Before the interview day
1. Why?
The most favourite question is
“ Why you wanna be a doctor?”
And the most lame answers are
“ I want to help people”
“ My mom is diagnosed with cancer, or my grandfather is died because of hepatitis”.
No. You need to find a concrete reason why you want to be a doctor. Do ask yourself “ Why I wanna be a doctor so badly?. The interviewers will not impress with any emotional engaging stories related to pain, or death. But show your enthusiasm by deliberating your passion towards medical stuff for instance or talking about your wonderful experience on hospital attachment, which would be a good topic to start with. Not to forget you already wrote “the reason/s” in your personal statement. So, he/she might as well ask you to further explain it. Be prepared.
2. Feed your mind with a lot of medical articles and recent news.
General knowledge is crucial, you should know significant diseases in Malaysia, like dengue, cholera, heart disease and do google about them. If you know them in details, that would be a bonus, but don’t create stupid answers. The interviewers might not a doctor, or people who are major in medicine ( mine was a major in Mathematics) but they know stuffs. You are in a big trouble if you think you can lie about science.
Apart from that, the MOCK interviewers are English people who are staying in Malaysia. He might as well ask about current issue in Malaysia, like BERSIH and political stuff. If you are ignorant all these while, please read about those things. Unlike locals, he won’t judge your opinion ( yes, I am being prejudice here) but he just want to make sure you are not living under the coconut shell ( I hope you get me.) Oh yeah, worldwide issues are worth-knowing, like typhoon, tsunami or earth quake, just for back up.
3. Read your Personal Statement
The last wise step before your session is read up your personal statement. If you had jot down anything regarding the activities / achievement, make sure you remember them vividly. Give the interviewer the crystal clear pictures if he asks. You might as well write your activities in a blank paper and doodles about it the night before.
During the interview session
1. Accent
The interviewer will give you a welcoming smile and introduce his/her name. During my time, he will give you a minute or two, and let you introduce yourself and your backgrounds just to unwind your mind. After that he/she will start with the questions. Take note that she/he is a foreigner and his accent is there. No matter how slow he/she talks, our minds still need some time to interpret his questions. So, if it happens that you are ‘blur’ about what the heck his question is, try this tips.
“ I am sorry sir, can you re phrase the question *smile* ?”
Instead of
“ Pardon sir, can you repeat the question *smile* ? ”
Mind you, the first one is usually works. But don’t use it too often; you might end up look like a dumb.
2. Smile.
This is crucial. A doctor is the one who has great soft skill like the ability to communicate efficiently with the patients or his/her crews and suitable BODY LANGUAGE. Be confident and smile, that’s the trick. If you are lucky, you might get Irish interviewers, which are friendly and easy going. I do feel safe talking to them as if they are my friends. But one big problem, their accents are strong. So, back to the basic, a nice plastic smile won’t hurt, right?
3. Ethical issue.
Before I forgot, you need to read about ethical issues such as abortion and cloning. He might as well put you into intense situation, where you need to abort the child or not. Or should the government approve the GMO foods for the people. Trust me, he don’t care about your stand but he cares about your reasoning. Open up your Theory Of Knowledge handbook, reasoning part is there. This is the time where he gets the chance to access your credibility as medical students. As we all know, ethical issues are tough because we cannot draw a line between what is acceptable in our culture and what is not. How about the people of different culture and religion? Do they agree with our stand? I bet you are brilliant enough to judge it yourself. Please don’t look so extremist, but well balanced is needed. You don’t have to condemn the other choices, if you have made the chosen one. Don’t worry, they won’t provoke you. That’s for sure.
4. Question
If you have any questions, you are free to ask at the end of the interview session. And don’t forget to thank him.
Hope you will succeed, and make sure you get an A. Mine was an A- J
Break a leg!
p/s I am sorry, I know I should decided to put he / she / they for the interviewers but I am too lazy to do that.
very nicely written Jemz!
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