The Dreaded Question - Why Medicine?
👋 Hey future Meddies! Welcome to the second week of our blog:
Each week, we do a short deep-dive into medicine interview essentials.
This week, we go over the most typical but dreaded question of all -
“Why do you want to do Medicine?”
This is perhaps the most dreaded question from the interview - “Why do you want to do Medicine?” We’ll jump into how you should structure your answer and some common pitfalls to avoid. But before that, let’s go over Med itself.
It’s important to know about Medicine, its advantages and its drawbacks. It tells the interviewer that you’ve done your research, and even after considering the pros & cons you still want to enter the course.
But perhaps more importantly, you should know what you’re getting yourself into.
How are Medical degrees structured?
Medicine is one of the longest degrees out there, with a minimum of 5 years up to 7 years for post-graduate courses including the University of Sydney.
Like most other university courses, a Medicine degree is split into lectures, tutorials and practical sessions. These classes will teach you the basic medical sciences, common diseases and their treatments, and clinical skills sessions to practice your patient-facing tasks. Further into your degree, you will find yourself going to a hospital most days of the week. These hospitals are affiliated with your university and the doctors there will run tutorials for you. You’ll be there to meet patients and develop your skills.
What is the Medical career like after graduation?
It’s a long journey… even after graduating university, there will be a minimum of 2 years as an Intern and then a Resident - The beginning of your life as a junior doctor. From here, you can start applying for specialty training programs, which are becoming increasingly competitive.
Some points to note:
Many more competitive specialties require you to have worked in the hospital as a junior doctor for a set number of years before even being able to apply to get into specialty training programs.
Many specialities have a set limit of how many attempts you can make: If you fail that many times, you will never be able to reapply - The risk of spending years chasing a certain specialty and never making is one to seriously consider.
💡TIP: Have some basic knowledge of medical specialties and the pathways they involve - they may ask about them in the interview.
Source: Wikipedia
Want more insider advice like this and more?
Motivation
Everyone has a different motivation for Medicine - it’s important to show you’ve done your research, and showcase your genuine interest and passion, along with a filter for what the interviewers would want to hear.
🕳️ Common Pitfall: Avoid bringing up the glorified image of pay and prestige. Firstly, doctors are grossly underpaid, especially in their junior years. Even after that long degree, Interns and Residents earn close to the minimum wage. And sure, being proud of your profession is an admirable thing. But the image of the job shouldn’t be your biggest motivation.
So what exactly can you talk about? From our experience, most interview students have some variation of the “I want to help people” answer. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but you need to differentiate and give your answer some extra oomph. Add a personal touch. Approach it from a different angle.
This is an example of my motivation for medicine:
“When I think that I’ll be working for basically half of my life, I want to have a job that can give me fulfilment. Something that can give me solace even after a long day, that can give me the strength to keep going even after a tough workday or a setback. From my research, working as a doctor that can deliver a tangible change to someone’s life through my compassion and learned knowledge and skills would give me the greatest fulfilment from my work. I’ve taken the initiative to speak to current medical students and doctors and they have all told me about the purpose that helping patients gives everyday.
I also understand that the medical profession is a lifelong journey of learning and teaching. Through my studies and extracurricular involvement in (…), I realise how great it feels to learn a topic thoroughly and truly understand it. I am also very passionate about teaching. Whether it be helping friends with a maths question, or privately tutoring students and developing their interest and skills in different subjects, I feel very proud and fulfilled about passing on what I know to others. I’m excited to enter this collaborative environment, where new learning and teaching can continue throughout my profession.”
For my medicine interviews, I focused on these two things → fulfilment, and learning & teaching. For you, it’ll likely be different. But tie in your personal anecdotes and make your answer unique. If you’d like, you can also talk about your personal experiences with doctors and hospitals, either for yourself or loved ones, and what you gained and learnt and how that inspired you to follow a job in this field.
Exploring into your personality and past experiences will help shape your answer to every interview question. Develop your storytelling and learn to deliver your response in a real, genuine way through our 1-on-1 Mentoring services! And when the time comes, you can practice your answer to this question along with many others with our Mock Interviews!
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📚 This Week’s Homework:
Here is a short list of questions which have been asked in previous interviews. We’ve curated this list to stimulate your thinking about the experiences you have been through, to generate an Anecdote Bank for yourself.
Recall your personal experiences with doctors. What did you like about them? What made you want to be one?
Research the medical profession in more detail. Think about whether it suits your personality, and why? That will determine your answer to ‘Why Medicine?’
Write out different points about your motivation for Medicine. Delete the shallow and impersonal ones. Think about anecdotes you can use to support your points.
Stay tuned for our next issue!
❓We’ve introduced a mini Q&A section, so send in your questions to medterview@gmail.com.
And if this has helped you, our 1-on-1 Mentoring can tackle your preparation in a tailored, personal fashion to craft your anecdotes and improve your delivery. Sign up using the button below.
