Terrified for the MMI interviews

[everydayisahussle]

Anyone with experience, advice to help with MMIs? I only applied to UBC last year as IP, i was interviewed but got "below average" on my file and was rejected. Im pree terrified for this year's interviews, any sources/tips/recommendations/groups of people willing to help with practice?

[CaribPirate]

I'm not really experienced because I'm only a first year student but I would assume the best thing you can do is practice interviews with someone, like your peers in a study group. Since you've already been to one I would assume you have a gist of what kind of questions to expect, so you can use that to practice formulating better responses.

Hope this helps

[confusedmedstudent2022]

Practice, practice, practice. The trick to med school interviews is that you're not there to reinvent the wheel--for any given question, there's no "golden" answer they're looking for, they just want something reasonable and articulate that shows you can 1) think under pressure and 2) have given some thought into why you want to be a doctor. 

IMO, it's just one big psychological hurdle to prove that you've put in the time to become good at interviewing and that you're able to handle some stress. The good thing about MMIs is that if you tank a question (and most people feel like they do), you can just brush it off and move on. Good luck!

[Bambi]

1. Read through future_doc's pinned thread carefully, including the comments of ontariostudent.

http://forums.premed101.com/index.php?/topic/47600-mmi-casper-prep-by-popular-demand-part-i-of-ii/

 

2. In my experience, being relaxed, flexible and just yourself goes far in improving your performance! And it removes any perception of seeming to be rehearsed.

 

3. Treat the actual MMI as "a practice run", do not go into it with an overload of performance anxiety.

Those applicants who followed this simple advice ALL got into medical school in the last cycle.

 

4. Treat the examiner as if he/she is an inquisitive, intelligent 12 year old child to whom you are imparting knowledge and explaining how you got to your answer.

 

5. Lactic Folly's suggestion of videotaping yourself for feedback is excellent.

 

6. Being rambly and disorganized, as you have learned, is the kiss of death. You need to be organized, logical, build upon your answer, just as you would need to do if explaining an important aspect of recommended treatment to a patient.

 

7. Whatever you do this year, ensure you are in situations where you improve your communication skills when under pressure, be it in customer service, public speaking, interactions one on one in tutoring students and/or in volunteer activities because you need to communicate clearly for the MMI as an ethical, quick thinking problem solver under severe time constraints.

 

8. Each of us are different and so, one recipe does not fit all. I found that for me the best preparation were my cumulative life experiences where I was required to react professionally to numerous extreme situations that were out of the box and required immediate decisions to solve problems, contain or minimize difficulties for others, and therefore, the MMI was not a particularly difficult situation for me, rather I went in with the attitude to have fun. And this worked for me.

[ladybird]

There's tons of great advice on this thread already. I have a lot of experience preparing students for both MMI and panel interviews (all of the UBC and U Alberta applicants I worked with last cycle ended up securing spots at the schools). If you would like to meet with me over Zoom (totally for free) I can share with you some approaches to ethics/policy questions that can help you frame your answers in a way that is coherent, logical, and thorough. This offer also extends to anyone else who comes across this post. Send me a DM and we can set up a time to meet. In the meantime, I have lots of advice on my instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/egmedprep/

If there's anything specific you want me to address on that page that I haven't covered yet, let me know!