Be honest. There is no predicting what they will be asking you. If you lie and they find out, it's going to look worse. So just come clean with whatever issues you had during internship.

Also be confident in your honesty.

• Go through your CV and write a little blurb about experiences and maybe add a little bit of more info if there’s something special or unique about that experience. And 100% know your presentations/topic discussions you put down because they will ask you about that. Additionally keep this saved in like a google doc or wherever you can reference it again and keep updating it in case you want to do a PGY2
• Write out answers to potential interview questions and then practice answering them. But don’t be too rehearsed, just practice enough that you won’t get thrown off too badly if they ask you a strange or difficult question. And if you don’t know the answer to a question it’s okay to ask to take a moment to think more about it (just don’t take too long)
• Know the mission statement and values of the program. Maybe write out what you’d potentially answer with if they ask how you align with their mission
• Make a bank of questions that are unique to the program and show you’ve done your research. Don’t ask questions that are on their website, instead ask them to elaborate more on stuff that interests you. Or if you hear something you heard during the interview remember that for the end or just ask in that moment (if appropriate) to go into more detail about it
• Be prepared to ask questions to gauge if YOU want to be there. Kinda like vibe check questions, but professionally
• After each interview write down what you liked and didn’t like to help you rank afterwards

Ask for patient case, they’re just checking your baseline knowledge and what steps you’d take to answer the question. It’s okay to not know all the answers, but I’d maybe have someone review your slides and have them ask you potential questions to help prepare you.

I’ll add more if I think of other tips but these are a few I’d highly recommend doing!

This is a copy of the original post in case of edit or deletion: Hey guys, I got a few interviews and I am just looking for any general tips and for others to share their experiences for how the prepared and what worked and what didn't. I also am wondering; how important is getting the patient case presented correct? I am worried that I won't know the answer completely. Not having a specific area of focus makes it much more challenging than school. Thanks in advanced

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During the interview, be honest, be yourself and if you don’t know something talk about how you would go about figuring it out.

We have a scoring rubric to help initially rank candidates we interview but we don’t just go by the final scores. We are looking for candidates that we think will good a good fit for our program and excel in our system because our goal is to always try to retain our residents if possible.

Just do some research on the most common 20-30 qs and try to answer them. Collect these answers/key points in a doc and refine them with time and from colleagues inputs.

At least 30% of interview questions will be unprepared for or depends on the program (e.g. why our program? do u have any questions for me? etc.). Those are to be prepared before the iv itself.

Waiting on getting one to spark a fire underneath my bum and THEN start preparing lol

Mostly just random YouTube videos for now. Anybody has any recommendations for books/specific videos? Yes, I know "mock interviews" help....but beyond those, any other resources?

I wish I had an interview to start with…

Same question!

The whole supplemental and ERAS application took a toll, and now with this interview preparation. I asked as I was utterly clueless about how to start it.

Thank you, and I appreciate your response guys

I hope all of us get matched. Good luck.

For more information on interviews, please visit our Interviews Wiki and check out our Helpful Posts Wiki.

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Look up common med school interview questions. Always get 3 questions down.

Tell me about yourself ,Why do you want to be a doctor ,Why this school

Do a mock interview with a friend. Look up SDN interview reviews for the school. Don’t look at post interview acceptance rates for the school. That will just give you anxiety. Don’t prepare too much also. I would say 2-3 days of casual preparing is fine.

I did this for my first interview and I felt it went really great.

True story.... I had an idea of how I wanted to answer the most common questions. I then applied to jobs before my interviews and practiced my interviewing skills in real job interviews. I literally got in every school I interviewed at.... but to answer your question.... record yourself on zoom answering random questions and look back and see how you can improve.. repeat

I’ve only done a 1:1 interview thus far, but I prepared by going to SDN and looking at past interview questions people got in their interviews. I brainstormed answers to those questions. I also made sure I had several things I could talk about for the common interview questions such as “Tell me about yourself,” “Why do you want to be a physician?”, and “What is your biggest weakness.” I ran my answers by my wife to get feedback if I was answering the questions well and with the appropriate detail. I felt really well-prepared!

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you

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THANK YOU SO MUCH!! God Bless You.

I did my residency at the VA & applied to multiple ocular disease specific programs. Be prepared to answer general questions including strengths/weaknesses, any deficiencies in board scores/GPA if that applies, & your learning style. They will also want to know about you - so will ask about hobbies, extracurriculars, where you’re from, etc…so have a basic intro ready. It is also common for them to go through a few cases with you. While it is great to get the answer right, they are mostly looking to see how you think, so don’t stress too much about it.

A few of the interviews were a bit intimidating and seemed like they wanted to test purely didactic knowledge, but most were quite conversational.

Make sure you prepare a few questions to ask about their program too!

RemindMe! 3 years

RemindMe! 2 years

RemindMe! 2 years

RemindMe! If I ever make it out alive

Everyone be throwing out reminders, but I just saved the deck to my residency folder and will see it when I start interview prep. Thanks a bunch!!

Look up some practice questions. They like to ask questions about how you would handle conflict, they also love to ask what you would do if you saw another nurse diverting narcs or something. I would also practice responses to general emotional intelligence questions. Most importantly: smile, be kind, and be yourself. Good luck!

The usual— tell me about yourself, why this unit, why this hospital, tell me about a time when you handled a difficult patient/family, what do you expect from your preceptor, your plans 5 years from now, and how would you handle stress.

If you have questions about AACOMAS, visit the AACOM Application Process page and AACOMAS Help Center. For more information on AACOMAS, please visit our Applying to Medical School Wiki and Essays Wiki.

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You're already doing better prep than most. Practiced a bunch with GPT too, but then I froze during a mock with a friend because I got caught in that “sound smart but be human” zone. What helped was doing a timed 90s prep drill on tough questions like “why DO?” or “biggest failure.” I used Beyz for that, it gave me feedback on tone and pacing I didn’t notice myself.

Also peeked at the IQB bank for med-school-specific questions and it actually helped me realize how much overlap there is between “standard” questions and the ones we overthink.

Getting a resident’s feedback is great if it’s someone you know who can be honest and specific. But I wouldn’t stress paying unless you’re feeling super shaky. You’re already doing the right stuff.

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