing amazing. I get to help people today. It’s to drive them where they’re going. Okay, he’s helping people. He might like science too.

So what experiences have you had in your life that have shown you you want to be a physician? What is your seed?

My seed was getting hurt playing baseball and being exposed to physical therapy. It’s not leading to being a physician, but that led me to healthcare.

And so talk about your seed. A lot of students will focus so much on grades and MCAT scores but they don’t really understand why they’re pursuing this path.

This actually comes across in a personal statement and it comes across in an interview. If the interviewer isn’t convinced that you really understand what being a doctor is like number one, you probably won’t be there for the interview to begin with.

[09:12] Understanding the Different Types of Interviews

The standard medical school interview is a one-on-one type interview. It’s either open or closed. Open interview means they have access to your application. It doesn’t mean they’ve looked at it. It just means they have access to it. So they’ll know your GPA, your MCAT score, your essays, all of that stuff.

There are partially blind or partially open, or partially closed interviews (however you want to look at it.) These are interviews where they may have access to your essays but not your stats. And that’s so they don’t come in by with a little pre bias.

There are completely closed interviews where they just don’t have access to anything.

The MMIs (multiple mini interviews) are actually a much friendlier interview than a standard interview. You have a lot more leeway because it’s not just a one-on-one interview. You actually have some flexibility with performing poorly in one station and doing well in the other.

The students who do poorly try too hard and they try to go in and say, okay, they get psyched up. They go, “All right. I need to prove that I’m empathetic. I need to prove that I’m compassionate. I need to prove that I know all of medical ethics.”

And what happens when we have a Jehovah’s witness come in and, and they’re refusing blood transfusion?

“At the end of the day, your goal isn't to prove anything other than your normal human being who can hold a conversation with another human being.”Click To Tweet

[11:26] How to Framework Your Answers and Tell Your Story

“The goal from their point of view is to see if you're going to be someone who is going to be a good member of the class.” Click To Tweet

Remember that they are not accepting one person. They are accepting a whole community of students. Every year, the admissions committee members meet and talk about how they want their class to look like. Whether they want to have a jockey class this year or science nerds, or whatever. They discuss the makeup of the class they want to see.

And that’s when you go outside of the box a little bit and stop trying to sell yourself as to how compassionate and empathetic and hardworking and dedicated and motivated and all of the cliche things. You start to show who you are and your personality.

As you are picking apart your responses for your interview, pick apart sentence by sentence, thought by thought, bullet point by bullet point. And this goes for your essays as well for your application,

When you’re frameworking your answers and thinking about the answers to your interview, try to see if it’s a generic statement. When you’re looking at your answers, you need to tell your story.

To tell your story, you talk to a lot of people. Talk to family and friends and try to ask them when did you start talking about wanting to be a doctor? Ask them whatever it was when you first came home from that experience. What was that like?

[13:37] Start Journaling Now!

If you’re not journaling right now, I highly recommend you start journaling after every clinical experience, after every shadowing experience, after every volunteer experience, after all of your research experiences. Every day you should be journaling strengths and weaknesses.

And this isn’t a game of, “I’m going to turn my weaknesses into a strength.” Humans are not perfect. We all have weaknesses. Some more than others, some bigger than others. And that’s okay. Your weaknesses are your weaknesses.

The question is what are you doing to work on them? Caring too much is not a weakness. An example of weakness could be that you’re disorganized. You forget a lot of things. But you started using a new planner. You started using this new calendar app and slowly getting better at it. You’re actually working on it.

Talk about your strengths, weaknesses, or anything in your interview that you can support with a story to highlight your answer that you’re doing well. Answer strengths and weaknesses with a story that shows a weakness and how you’re working on it.

“Anecdotes really help seal the deal. We as humans, love stories. They're memorable for us.” Click To Tweet

[15:57] Good Questions to Ask the Interviewer

Typically if you have time and the interviewer will ask if you have any questions where students go wrong with asking questions is they ask too specific of questions about the school. Or they ask too specific questions about the person. And so the wrong question to ask is, “why did you come here?” It doesn’t tell you anything about the school.

You’ve probably been told a lot to ask questions about them. People love to talk about themselves and that’s a good thing. It’ll engage them. But don’t ask questions about themselves.

“Don't ask super specific questions about the school or the program because the interviewers interviewing you may not be part of the faculty.” Click To Tweet

If they are part of the faculty and you asked something about the curriculum, well guess what? There’s a curriculum committee. And your interviewer might not be on the curriculum committee so they don’t know those specific answers. And so what you don’t want to do is ask three questions and the interviewer doesn’t know anything about it.

Instead, ask about them in a different way. And that’s about their opinion on things. Ask their opinion about something.

So one of my favorite questions is what do you think is the best part of this school that doesn’t get a lot of attention. It’s not something you can Google. It’s talking about them because it’s their opinion. They can’t turn around and go or it’s not something they’ve never thought about that. So they’re more likely to tell you the answer.

[18:25] How Personal Should You Get on the Interview?

If you are going to cry talking about it, I would probably avoid it. If you happen to cry during an interview, that’s okay. Just take a second.

But if you are trying to again go in with an agenda and go, I really need to make sure that they know this about me and it’s something emotional to you, just be careful with that.

It’s a professional interview. Crying is okay. But in the interview process, you want to try to maintain your cool.

“Think about taking care of mom, dad, and your loved ones. Usually, you don't want your doctor crying there with you.” Click To Tweet

So this is something to think about with your applications as well. If you put something in your personal statement and your secondary essays and you know that the topic is really sensitive for you then maybe avoid it in your application altogether. Because it may bring up a ton of emotions during an interview,

That’s hard to say because it may be a huge part of your journey. And if it is, then you probably should talk about it and then try to get a little bit more calm before your interview day.

[20:09] Should You Talk About Mental Health Issues?

“Unfortunately, there's still a huge stigma around mental health.” Click To Tweet

The ultimate test for medical schools in terms of your application is whether this student is going to finish school in four years and pass all the tests they need to pass.

Because if you don’t, they get dinged. They have accreditation standards and if they have students who aren’t finishing school in four years, then they have to answer to the higher powers.

Now, if you start talking about mental health struggles, which is getting personal, the question is, are those going to come back up during medical school?

Medical school is very, very hard and you work a lot and you sleep a little and there’s lots of stress associated with it. This kind of stuff exacerbates mental health issues.

For most students with mental health challenges, they’re fine. They may need an extra year or they may need some time away, but they do fine.

“The question in the back of their mind is, are you going to be able to complete medical school?” Click To Tweet

[22:00] What About Sexual Assaults?

Mostly, women reach out to me talking about sexual assault and whether they should put it in their application to explain withdrawing from a semester or taking a year off or whatever it may be.

In the application process and in the interview process, I think it’s very easy to read between the lines. And if you need to talk about something like that, you don’t need to explain it fully in an application.

If you used assault or whatever language you want to use, most people will understand what you’re talking about and go, okay, they get it.

When students start to get a little bit too far into details is when they’re talking about that stuff makes people uncomfortable.

If you think about it from the admissions committee’s point of view and their internal reaction is they don’t want to read anymore, that’s exactly the opposite of what you want to do with your application. You want them to read and take it in.

And so just make sure that whatever you need to talk about, you’re not making the other person feel uncomfortable.

“Just make sure that you're not going a little bit too far making that person uncomfortable in a way that makes them want to push your application away because it's uncomfortable for them.”Click To Tweet

[23:57] Doing Mock Interviews

You should do some mock interviews. Get some feedback from your pre-health office advisors. Hopefully, they have some good mock interview services for you.

You do mock interviews because you need to say your answers out loud. Practicing it in your head will make you sound like a rock star. And then you say it, and the interviewer’s like, what the heck did you just say? So sometimes things may not come out of your mouth as you expected.

'Practice and do mock interviews. You don’t need to do a million of them. You just need some.'Click To Tweet

Number one, think about how the words are coming out of your mouth. Number two, hopefully, they’ll record you in the videos. Then you can watch yourself and see if you have any weird ticks or something that you’re like always playing with your ear or your hair or whatever.

Even though it’s a fake environment, your body’s still afraid. And so try to see how sweaty you can get or how tense your voice box gets. Find out how you sound so that you can understand those things. Be prepared with tissues to wipe the sweat pouring off your forehead.

Just try to relax as much as possible. It’s okay to sweat. We’re humans, we sweat when we’re nervous. Just don’t let the sweat pour down and just completely drench you and just be prepared with a tissue.

[25:58] How to Answer a Question You’re Unsure About

When you’re asked a question that you’re unsure about like a political question, perhaps, that depends.

Be open and honest. If you don’t know the answer to it then say you don’t know. What you don’t want to do is to fake it because it’s so easy for the interviewer to know that the student has no clue what they’re talking about.

“Think about you taking care of their loved ones in the hospital. You don't want your doctor faking it.”Click To Tweet

If it’s something potentially from a moral or ethical standpoint, you should have opinions.

A lot of students get caught up with the right answer. And during the interview process, it’s not about the right answer. It’s about your thought process.

We all have different experiences growing up. Your parents are different, your aunts and uncles are different, your siblings are different. And so you look at life and interpret life differently than everyone else.

During the interview process when you’re asked questions, most of the time you don’t have to know anything. You don’t have to have the right answer. You just have to have your thoughts and beliefs.

[27:36] What Counts as Clinical Experience

You may volunteer at an assisted living facility, but if all you’re doing is is administrative work, it’s not clinical experience. I’ve had students who are like janitors in a hospital, put on their application clinical experience or like I’m in a hospital. That’s not clinical experience.

“If you're interacting with patients in even a smidge of a clinical way, then I would label it clinical experience.”Click To Tweet

Let me give you an example of clinical experience. It’s not clinical experience interacting with patients in an emergency room.

If you’ve ever been to an ER, usually what happens is you get taken back to a room and then someone comes to you and registers you into the hospital system. They get over your information, they get your insurance card, they get your credit card number, and they get your social security number.

Yes, you’re interacting with the patient but that’s not clinical experience. That’s administration. Yes, you’re close enough to smell the patient, which is a fun way of saying close enough like interacting with the patients. But it’s not clinical experience.

You just have to use your judgment, what you’re doing in that setting or situation to determine if it’s clinical or not.

[29:29] How to Prepare for the Interview

Go to your advising office or pre-health office. Hopefully, they offer mock interviews. One of the biggest mistakes that students make when they’re doing mock interviews when they’re preparing for the interviews is over-preparing.

Some students sell themselves and go in with an agenda. If you don’t do any of that, but you over-prepare, then you’re just running off of a script in your head to the point that you’ve memorized it. And that’s just bad.

“Going back to the core of what the interview is – it’s a conversation not a monologue.”Click To Tweet

Don’t over-prepare. Don’t script out your answers. The best way to prepare is to bullet point those things and then let your brain fill in the rest on interview day. Don’t memorize it.

[31:32] Can Shadowing Count as Clinical Experience

Sometimes shadowing in its truest form is super passive. Like you’re not doing anything. You’re bored out of your mind. Sometimes, you’d feel like you don’t want to do it anymore but you have to.

Some physicians, however, will let you interact with patients. They get to ask questions and take vitals.

If you’re in that situation, just estimate how much time is clinical and how much time is shadowing.

You can also put it as two separate entries on your application. If there’s any significant time, then you can split up one experience into two things.

Another good example is if you’re a clinical research coordinator. This is a really good job for students if you’re helping run research and you’re interacting with patients and organizing all of their care and all this stuff.

But a lot of times, the clinical research coordinators will hang out with you in the doctor’s office while the doctor is seeing you. As soon as the doctor’s done doing that, you’re going to take the patient somewhere else for other testing or whatever. So your clinical research coordinator job is a ton of shadowing as well.

[32:47] Sending Thank You Notes

Thank you notes are something you should still be doing. A lot of medical schools will tell you like it’s not going to make a difference. Don’t send them if the school tells you not to send them. If you send them after the school tells you not to send them, then you just don’t follow directions.

Even if the school says, they accept notes but they don’t matter, still send them. It’s just old-school courteous. It shows that you care and it’s another contact point, another touch point.

Make them as personal as possible to say you loved your conversation about xyz and you look forward to hearing from the school soon. Then send them as soon as possible.

“Usually email is fine. Written letters are okay if the school is okay with you sending written letters as well.”Click To Tweet

[33:37] How to Consistency as a Nontrad

The consistency can’t start until you start to realize that this is what you want. So it’s not an issue. It’s part of your story.

And in your personal statement, it’ll likely reflect that there was obviously some change from “here’s what I thought I was going to do to” and “here’s why I want to be a doctor.”

“That's the whole goal of the personal statement is why do I want to be a doctor?”Click To Tweet

Your personal statement should tell that story. Usually, depending on where you’re switching from, if you were like a liberal arts major, history major, whatever, and all of a sudden you start taking all of these science classes junior year. This paints a picture of you realizing that you’re on a different path and so everything will point to it.

And, and if the question comes up, you can simply say you didn’t know you wanted to be a doctor so you weren’t shadowing. And people don’t just go hang out at the hospital for fun.

At some point, obviously, you are leading one life and something changed. The question isn’t specifically for nontraditional students or even for students changing majors. If you’re switching careers, it’s not really about why not being a nurse? Why not being a lawyer, whatever it is. But it’s why medicine and the question will come up probably why now.

[35:30] AMSA PreMedFest Conference

If you’re able to, please join the AMSA PreMedFest Conference in April in D.C. It’s their big annual convention. It’s mostly focused on medical students.

I’ve talked actually talked to AMSA about the fact that there’s this huge convention where a lot of premed students go, but most of the focus is on medical students, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it’s worth checking it out.