For blog participant, Anonymous, I appreciate your input as to what may or may not work during an interview. However, unless I’ve misunderstood something, I must admit that you sound a little discouraging when you say you would straight out “laugh”, “gag”, and/or “write off immediately [the applicant]” if you were to hear one more potential medical student telling you how they developed compassion or was compassionate in some way. It seems from your comments that you are experienced with interviewing medical students; I just wanted to add that I’m pretty sure at least a handful of them who tell you about their compassion sincerely mean it. Rather than immediately scoffing, I would suggest that you first consider the applicant’s words and then determine whether or not the he/she may be eligible for your school. I hope medical school admissions don’t all scoff at interviewees; I would feel demeaned by the school, to be honest, and not be attracted to an environment that harbors an ego against students.

Nonetheless, thank you for helping me realize what admissions might be like. Humans are humans.

I have a specific interview question which builds upon your article. If an interviewer asks how I prepared for the interview, is it a wise decision to devulge how much effort I had actually put into it or should I “sand bag” (not lie!) and make it look more off-the-cuff?

Thanks!
Ben

Very well said. Most everybody here had said it already. The making of a good physician starts when you’re just a we bit old, when you’re just learning how to care for the world around you. The interviewers more often than not, want to see if you and their institution would be a good match. They might also looking for folks that will compliment that year’s incoming freshmen. Giving them a road map to walk through is brilliant because it demonstrates forethought. The type of organization tool essential for a future of lifelong learning. Intelligence however, when not tempered with Compassion can be very dangerous, and they realize this. Allowing them to step inside your head to see your touchy-feely warmnfuzzies allows them the opportunity to see and hopefully appreciate (to a limited extent)what kind person you are. There is just so little time with too much to say. We have to make the most of our words. It is a little more difficult in this regard for us non-traditional students. The hardest part for us would be deciding what impacted us the most in our lives, ie. Finding my faith vs. cutting my own child’s umbilical or saving someone’s life in a helicopter at my job…who knows? The point is, most of us going through the process later in life have been students of medicine long before we became medical students. Hopefully they’ll get it;-)

I don’t fully agree. While the interview is your time to convince somebody that you would make a good doctor, I don’t think a good interviewee is what makes a good doctor, or even somebody who is a great conversationalist. Good doctors listen to their patients and use their knowledge to help them improve their health. Being able to chat with them is helpful, but is there really much time to talk about yourself? It would be more accurate to say that doctors should be good interviewers.