Books for interview preparation

[Snowman]

Hi all,

 

Could someone please recommend a few books that can help us prepare for the interviews?

 

It would be great if current medical students could point out how a particular book is helpful. Thank you very much.

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

One book that I found indispensible for ethics questions was "Doing Right" by Hebert.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Madz25]

I agree with Kirsteen - "Doing Right" was really helpful in understanding ethical issues and how to go about thinking about them/answering them.

 

Other than that, I found doing mock interviews (with current med students, non-med students, anyone willing to listen, the mirror) helped a lot.

[blinknoodle]

The things that helped me prepare the most:

 

1. My application. If it was good enough to get yourself an interview, make sure you know your own application backwards and forwards. Nothing worse then answering a "Tell me about xx activity" with a "???".

 

2. Staying up to date with the health care news. Read the newspaper, subscribe to a list-serve, etc to find out what is important to those in health care today.

 

3. Thinking about how you'd react to certain ethical dilemmas. Doing Right is a good book. The CMAJ also had a collection of articles relating to clinical ethics.

 

4. This forum, the old archives are a tremendous help, having a look at the many perspectives people bring to a problem.

 

5. Practice! Practice interviews with your friends, family, whoever and if your school offers interview counselling, you could try that out (I found it useful to be video taped).

[Snowman]

Thank you very much for the advice, Kirsteen, Madz25 and blinknoodle. I will check out "Doing Right" and find someone to do mock interviews with me.

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Good call on the CMAJ archive of medical ethics articles. They're still there and I referenced them recently for something else I was doing. I'd highly recommend giving them a read after having read about the basic principles of ethics in "Doing Right". They provide a great way to test your knowledge and application of those principles, and if you can tackle them then you should be able to tackle any medical school admissions question relating to ethics.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Apollo]

Hey Kirsteen,

 

Would you recommend that we perform a general search on the CMAJ website using the term "ethics", then read the relevant journals? Is there a more selective approach or do should we just browse through the 1000 or so matching hits?

 

Thanks for the advice

 

Apollo

[blinknoodle]

I was referring to CMAJ's Bioethics for Clinicians series: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/collection/bioethics_for_clinicians_series

 

The series of articles has also been compiled into a book:

Bioethics at the Bedside (CMA link)

 

It wouldn't be a bad idea to read other articles that piqued your interest, though.

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

Thanks for the link! I'll be sure to have a look at that series- I might actually learn something about bioethics, unlike our bioethics lectures during medical school, which were dominated by the viewpoints of that portion of our class that liked nothing more than the sound of their own voice, no matter how fundamentally flawed their reasoning or justification was. Nausea inducing at the best of times!

[Kirsteen]

Hey there,

 

Yep, that was exactly the series that I'd thought of. Thanks for posting the link. It's a fabulous series.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[EMD]

Hey,

 

Thanks for the link! I'll be sure to have a look at that series- I might actually learn something about bioethics, unlike our bioethics lectures during medical school, which were dominated by the viewpoints of that portion of our class that liked nothing more than the sound of their own voice, no matter how fundamentally flawed their reasoning or justification was. Nausea inducing at the best of times!

Did they at least pass-out some Stemetil?

 

Our lectures were pretty good... no complaints. Herbert himself gave a few of 'em.

 

As for books... I made a list in this thread... reproduced/adapted for this thread below:

• Interviewing/communications skills. Some people are naturals when it comes to self-promotion... other aren't. Self-promotion & communication can be learned. Emotional Intelligence by D. Goleman-- I think is a good read:

http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Matter-More-Than/dp/0553375067

• Any "how to ace-an-interview-book" (e.g.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Interview-S/dp/0099406187 ) is probably useful.

• Hebert's book is top notch - Doing Right A Practical Guide to Ethics for Medical Trainees and Physicians -

http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780195411041 Most consider it the best Canadian medical ethics book out there. Aside from that... I think it is an interesting read.

• Knowing your health care issues. CP Shah's book - Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Canada, 5th Edition (

http://www.us.elsevierhealth.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780920513934 ) is good for this... and it is great for insomnia too. This book is what you have to read in first year U of T meds.

• You may want to skim the feel-good campaign from the Ontario Medical Association --

it can be found here.

• I think the

Romanow comission is a good read... but it is pretty long. If you want the more conservative tilt-- there is the Report of the Premier's Advisory Council on Health (Alberta) -- aka Mazankowski report.

[p0tus]

Hey guys,

 

Here are two good websites that I used to prepare myself for Canadian Health care related issues for interviews last year.

 

A great site providing information about the health care system and the various studies undertaken to improve it:

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/medicare/romanow/part_2/index.html

 

A similar one made by the CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/healthcare/

 

Hope this helps!