Monash University Medicine Interview Questions

General/Personal Statement Station
This station explores evidence of empathy, your motivation to study medicine, the depth and breadth of your interests (achievements in specific fields), your relevant work experience, values and outside interests.  Questions at this station may include:

• Why do you want to study medicine?
• Why would you like to study at Monash University?
• What do you bring to Monash in terms of student life and participation?
• What happens if you don’t like life at Monash?
• What happens if you run into difficulty?
• What are your plans if you don’t get into Monash?

 Motivation and Insight into Medicine

• What do you think will be your greatest challenge in completing medical school or learning how to be a doctor?
• In your view, what is the most pressing problem facing medicine today?
• What you can do to be a good doctor?
• Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
• What qualities should a good doctor have? Provide justification and examples
• What do you regard as positive and negative aspects of the medical profession? Give examples where possible.
• What are the barriers to health care for people living in isolation/migrants?
• What is the role of research in medicine? Provide examples of medical research and its impact
• How can personal beliefs affect the care of patients?
• What are the attributes of a good doctor?
• What exposure have you had to the medical profession?
• What do you think you will like most about medicine?
• What do you think you will like least about medicine?
• List three issues that confront medicine today. Of the three, which is the most important and why?
• List several qualities that you feel are the most important to being a good medical student.
• What most recent advances in medicine have occurred that you believe will have the greatest impact on how you will practice medicine?
• What kinds of experiences have you had in the medical field?

Ethical Dilemmas

• You’re a medical student and have noticed that your “clinical” professor has been appearing to class the past few times smelling of alcohol. What do you do? After confronting her, she says it was just that one time (she had lunch with a friend) and she would not do it again. But several days later, she appears in class smelling of alcohol again. What action would you now take?
• A man has been responsible for taking care of his wife who is in a vegetative state for six years after a car accident. She can breathe on her own but that is the extent of her abilities. He requests that her feeding tube is removed. As her physician, what action would you take in this scenario? Why?
• A student is working in a clinic where the office double books aboriginal patients. The student asks their reasoning and the receptionist replies that “Those people never show up for their appointments.” How would you deal with this situation?
• You are in a class when the professor shows a video of a patient-doctor interaction. It is apparent from the film that the patient does not know she is being filmed and tells the doctor a number of personal concerns. What would be your response to this? What issues are raised with this situation?
• Mrs Jones has signed a donor card indicating that she is willing to donate her body to science without notifying her husband and son. She gets into an accident and it is determined she is brain dead. The family doctor, who is on call that afternoon, reviews the chart and determines that she would be perfect for medical students to practice the removal of organs for transplantation purposes. The doctor then talks to the family to discuss the procedure and to confirm their consent. They both oppose the procedure and refuse to allow the doctor to move forward. The doctor points out that Mrs Jones could be helping hundreds of people by educating the medical students and that technically consent has already been provided. The husband understands how beneficial the educational experience is but is too emotional to allow them to continue. The son, a medical student, refuses because he knows the bodies are not treated with dignity. If you were the doctor, how would you proceed? Why?
• You are spending your evening as a medical student in the hospital. It is late and you see a member of the staff duck into the supply closet with an empty bag and reappear in a few minutes with it appearing full. You have heard other staff members discussing that supplies are missing on a regular basis that cannot be accounted for. After observing the actions of the other staff member, what do you do?
• You are a second-year student shadowing a doctor in the O.R. Once the patient, an obese female has been given general anaesthetic and the procedure is underway the doctors start to make comments about her weight and call her names that you find inappropriate but most of all unprofessional. Do you talk to the doctor about his comments or do you keep your opinion to yourself? Why?
• You are working on a group project with 5 other students. One of the students doesn’t show up for meetings or if they do show up – they are late and leave early. They have put no effort into the group project but show up on the day of the presentation and try to take credit for the project. What do you do in this situation?
• You are at a bus stop in front of a cafe when you notice a woman pushing a pram, carrying a child, and holding onto the hand of another child. Two more children are running around the bus stop making a ruckus. She loses her temper and smacks one of them. What do you do? Would your decision change if you knew she isn’t the child’s parent?
• Discuss a controversial area of medicine; what view best represents yours and why?

Prioritisation Tasks
Ensure that you utilise the BlackStone Tutors 5 Step Approach to Prioritisation Tasks, when approaching questions MMI Prioritisation Tasks:

• You have two patients requiring a heart transplant, both equally suited to the organ which has become available. Patient 1 is a 25-year-old man who smokes 3 packets of cigarettes a day. Patient 2 is a 50-year-old woman who has always looked after her body, has three children in their late teens/early twenties and husband. Both patients are in urgent need of a transplant and will subsequently die if they do not get one. Who would you choose to give the organ donation to?
• Two patients need a liver transplant, but there is only one liver available at the time. Tell the interviewer how you would decide between:
  a) A 64-year old retired politician who happens to be an alcoholic, or
  b) A 26-year old mother of three who is reliant on state welfare support.
• You are part of a committee to decide where the money for health care in Geelong is spent. It is your turn to inform the committee of your opinion on what you think is the single most important area requiring funding. What is your response?
• For additional MMI Prioritisation Tasks with Model Answers, review the Online MMI Question Bank.

Medical/Science Topics

• You head out bushwalking with a friend and your brother. You have only been bushwalking once before, and this would be your younger brother’s first time out in the bush. After wandering off the path for 30 minutes, your friend falls and breaks her leg. You are lost. No one knows you have gone bushwalking. What do you do? What would you bring with you if you were going bushwalking?
• You are the owner of a famous restaurant in New York, selling cheesecake and cannoli. One day, the government issues a policy, restricting the amount of fat in food served in restaurants. This directly affects your signature dishes. What action would you take?

Communication Stations
Review BlackStone Tutors ‘The 7 Stages of MMI Communication Stations’ to learn how to manage communication stations effectively. Questions included in this station may be similar to the following:

• You’re part of a school trip to New Zealand and your group ends up sharing the one and only available room in the entire town. One of the girls in the group has personal issues about sharing a room with the opposite gender. How do you resolve this issue? Later, her father calls to ask about the situation.
• You watch a movie with the lead actor smoking several times during the movie. When you come out of the theatre, your friends have a debate on whether smoking should be censored in movies. Discuss your thoughts with one of your friends.
• Your grandmother is living alone and has recently been in poor health. Your mother wants her to move into an assisted living community (i.e., old folks’ home). Your grandmother wants to live in the home she was raised in and has spent her entire life in. Discuss the matter further with your grandmother.