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Imperial College London Medicine Interview Questions

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Key Statistics
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Imperial College London Medicine Interview Format

For the 2023 – 24 admission year, the MMIs have been split in two parts:

One online-asynchronous section: this will take part in January 2023.  Here you will record your answers to set questions. 

One face-to-face part: this will happen on an online platform in February/March 2023. Here there will be
 7 stations of 5 minutes each, with 1 minute between stations where you will be able to read a brief about the next station and what it will assess.  Each station will assess one core element of your fitness or ability to practise Medicine. 

Historical Interview Information

Imperial College London has previously held traditional panel interviews. However, from 2019 onwards, Imperial College London decided to adopt multiple mini interviews, lasting a total of approximately 45 minutes.

Imperial interviews evaluated each candidate on the following criteria, which you should bear in mind for today’s interviews too:

  • Motivation and realistic approach to medicine as a career
  • Capacity to deal with stressful situations
  • Evidence of commitment to the values of the NHS constitution
  • Evidence of working as both a leader and a team member
  • Ability to multitask
  • Likely contribution to university life
  • Communication skills and maturity of character

Imperial College London Medicine Key Application & Interview Statistics

Overall Success Rate (Total Applicants : Total Spaces)
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Percentage of Candidates Interviewed
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Before the Interview

  • Review your personal statement and the key points from your BMAT essay; ensure that you know them inside out and have annotated them thoroughly. For aspects of your BMAT essay which you felt were lacking, consider how to develop or clarify those points further. 
  • Research the course content and what the next six years of study will involve. Ensure that you also have an awareness of the different paths within the medical profession following medical school.
  • Read up on any research that Imperial College School of Medicine has participated in recently.
  • Keep up-to-date on any issues that the NHS are facing, medical advances and health topics currently in the news, in particular, those which may be considered controversial. 
  • Research the types of clubs and groups that Imperial College has, that you would like to join. Note that Imperial College Student Union has more clubs and societies than any other UK university.
  • Ensure that you have adequate medical work experience and are able to reflect on this.
  • Reread any books or papers that you have mentioned in your personal statement and try to follow up on any work that has been done on the topic since. This will make it easier to discuss should the topic be raised in the interview.

Interview Focal Points

  • Generally, the questions that the panel have asked have had a very broad scope. This is to allow each candidate to tailor it to their situation/personal experiences. It is recommended that you use specific examples when answering these questions as this will demonstrate well thought out, genuine answers which have not been over-rehearsed.  Expect the following questions to come up during your interview:
  • Why Imperial College London? Ensure that you have some well-researched reasons such as the built-in BSc in 4th year, the STEM-centric University, patient contact from the start of the course, etc.
  • Why medicine? This may come in the form of “why not nursing?” Ensure that you have an answer which demonstrates respectfully how each career differs and why you believe that you are more suited as a doctor rather than a nurse.
  • How you will get involved in student life at Imperial College London. This question is usually from the medical student on the panel. They want to know what you will contribute to the Medical School.
  • Your work experience – not just what you did but how it influenced your decision to pursue medicine and to study at Imperial College London.
  • Questions about your leadership skills and your ability to work as part of a team, for example, “tell us about a time where you lead a team in a stressful/difficult situation? How did you deal with this?”
  • An ethics-based question, either from a particular scenario or from something you’ve recently read. The key to answering this question is to ensure that you consider both sides of the argument and refrain from making any sweeping statements. Most of the time there is no clear right or wrong answer to these questions, but are designed to examine how you think.
  • Questions based on a book or paper that you have read recently.  

Optimise Your Interview Performance

Learn the best interview strategies and practice with past interview questions & model answers.

Imperial College London Medicine Past MMI Stations & Interview Questions

Why Medicine/Imperial/Insight into Medicine

  1. When and why did you decide that you wanted to be a doctor?
  2. What would you do if you don’t get into medical school this year?
  3. What have you done to find out about medicine as a career/Who have you talked to about doing medicine and what did you learn from them?
  4. What do you think you might like best about medicine as a career?
  5. What do you feel are likely to be the worst things about being a doctor?

Character, Background and Personal Statement

  1. What do you do to relax?
  2. What skills do you have that would make you a good doctor?
  3. How do you cope in situations where there is not enough time to finish a task?
  4. We all know exams are stressful. How did you manage when you were taking your GCSEs?
  5. What do you do when you have 3 or 4 things to do that are all urgent?
  6. Have you dealt with a difficult situation?
  7. Could you tell me about a time where you lead a team in a stressful/difficult situation? How did you deal with this?
  8. I see you are captain of a team. What duties does that involve?
  9. I see you play sport/do the Duke of Ed/play in the orchestra (or similar) – why is this important to you?
  10. What contribution would you make to university life?
  11. How do you balance work and all your outside activities?
  12. I see you were Director/Manager in your Young Enterprise company. How did you go about performing this role?
  13. How do you feel about sharing work with others?
  14. What are your strengths/weaknesses?
  15. How do you deal with conflict?

Work Experience

  1. When you visited a hospital, what did you see that caused you to think about the challenging aspects of a medical career?
  2. What difference did your work experience make to you?
  3. Tell me about a patient who interested you whom you met during your work experience

Attributes of a Good Doctor

  1. What do you feel makes a good doctor?

NHS/Medical Topics

  1. How should doctors tackle the problem of obesity on a national level?   
  2. If you were the Secretary of State for health, what changes would you make?

Ethical Dilemmas

  1. If you had £100,000 to spend, would you give it to a three-year-old needing a heart transplant or 100 older patients needing hip replacements?
  2. In a scenario where your schedule is fully packed, and yet you need to see more patients, what would you do?
  3. If the parents of your patient (who is a child) denied treatment of radiotherapy for that child, what would you do to convince them otherwise?
  4. With the current organ shortage in the United Kingdom, should we legalise the sale of organs?
  5. Is human cloning acceptable under any circumstance?
  6. Can a doctor withhold information about a patient who has broken the law?

Medicine Interview Mark Schemes

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