What do medical schools ask when they contact your references?

[Cerebrate]

If a medical school processed my application and then went on to contact my references listed in my application, for example

 

1. Academic Reference (i.e. your prof)
   
2. Your workplace supervisor
   
3. Your extracurricular activity supervisor
   

 

What questions would they ask those people? I had a lot of luck finding mock interview questions for prospective students, but I wanted to know what they ask the references of the prospective student?

 

Is it usually a generic question (e.x. would you recommend X to be future doctor? Does he handle stress well?) , or do they regurgitate certain specific interview questions just to see my boss' opinion on how I would react vs how I think I would react?

 

TL DR; What do medical schools ask when they contact your references?

[Renoir]

My experience is with Alberta schools.

 

Surprisingly, they asked VERY specific questions like "how many hours did John spend at your company X?", "How many years and months have you known John?", "How did John assist you with report/research X?"

 

I think that there is not much time to evaluate the candidate based on telephone conversations, so it is more likely a very specific check for factual details, possibly also to suss out fake references.