Understanding the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI)
👋 Hey Future Meddies! Welcome to the fifth week of our blog:
Each week, we do a short deep-dive into medicine interview essentials.
In this week’s blog, we talk about the art of mastering the MMI - How can you strategise to get through these and what does this look like in practice?
At this stage, some of you may know what medical school you will be interviewing at, or at the very least have some idea of where you will get an interview offer based on your UCAT percentile. It’s important to know that the majority of medical school interviews will be MMI style. These include:
Adelaide University
Curtin University
Monash University
Newcastle University + University of New England
University of Queensland
University of Western Australia
Western Sydney University
Bond University
Yikes. That’s quite a lot.
To be prepared, you’ll need to have a thorough understanding of all the different ways an MMI station will be structured, as well as the strategies to answer these questions.
How MMI Stations Work
An MMI interview will consist of multiple stations, normally 6-8. Every student then rotates through each station and will complete each one. Thus, each station will be quite short but the whole interview will be significantly longer than a panel interview.
Each station runs for around 8-10 minutes, and differs slightly between universities. It will involve a question stem with a scenario or situation, and ~2-3 questions. Stations can involve different skills of problem-solving, role play and physical skills (for in-person interviews).
Here are some MMI interview examples to get a better idea of how these work (feel free to practice these):
You are a doctor working in the Emergency Department. A patient who is a Jehovah’s witness urgently needs a blood transfusion to save their life after an accident. Their beliefs prevent them from agreeing to a blood transfusion.
What would you do?
How do you deal with communicating with people who have extremely different beliefs and opinions to yourself? Can you give an example of a time this has occurred?
You witness a woman in a hijab being harassed on the bus by a middle aged man. She is alone and appears extremely uncomfortable and terrified.
What are your thoughts on this?
How would you react?
What cultural issues would you have to address as a doctor working in the Western Sydney region?
You are advising a mother about having an important vaccination which herand her child needs to travel to Uganda. You will then have to speak to thechild about the injection they are having.
“What is a vaccine and why do I need it?”
“How can malaria spread? Can you guarantee that once I have the vaccine I am 100% safe?”
“Okay, I’ll have it. But explain to Harry that he needs one. He’s only 6, he’s petrified of needles!”
Our limited-position Mock MMI’s and SSI’s are running out quickly! Register in the link below!
Strategies
Know your timing.
Understand that you will have around 8 minutes to answer 3 separate questions in each station. With practice, you will see whether you need to speed up, or slow down to add more detail to your answers. Some interviewers will ask if you would like to add anything if you have a lot of time remaining, or feel free to go back to previous questions if you remember something you want to say later.
For example: “And I’d just like to quickly add to my answer for the first question. I think another important issue would be …”
It’s all about structure.
Start with a general, overall sentence that acts as a topic sentence or introduction to your answer, just like in an English essay. This tip applies to all of your interview answers, but especially for scenario or situation-based questions. Not only does this help the interviewer, but you can also return to this structure as you go through the rest of your answer.
Be culturally aware and ensure some understanding of medical ethics principles.
These buzzwords can add some glam to your answers, and can also make up the framework for how to answer MMI questions. For example, a scenario may present a conflict between beneficence and autonomy. If you did not know about these two terms, refer to this great UNSW resource https://ethics.med.unsw.edu.au/, which includes all of the significant ethical definitions you will need.
Practice!
We’ve said this basically every week, so it must sound like a broken record (if you’ve read every issue and managed to stay to the end of this one). We’ve included three MMI practice stations above, so practice with a friend. And consider signing up for our mock MMI interviews, which will include 8 practice stations and provide individualised feedback from each assessor.
📚 This Week’s Homework:
Here are the MMI questions from above for your practice.
You are a doctor working in the Emergency Department. A patient who is a Jehovah’s witness urgently needs a blood transfusion to save their life after an accident. Their beliefs prevent them from agreeing to a blood transfusion.
What would you do?
How do you deal with communicating with people who have extremely different beliefs and opinions to yourself? Can you give an example of a time this has occurred?
You witness a woman in a hijab being harassed on the bus by a middle aged man. She is alone and appears extremely uncomfortable and terrified.
What are your thoughts on this?
How would you react?
What cultural issues would you have to address as a doctor working in the Western Sydney region?
You are advising a mother about having an important vaccination which herand her child needs to travel to Uganda. You will then have to speak to thechild about the injection they are having.
“What is a vaccine and why do I need it?”
“How can malaria spread? Can you guarantee that once I have the vaccine I am 100% safe?”
“Okay, I’ll have it. But explain to Harry that he needs one. He’s only 6, he’s petrified of needles!”
Stay tuned for our next issue!
❓We’ll introduce 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.
