University of Chicago Pritzker Medicine Interview Questions

​Motivation and Insight into Medicine

• What are the most important three qualities for you when selecting a medical school?
• Do you see yourself in academic medicine or primary care medicine?
• What has inspired you to medicine?
• Why did you want to be physician specifically and not practicing other medical professions like a nurse practitioner or physician assistant?
• What is your favorite shadowing or patient interaction experience? And what did you learn from it?
• Why are you interested in Pritzker?
• How have you been prepared for the mental and emotional stresses of medical school?
• What research projects have you worked on in your undergrad?
• What makes a good doctor?
• How do the university goals match with your own goals?
• In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing the healthcare industry?
• What specialty are you most interested in pursuing?
• What makes University of Chicago different from other schools? And what do you like about the other schools you applied to?
• With all the research you have done, why did you choose MD not MD/PhD program?
• How would your X experience help you be a good physician?
• What is your plan if you don’t go to medical school this year?
• How can you be sure that you want to be a doctor?
• In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good physician? How have you modeled each of those?
• What do you expect Pritzker to offer you?
• Do you have a medical role model?
• How do you plan to finance your medical education?
• What qualities do you look for in your 103 other classmates if you join the school?
• What was it like learning to communicate with patients you interacted with in one of your activities?
• How would you deal with a patient who has negative traits you dislike?
• If you are granted ten million dollars and all the equipment you want, what kind of experiment will you design?
• What do you think of the medicare bill going through the Senate today?
• What do you think must be done to fix the uninsured/underinsured problem?
• How do you see the future of medicine?

 
Ethical Dilemmas

• If a friend of yours cheated to get into medical school, how would you respond to that?
• What will you do if you find your classmate has been lying about some lab results and data during one of your rotations?
• In your opinion, what is the biggest ethical problem in medicine facing the United States today?
• How would you handle a couple who asks you to genetically alter their next child to have blonde hair, blue eyes, and be a male?
• How would you react to a situation where you believed a doctor acted unethically?
• If a man looking panicked runs into your house, and then he runs out followed by another man walking in with a knife and saying “where is that guy? I am going to kill him.” What do you tell him?
• How would you respond if the hospital you worked for had severe budget cuts and had to turn away non-emergency patients without adequate insurance?
• What do you think about euthanasia?
• What do you think about abortion?
• Do you think it is ethical to keep a brain-dead woman alive on life support until she delivers her baby?

 
Role Play Scenarios

• If a patient came in with chronic pain, but you found nothing wrong with them, would you prescribe them painkillers?
• How would you deal with a 14-year old 2nd time heart transplant candidate who hadn’t followed the prescribed treatment the 1st time and now needed another transplant?

Data Analysis

• You are in a windowless room with 3 light switches, labeled A, B, and C, each corresponding to a light bulb in an adjacent room. You may make only one trip to the other room. How can you determine the identity of the light bulbs?

 
Calculation

• What is the formula for the volume of a sphere?

 
Case/Article Reviews

• In your opinion, did University of Chicago take the right action with the Urban Health Initiative?
• Do you think pharmaceutical companies should have a cap on their prices? If so, do you think this will hinder future research?
  
  

Communication Stations​

• How would you communicate your research to a four-year-old kid?
• How will you handle a conflict with another physician/ student if you disagree about how to treat a patient?
• How would you communicate with a verbally abusive patient from different ethnicity than yours?
• What will you say to an intern who is having troubles effectively communicating with patients?
• How would you communicate with patients from the underserved communities who don’t want to be treated or are afraid to be treated?

 
Prioritisation Tasks

• How will you balance between the medical workload and life?
• If you had to get out of your burning apartment in 2 minutes, what three things would you take with you?

 
Teamwork Tasks

• Tell me about a time when you have displayed leadership skills.

 
MMI Sales Pitch Station

• What is one thing you would like me to inform the admission committee about you?
• Why should Pritzker choose you?

 
General / Personal Statements:

• What are some non-academic activities you like to do outside of school?
• Have you been to Chicago before?
• Will the high crime percentage deter you from coming here?
• If you were an organ, what would you be?
• At Chicago we work with underserved populations such as Hispanics and African Americans, have you had experience with underserved populations before?
• How did you decide to study your X undergrad major?
• Can you give me a book recommendation?
• Tell me about yourself.
• Why did you get X on your verbal section?
• How did your time at X program change you?
• What is the most challenging time you have gone through in the last 3 years?
• How would your friends describe you?
• Why did you get X grades in X class?
• What is your favorite novel?
• What have you been doing since graduation?
• Tell me more about the X experience on your application.
• Tell me about your college experience.
• What was your favorite class as an undergrad?
• What was a turning point for you in your life?
• If you could meet anyone from the past, whom would they be and why?
• If you could go anywhere right now, where and with whom would you go?
• What do you do for fun?
• What are your biggest strength and weakness points?
• Who do you go to when you need support?
• Tell me about a time you failed or a moment of regret you had.
• What would your parents say if you suddenly decided to become a manicurist?
• What does diversity mean to you?
• How do you define empathy?
• What activities are you still involved in?
• What has been your greatest accomplishment so far?
• How do you define maturity?
• What biases do you have?