Mock 23: Pretend you are the doctor and I am your patient

[Guest G8M8T]

Could any of the moderators please help us get started? Thank you.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Sorry, I can't/won't help you here (be thankful - I'm in the middle of studying for a genitourinary block exam so you probably wouldn't like the case I'd come up with right now. :b )

 

Don't worry about being asked to come up with a diagnosis or present any medical knowledge (your interviewing to get into, not out of, medical school.)

 

I will say this, though: one of my friends who interviewed last year mentioned that one of the key things interviewers are asked to think of is whether they could see the interviewee interviewing them as a doctor. So I think this is a great direction to go in. . .

[Guest Ian Wong]

Hmm. This one is very difficult to do unless you're actually in the same room as the other person, because so much of your communication is via non-verbal cues.

 

You may want to try role-playing this one out with a good friend, and see just how difficult it can be. Some scenarios might include: counselling regarding lifestyle changes (ie. quitting smoking, losing weight, regular exercise) in someone who really doesn't want to change old habits or breaking bad news (ie. telling someone they have cancer, HIV).

 

Anyway, it's really tough to do, and can be very intense.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 4

[Guest peachy]

Is this a common question? Have people who have previously been interviewed by OMSAS schools had to face this question? It sounds extremely difficult, given the stress of an interview combined with the "fakeness" of the situation.

[Guest aneliz]

I interviewed at UofT and UWO last year and didn't face this question at either...I wouldn't worry about it. Basically it comes down to this: you can prepare as much as humanly possible and they are still going to be able to throw at least one question at you that you had never even dreamt of them asking that will catch you completely off guard and leave you going "ummmm...." for a couple seconds while your mind races to come up with something more intelligent to say. This is guaranteed to happen regardless of how many mock interviews you have been through, how many lists of questions you have read, etc. Just remember that it will happen to every interviewee...it isn't the speed of the response that matters but the clarity and thought in the response. No matter how much you prepare for an interview, you will always come out with some self doubts (at least you should if you are able to reflect on your performance!)...I found that when I thought about the interview after the fact, there was always a big pile of stuff that I wished that I had talked about and didn't and an equally big pile of stuff that I did talk about and really wished that I hadn't. Don't worry - they still let me in!

 

As for how specifically to deal with these 'role play' questions...think of yourself as the patient and what you would want in a physician giving you whatever news...then find some close friends that are willing to play the 'physician' role and have them attempt to give you the news...notice what you did/didn't like about their attempt...this is the best way to get some insight into this one...basically it comes down to so many different factors (positioning, body language, eye contact, tone of voice, volume, etc) that we really can't help you with this one on the forum....you need some friends to practice with!

 

If you need a practice scenario, how about this one:

 

An elderly man comes in complaining about headaches and worrying that he has a brain tumour....what would you do?

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Hmm. . . even that question is a bit tricky and I doubt they'd ask it either. The tools to answer that question are taught (at Western, at least) in second year. . . so if someone COULD answer that question, there'd probably be some interesting questions as to why that person was applying to do first year again.

 

I think I might need to clarify what I said above about this being an excellent question/scenario. There is NO way they'd ask this specific question during an interview. On the other hand, I think this does bring up the interesting point that many interviewers in fact, from the interview, try to picture whether the candidate in question is someone they would want interviewing them about a medical problem - do they seem trustworthy? Reliable? Knowledgeable? Are they someone I would be willing to confide embarassing personal secrets to?

 

I think that's a good thing to keep in mind during medical school interviews. It won't give you an answer to any of the questions (your knowledge, experience and personal opinions should do that) but it should give you a sense of how to compose yourself during the interview. . . which in my mind is equally as important as the specific answers you give (some/many of the questions will have no right or wrong answer!)

[Guest G8M8T]

I have received this question at McGill two years ago. I was supposed to pretend I was a family physician at a walk-in clinic. I greeted the pretend patient with "What brings you here?", found out that he had sore throat + fever and then unoriginally wrapped up with something along the lines that plenty of rest and two Tylenols should do the trick. I tried my best to give the patient as much courtesy and respect as I personally would have liked to receive. I was really surprised that he took the experience all the way to making me suggest treatments. ... ended up on the waiting list

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Hmm. . . that really surprises me! At the interviews I attended, they never asked any questions based on material covered IN med school.

 

Better luck this year!

[Guest G8M8T]

I am sure it was not my diagnosis that he was interested in the most. I think he was going more after the behavioral and/or logical aspect of such an encounter. What I was hoping to get some insight for from some of the moderators was the logical/sequential aspect of conducting a patient interview.

[Guest Ian Wong]

The same sorts of things that occur when you go to see your family doctor. ie. development of the doctor-patient relationship, development of trust, understanding the patient's concerns and addressing these, getting the patient's story regarding their presenting complaint, etc.

 

Or, distilled down: finding out why they came in, what they're worried about, and counselling them on what can be done about it, and the risks thereof. In this kind of scenario, just think about what you'd like to receive as a patient (ie. if you were concerned enough to take time off work to drive into a walk-in clinic), what kind of things would you want the physician to address for you? Thinking about how a role-model (ie. your family doctor) might handle it can help.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 4

[Guest mtws]

Does anyone know why I can't edit my misspelled posts anymore?

 

Got it! Thanks.

 

Cheers

Matt

[Guest Lisa88]

hey mtws,

u just have to login in as the identity you used to write the post, and a little link 'edit post' should appear at the end of all of your posts. You can click on it and edit away