Below is a sampling of questions that interviewers typically ask.
- Why do you want to be a doctor/ dentist/ veterinarian/ optometrist, etc.?
- What is your greatest strength? and weakness?
- Why did you major in religion or another subject area?
- What do you think of socialized medicine, euthanasia, physician assisted suicide (e.g. Kevorkian), the nationalization of medicine, abortion?
- How would you solve the high cost of medical care?
- Should medical students reimburse medical schools for the true costs of their education?
- How should our society cope with AIDS?
- Why did you attend Boston College?
- Why do you want to go to this school?
- Have you been accepted elsewhere?
- What will you do if not admitted to any health professions school?
- What books have you read recently and what do you think of them?
- What were your most significant extracurricular activities?
- How do you plan to finance your medical education?
- When did your interest in science begin?
- Do you think physicians should marry physicians?
- Which do you prefer: clinical work or research?
- How do you deal with stress?
- Do you think a medical/ dental student should postpone plans for marriage until after school?
- How do you feel about your MCAT/DAT scores?
- What is the biggest problem in medicine/ dentistry today?
- What do you (don't you) like about Boston?
- Do you have any questions about us here at (name of school)?
- What do you see yourself doing in 15 years?
- What do you feel the field of medicine/ dentistry/optometry etc. will be like in 2010?
- Who is (your name)?
- What future problems do you foresee for the medical profession?
- What do you think of required drug screening examinations?
- How would you nationalize medicine if you were President of the United States?
- How would you deal with a doctor who refused to treat AIDS patients?
- How would you allocate x billion dollars between primary treatment for AIDS and cardiac patients versus education programs oriented toward prevention of these diseases? Please explain your reasoning.
- What do you think of HMO's (Health Maintenance Organizations)?
- What is the one thing you would like us to remember about you once this interview is over?
- As a surgeon (at a Catholic hospital?) you are asked to separate "Siamese twins" and realize that one of the children will probably die. Discuss what process you would go through in making the decision whether to operate or not?
- If you were placed on a deserted island, what three items would you want to bring with you? Why?
- If you could choose one person to have dinner with (dead or alive), who would that person be? Explain.
- What do you consider to be the most epochal event of the 20th century?
- What three qualities would you most like to see in a (your) physician?
- You are working as a physician in a neighborhood clinic that serves patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Guidelines from your clinic supervisor indicate that you are to spend no more than ten minutes on any patients that you have previously seen. You end up spending an average of twenty minutes during each of three separate follow-up appointments with one individual. This woman is financially disadvantaged, drug dependent, and has a number of problems related to her primary illness. You are called in by your supervisor (possibly an M.B.A. and not a medical doctor) for not following clinic guidelines. How would you respond to your supervisor's reprimands? More generally, how do you feel about the tendency in the United States for people's health care to be treated increasingly as a business?