Among the steps to applying for medical school is an interview known as a multiple mini interview, or MMI. This format is commonly used by med schools and other health-related professional programs.
The goal of a MMI is to evaluate applicants for qualities that are essential in health care, such as ethical judgment and compassion. Applicants are challenged to think through real-life situations while demonstrating critical problem-solving skills, empathy and professionalism.
While traditional medical school interviews are long, in-depth conversations focused on an applicant’s overall academic and personal narrative, a MMI consists of short, timed stations that are designed to evaluate an applicant’s responses to specific scenarios.
MMI interviewers may include faculty and retired health care professionals, current students and professional staff members within the school. In most cases, these evaluators won’t have access to your application, so their evaluation will focus on your ability to think quickly and provide structured, thoughtful answers.
To help you with your medical school application, here’s a recommended timeline for preparing for your MMI. While specific preparation depends on your familiarity with the format and the concepts being evaluated, most applicants benefit from a preparation period of four to eight weeks.
Weeks 1-2: Building a Foundation
During this time, research the MMI format and get comfortable with how stations are timed. While different schools have unique specifications, generally you will rotate through a variety of stations to answer short questions at each. Station lengths can vary but are typically around seven to 10 minutes, including some dedicated preparation time at the beginning.
[Related:The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Medical School Admissions]
The most common categories include:
— Ethical dilemmas
— Role-play scenarios
— Health care-related issues
— Teamwork and collaboration
— Data interpretation
While MMI stations ask you to demonstrate your problem-solving skills and communicate your reasoning, these interviews don’t test your knowledge of science or medicine. In fact, most MMI scenarios don’t have one right answer. Rather, the emphasis is placed on weighing various moral and ethical principles at play and communicating an answer that balances these different perspectives.
Many MMI questions require a basic understanding of the core principles of medical ethics:
— Autonomy — the obligation for a doctor to honor a patient’s choice as long as it doesn’t cause harm to another person.
— Beneficence — the obligation for a physician to act in ways that benefit the patient, promote their well-being and prevent harm.
— Nonmaleficence — a physician’s obligation to not harm the patient, including not causing unnecessary pain or suffering or depriving one of their quality of life.
— Justice — a doctor’s obligation to provide equitable treatment to all persons and fairly distribute health-care resources.
Having a strong understanding of how each of these concepts is defined, as well as how they apply in the health care setting, will help you approach questions with a strong ethical framework.
MMIs also require students to think through common issues that face the health care system:
— Health care access and cost
— Health disparities
— Mental health access
— Care for the aging population
— Health care workforce shortages and burnout
— Public health infrastructure
— Ethical considerations with emerging technology
After you’ve grasped the core concepts underlying the MMI, you can read and listen to successful MMI responses. We recommend taking notes on recurring themes that you see throughout these responses.
[READ: 8 Ways to Manage Medical School Interview Burnout]
Weeks 3-4: Practice Phase I
Once you’re ready to begin practicing, find a large set of practice MMI questions. Below are a few practice questions to help you get started with the process.
Sample MMI Questions
1. Imagine you’re a medical student on a clinical rotation when you notice that another student has been frequently arriving late and fabricating parts of their patient notes. Describe the ethical principles at play in this situation and how you would proceed.
2. Role-play the following scenario: You are a resident physician caring for multiple patients during the night. You get a call at 2 a.m. that a patient’s family member is angry because they feel like their loved one is not receiving proper care. Speak to the actor playing the role of the family member to de-escalate the situation.
3. Do you believe vaccinations should be mandatory for school-age children? What are the implications of your stance?
4. Describe a time when you worked in a team to accomplish a common goal. What challenges did you face during this experience, and how did you manage them?
5. If you are shown a graph with rising obesity rates, what would be some key considerations to interpret the data? What kind of policies might you consider for intervention?
During your first practice phase, focus on developing an outline for each response. Different question types may warrant different frameworks, so developing a variety of frameworks in your toolbox can help you answer questions from diverse categories.
When designing your framework, focus on answering each question with a central thesis statement followed by your line of reasoning before returning to a summary of your answer.
To support your reasoning process, try the following:
— Ask yourself what questions someone might have when evaluating the situation.
— Incorporate answers to those questions into your response.
— Consider the qualities an evaluator may be assessing in the question.
— Ensure your response clearly demonstrates those qualities. Because interviewers want to hear your thought process, talk through the different perspectives you’re considering.
When you practice MMI questions, start by taking more time to prepare and deliver your responses. As you get more comfortable with the format, put time constraints with two minutes for preparation and five to seven minutes for the delivery of your response. Record your responses so that you can evaluate yourself for clarity and identify areas for improvement.
[Related:How to Fulfill Med School Admission Requirements]
Weeks 5-6: Practice Phase II
Once you’ve practiced by yourself and become comfortable with formulating responses, you can move on to practicing with an audience. Reach out to mentors, friends or online coaches to simulate mock MMIs with timed stations. During this time, you should receive feedback on the clarity of your answers, the strength of your reasoning and the empathy and tone of your voice.
A helpful tip is to ask your audience to summarize your responses, as this allows you to see if you’re conveying the intended message.
Week 7: Final Touches
The last week is to practice a full MMI two or three times. By setting aside time to mimic the interview conditions, you can practice handling unexpected questions.
During this time, focus on clear and confident communication. At this point, many of the concepts should feel natural to you, and you will have built a repertoire of answers for a variety of questions. The goal is to understand which of your experiences and ethical values are relevant in each scenario.
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Med School Multiple Mini Interview: What to Know originally appeared on usnews.com
