Next year's interview

[lingrad]

Hello fellow waitlistees (won't be able to call ourselves that for much longer, I suspect).

 

Next year I'd rather get in, so I'd like to start a thread with posing the following question: With respect to the interview, where do you think things went sour along the way?

 

For me, I didn't have my experiences catalogued away in my brain well enough. When asked some of the typical questions I really had no idea what experience of mine would fit the mold best. I think sitting down and organizing your experiences and defining characteristics helps you to articulate these things when it really comes down to the wire.

 

I perceive another problem with my practice interviews at my old Uni, and although they helped I was caught off-guard because I had them immediately before my MMI's at UBC, and the questions were ENTIRELY different between the two. If I had to do it again, I would get together with applicant/med school friends and go through MMI questions prior to MMI, and do the "traditional interview practice" with career services before the UWO interview.

 

Anyway, I'm interested in what other people have to say about this and I imagine those in my boat would also like to, well, get in next year as well. Post away!

[supafield]

Heard from a friend of a friend that UWO may be trying out MMI this year..... no sources to back that up however.... just something passed down the grape vine.

[Alastriss]

The UWO questions were totally different than Queen's and I hadn't prepared that well. It seems that they ask a lot of social and politically based questions so we need to learn to integrate personal experiences to make those of us who have good ECs look unique. Also keep in mind that it is a close file interview. If you don't tell them what you have done even if you have done alot, you are no better than the kid who has no ECs and got that interview solely based on marks.

 

I would also interview earlier in the day, like 9 am. Even before I walked in (like 5-10 minutes), one of my interviewers looked irritated to the point he would torture a kitten.

[classA]

Few pointers that I found helped me out with the Western Interview.

 

1. I think being compared to one person is better then being compared to 3 people or no people. Hence the second time slot in the morning I think is the best call (just my opinion).

 

2. Practice the obvious questions. Westerns going to ask you two questions for sure. Know them very well. Instead of memorizing a specific answer to the questions, memorize key points you want to get across. This way it will not sound rehearsed but you will still get your key points across. But practice with someone with this strategy so you can watch time and be able to flow from point to point. Also inject things/EC's during these questions. Very key I think. Since I knew the file was closed I prepared by tellling my age, place of birth, current residents, my current activities, my major volunteer activity, breif adjectives like caring, humours etc, backed by examples to show your charactor, what I value and what I do in my spare time (hobby) (2-3mins max).

 

3. Write down catagories that you think would come up in the interview and have examples (plural) for each one. This might be annoying or bug you but ask your family about times you where in conflict, ways to improve yourself etc. You would be suprised how helpful this can be!! I used a few situations in my western interview that my parents mentioned!

 

4. They are looking for what makes you fit into a medical career. Think truely and hard about what it is to be a doctor and write down the qualities that makes a great doctor. Think of examples from your life where you have shown this quality. That helped me greatly during the interview. Thinking of examples on the spot is very difficult. Write them down and know them. Inject these whenever you can during the interview (make sure at the right time though).

 

5. Do not talk while your thinking. Do not jump into a question. You have to think clear and fast but just remember if you start talking and are just beating around the bush while your thinking to mask that you do not know what to say; it will hurt you. You will learn this if you practice. Mid-way through the question you loose your direction pause and re-align. Its way better then talking in circles or repeating yourself.

 

6. Practice. Med students and others are great but you can practice with anyone. I did 3 mock interviews with my student development centre and they where okay. I did some with friends and the feed back is 100% better. They will tell you your going to fast, your rambling etc becuase they know you. Point 5 is what you will learn from practice. Another key is practice with the same person because they can tell you if your improving or not.

[hulkrules]

Pretty much...anything they ask...be able to back it up with an experience

 

The way I saw the questions follow was based on their curriculum. Look at the goals of their curriculum and there are 7 areas they want their graduates to be proficient in (doctors as people, as stewarts, etc...) there's one question testing each area.

[hulkrules]

also keep in mind that they are still doing calls

Windsor is not full yet...and this school will be incredible

[daryn]

Few pointers that I found helped me out with the Western Interview.

 

1. I think being compared to one person is better then being compared to 3 people or no people. Hence the second time slot in the morning I think is the best call (just my opinion).

 

I kind of agree with this. Perhaps it is a way to semi justify what happened. I went to three interviews this year, two were the first one in the morning and one was (I think) right after lunch. I got accepted to the last one and not the first two. Go figure.

[hulkrules]

do keep in mind that there are likely check and balances in place aiming to prevent "time of the day" luck such as outliar scores. The "comparison" to other people can work both ways.

[redribbon]

Are you allowed to choose what time you want to interview, or do they randomnly assign you one?

[Alastriss]

do keep in mind that there are likely check and balances in place aiming to prevent "time of the day" luck such as outliar scores. The "comparison" to other people can work both ways.

 

Nah, only UBC does this, although it is an excellent idea, Hulkrules. I talked to someone who has been on the ad comm at queen's and said for at least queen's that there are no such measures. He also told me that the first slot is usually the best. You set the bar high for others, and the interviewers are fresh and ready to go.

[thecoolest47]

I went last, and I still got in

[mcpherv]

I went last, and I still got in

 

Yeah, me too.

[ploughboy]

For what it's worth, I filled out my applicant evaluation sheets after each interview. I reviewed them at the end of the day, but didn't make any substantial changes. I can't speak for everybody, of course.

[Alastriss]

No one said we are blaming the time of day, but just from what I heard from an ad comm member its better to go first. Not all interviewees can try and maintain objectivity throughout the day, and not all of them can have the endurance to interview for long periods of time. I personally felt that when I went for an earlier slot, my interviewers had a lot of energy than when I went for a later slot. Its not much to go on but hey why not.

 

Im not sure I get you ploughboy? what does that sheet contain? I thought we had to hand it in?

[mcpherv]

No one said we are blaming the time of day, but just from what I heard from an ad comm member its better to go first. Not all interviewees can try and maintain objectivity throughout the day, and not all of them can have the endurance to interview for long periods of time. I personally felt that when I went for an earlier slot, my interviewers had a lot of energy than when I went for a later slot. Its not much to go on but hey why not.

 

Im not sure I get you ploughboy? what does that sheet contain? I thought we had to hand it in?

 

I don't think anyone was implying that they thought you were blaming the time of day. I agree that its a risk - the interviewers may be tired at the end of the day, and you may be overshadowed by the previous interviewees of the day. That said, if you can pull off a very good interview, then you could seperate yourself from the pack by virtue of the fact that they realize that you were at the top of the heap. Dunno - I guess it depends on what you want to do.

[ploughboy]

Im not sure I get you ploughboy? what does that sheet contain? I thought we had to hand it in?

 

Sorry, I'll clarify. There are four interviews each day, and each interviewer has to fill out evaluation sheets on each candidate. I filled out mine immediately after each interview concluded.

 

Speaking solely for myself, as an interviewer I don't think my assessment of each individual candidate was swayed much by the candidates before and after. We were instructed to judge each candidate on his/her own merits, and as far as I could tell about my own behaviour I didn't consciously compare candidate #3 to what candidate #1 had said earlier. I also didn't go back and substantially change my assessment of earlier candidates based on later interviews. Other interviewers might be different, however. Or I could have unconscious biases creeping in that I'm not aware of.

 

If you're a morning person, sign up for a morning interview. If you're an afternoon person, go in the afternoon.

[svp2k5]

I was one of the interviewers this year. A couple of things seemed to stand out for good applicants vs mediocre or bad applicants.

 

The first and most important thing is to really have a clear approach to answering why you want to be a doctor and why western. This isn't necessarily the best time to try to sell your experiences.

 

Answering "why you want to be a doctor?" with something like: " I want to be a doctor because when i was volunteering at the hospital i really enjoyed helping patients." is a terrible answer. I had several people say something similar. I would assume that one of the reasons for volunteering at the hospital was because you were interested in healthcare to begin with.

 

A more general, insightful answer is much more impressive. Discussing the profession as a profession (not just to "help people") could be effective. You can talk about the merits of being able to sit up a practice in virtually any location. Other points could be about the wide variety of specialties available, working in a multidisciplinary team and the option of many international experiences (if thats what interests you). The generic answer of "I want to help people" is just not believable as a primary reason to go into medicine. Think about what the job actually entails and not just the end result.

 

If you really want to throw in some points about your EC's, you can mention them at the end. Saying that you have been interested in medicine for a long time, and that you wanted some exposure to the realities of the hospital/clinic/etc, and that has solidified your decision. Sometimes it appears that people have no idea what they are getting themselves into, in terms of the commitment. Being aware of the fact that its going to be up to 10 years between the interview and actually setting up a practice, and discussing why its worth it would be a good tactic.

 

Another way to really stand out is to be up to date on some of the health care issues in canada. Being able to articulate the problems, their causes and perhaps some solutions would put you in the upper tier of the applicants. The best approach to this would be reviewing articles in the globe and mail/toronto star or other national newspaper for the previous couple of months. Obviously you can't read everything about it, but the major problems are usually discussed frequently (often with editorials/letters to the editor).

 

Off the top of my head, some topics to read about would be about long term care facilities for the elderly, access to health care in smaller centers, privatization vs. a public system, etc.

 

When I went through for my interview I didn't really think about selling myself through my EC (as I didn't have a ton), but being able to appear relaxed, confident (not arrogant) and articulate can really go a long way. And at the end of the day, try to be honest. If you want to go into medicine for the money, thats fine (as long as you can articulate it in a way that shows you still have a heart).