MMI Interview Formats

MMI-Panel-Traditional-Informal Conversational Interviews

Why is the medical school interview important?

Almost all medical students who are currently studying have gone through an interview. Interviews are essential for these reasons:

• Selecting the best applicants
  Medical schools use interviews, alongside admissions tests and personal statements, as a way of discriminating between good applicants who they want to make an offer to and ones who they want to reject. Good applicants will be able to thrive in a medical school environment and succeed in exams.

• Assessing communication
  A written form has limited potential for assessing a person’s communication skills. A doctor has to communicate well with peers, colleagues, seniors and patients. It is easiest to assess this face-to-face.

• Assessing the stress response
  Interviews are useful for seeing how applicants respond to novel questions in a stressful environment, for seeing how an applicant copes and for seeing the reality behind a ‘coached’ application.

• Selecting future doctors
  The role of a medical school is not only to select great exam takers, but also to select a successful future doctor who will not burn out.
• Meeting the applicant
  Admissions tutors and interviewers want to meet the person who is written about on your application. They will want to see whether the person they meet in the flesh matches the person who was written about.

How do medical school interviews work?

Medical schools have different ways of interviewing applicants.

• Panel interview: small panel of interviewers; one will pose questions while others take notes, and they will rotate questions around the panel. Questions can be focused on science, extra-curricular activities or any other aspect of the student’s application.

• Multiple-mini interviews (MMIs): applicants move through multiple stations consisting of scenarios or questions, with each station designed to test a specific aspect of the individual. For example, problem solving, competence, teamwork and communication skills may be covered.

Panel Interviews (often referred to as Traditional Interviews or Informal Conversational Interviews) are the conventional interactions you may be familiar with from having interviewed for employment.  The duration of the interview is usually between twenty minutes and an hour of examination time.

The interview may be ‘open’ (i.e., committee members have previous knowledge of your application) or ‘closed’ (i.e., where interviewers have no previous knowledge about your background).  The panel interview format consists of question and answer or directed conversation aimed to gain insight into the applicant’s personality and suitability.

There are two general approaches taken to the informal conversational interview:

1. ‘Non-guided.’  In this format there are no pre-determined interview questions.  Interviewers come up with questions during the course of the session in order to facilitate a natural conversation.
2. ‘Guided.’  Certain questions are pre-determined, but there is flexibility in terms of how they are asked.  The interviewers may come up with additional questions during the course of the meeting.  Although this approach is slightly more regimented, it also encourages conversation.

In addition, there are two general settings:

1. ‘Panel.’  The interview team often consists of a group of 2-3 people; classically, the panel is comprised of a combination of university-associated professionals, students, and community members.
2. ‘One-on-One.’  One faculty-member or student interviews the applicant.

The final stage of the application process offers you the opportunity to shine and distinguish yourself from other qualified candidates; however, it can also be a highly stressful period marked by uncertainty and anxiety. Although these feelings are common among applicants, they are typically more pronounced among candidates facing Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI).

The University of Liverpool’s school of medicine is one the largest in the country. It accepts 280 students onto its five-year MBChB programme each year.

About Medicine interview

The school of medicine conducts interviews in a multiple mini interview (MMI) format when assessing applications to the MBChB programme. Applicants are invited to interview following assessment of their academic performance and UKCAT score. The personal statement isn’t assessed until the interview. The multiple mini-interview consists of seven six-minute stations, with a minute of rest between each station. Core themes involve:

• Communication – a crucial skill for a doctor to have, this station will test how the applicant interacts with other people. This could be a simple conversation about personal statement, why medicine etc, or it could be a role-play scenario. Practice discussing key parts of your personal statement with your peers and do mock interviews covering common medical school interview questions.
• Team-working – as the interview is not in small groups, you may have to give evidence of when you’ve been a team player. This may additionally involve examples of good leadership. Try to have some examples that aren’t on your personal statement as back up.
• Ethics – two six-minute stations. In the first station, applicants are presented with an ethical scenario and must make notes on it. At the following station, they will discuss it with the interviewer.
• Learning from work experience/ contribution – ensure you have considered your work experience and what you learnt before the interview. Think about the clinical skills and procedures you saw, and how this correlates to science you already know.
• Numeracy – a simple numerical problem-solving question, with the option of using a calculator. As a doctor, numerical skills are important, for example when working out drug dosages.

Bear in mind that when scoring your interview, you will be rated as poor, satisfactory, very good or excellent. Descriptors will be next to each word to aid the decision. This is then converted into a score, upon which interviewees are ranked and offers given out in order of this ranking. It is important to note that stations are marked independently. Your interviewers will not know if you repeat the same example on multiple stations.