The surest way to bomb the MMI is not realizing that there are different question types. It's often
said that there's no way to prepare for the MMI and in a sense that could be accurate in that you
never know exactly which questions you're going to get, so you can't study and memorize particular
answers and prepare in that way. However you can absolutely prepare for different question types.
So what I'm going to do today is tell you the different MMI types and give you a one or two
tips for each of those question types. This is something that we work with with students very
frequently at BeMo so I'll give you some of our little easily accessible, easy to remember tips to
help you get through these different kinds of stations. Before that, hi my name is Dr. Sarah
Kleeb and I'm an admissions expert at BeMo. So we've identified several different types of MMi
questions, I guess I'll give you a few little tips however over the next few days we'll be posting
some things more in depth about MMI you're also of course always welcome to browse our blog where
we have tons of information about all of this. So first we'll go with scenario. So these often are
the most common kinds of questions where you're given a real-life hypothetical scenario, you're
given a role, and you're asked sort of how you would navigate this situation. Now these can be
really complex, there are all different types of scenarios. Sometimes you'll be dealing with
ethical dilemmas or conflicts of interest issues around patient autonomy, around informed consent,
so there are a whole lot of different types or subheadings under this one a particular heading
of question. One thing that's really important to note though is that a lot of the scenarios that
you'll be given will number one have a lot of extra information that isn't necessarily
immediately relevant and that a lot of times the prompt itself can have some assumptions built into
it. Maybe you're told something by a friend or a colleague, maybe you witness something and you're
are you you're told in the prompt how you've interpreted that so this can be really tricky,
you want to make sure to look out for that. So in terms of that extraneous information you want
to be able to look at a scenario and figure out what the most pressing issue is. Sometimes there
will be some related pressing issues but being able to boil down a lot of information, reduce it
concentrate it to its core essence what needs to be done here and now is identifying that
most pressing issue. Generally it's going to have something to do with stepping in for or ensuring
the well-being of a vulnerable party. And in terms of those assumptions, you want to make sure that
you ask questions of the prompt itself or put a little pressure on the prompt by showing some
skepticism. All right, if you've heard something from a friend or a colleague, you're gonna want
to verify that before you move forward, full force, full steam ahead to continue constructing your
answer. So next policy type questions. So policy type questions tend to be connected to big ethical
issues, issues maybe in the news, in current events or long-standing debates. What is your
opinion on legalized recreational marijuana? What is your opinion on physician assisted dying? These
sorts of things are policy type questions. Now it would seem normal to come out very assertively
and state your opinion. However what we recommend is taking a moment to ensure that you acknowledge
that there are valid points on multiple sides of an argument. Right, being able to be a mature
person in the world basically is being able to say people with whom I disagree may also still
have valid points that are worthy of consideration. Right, I think that my points hold more weight or
are more you know connected to what's actually going on or something like that, there's a reason
that I have the opinions and convictions that I have, but I acknowledge that there
are other concerns as well that also deserve some deliberation. So it's a great thing that you can
do in policy type questions. Next is what we would call personal or quirky type questions and these
are two sort of semi separate question types but they're both looking for the same kinds of things.
So personal questions would be you know, tell me about the time you came into conflict with a
superior. Tell me about a time that you failed. Tell me about a time that you succeeded. What's
your greatest accomplishment? And then quirky type questions can be kind of fun questions actually,
if you could be any kitchen utensil what would you be and why? If you could have
superpowers, which superpower would you choose and why? So all of these things are looking for those
sort of internal qualities and motivations. Quirky questions obviously want to see how you're going
to think critically and creatively on your feet and under pressure, so they can really catch you up
if you're not prepared to answer them or prepared to think through them. You want to make sure that
you always have that sense of service orientation, of prioritizing either patience if you're going
into a medical field or vulnerable persons as part of your answer or any other quality
that demonstrates the kinds of things they're looking for when they're looking for that good fit. Right,
communication skills, ethical responsibility, and reliability and resilience, adaptability, all of those
sorts of things can be identified in various ways by addressing quirky questions. And those
personal questions you know usually you'll have some of these narratives planned out in advance
because you'll have completed your applications and things by then. With those negative types of
personal questions, the most important thing is to be honest and upfront about whatever a negative
situation they've asked about, but to focus mostly on the takeaways from that experience.
What you have reflected on, how you've grown, what you've learned, how you have taken that experience
that was maybe not ideal and allowed it to turn you into a better person. And so that's a really
great way of addressing those kinds of questions. Now the last two that I'll talk about are two of
the most complicated and two of the most sort of dreaded kinds of MMI question or station. One
is the collaboration, teamwork, communication type stations. This is where maybe you'll
go in and you'll be asked to give a team member or partner instructions to draw an image that
you have they have never seen or construct an item from Legos that you have and they've never
seen. This can be really tricky and it's totally normal to think that the most important thing
is that your partner creates or recreates the image or the object in question most effectively.
And that is important absolutely you want to be able to give good directions that they can follow.
However, how you do things in a station like that is at least as important if not more important
than what you do. The process itself is again at least just as important if not more important
than the end result of that process. So being really careful with your communication to make
sure that a non specialist is able to follow along, that you're giving very very precise step-by-step
instructions, checking in with your partner on occasion to make sure that they're following
and they feel comfortable moving on to the next step, all of those things will demonstrate the
kind of communicator you are and the way that you work with non specialist others. Whatever
profession you're going into as a profession you will constantly or within that profession you'll
constantly have to engage others who aren't part of that sort of inner circle or aren't
part of that professional world and help them understand complex topics from the perspective
of a specialist. And to do that you need to be able to break those complex ideas down. And that is one
of the key things that's being evaluated in these collaboration, teamwork drawing, or construction
type stations is whether you can break that information down effectively for someone else. And
then finally the acting station. Acting stations are really awkward if you're not used to them.
They often deal with really negative or difficult situations, ethical conundrums, breaking really bad
news to a person or being there for someone when they get bad news of some kind. So knowing exactly
how to navigate this is quite difficult but with practice it becomes much easier especially if you
know the kinds of things that they're looking for. So one of the techniques that we recommend
for acting stations is what's called the spikes protocol. S P I K E S, spikes protocol, developed by
Dr. Walter Bale. This is key for breaking bad news of some kind and there are pointers there that
are useful in any number of different contexts. So here's the spikes protocol. First the first s
is setting up. That is to say preparing for and mentally rehearsing the exchange that you're
about to have. So thinking through things like ensuring privacy, making a meaningful connection
with the individual with whom you are speaking. This was largely constructed in the context of
medicine and delivering bad news to a patient so ensuring that you are speaking with compassion,
empathizing, actively listening to what someone else is going through, those are things that help
you make that meaningful connection before moving forward. Next, P is for perception. Understanding the
other person's perspective by asking questions. So not just assuming that you know what the person is
going through but asking them questions about how they're handling a current situation, how
they're processing, if they need help and what kind of help they need, right rather than just
offering things that may not be as useful as you think they might be, asking questions
let's that person not only communicate what they actually need but gives them a sense of power and
agency in a situation or they probably feel or could very likely feel rather powerless. Next, I
invitation, waiting for the other person to sort of acknowledge their readiness to hear bad news.
So this can be a little bit tricky, you need to feel out where that person is emotionally,
by sort of warming up to the issue you know as soon as they come in you don't just want to say,
all right I'm sorry to tell you you have stage 4 cancer or something like that. You need to discuss
you know previous test results if that's relevant things that have led up to this and lead into the
conversation about this negative issue rather than just diving right in. K is for knowledge, which is
to say empowering the other person with education and information and doing so on a level that they
can easily comprehend. So again thinking about being a specialist and communicating to a known
specialist audience, you need to make sure that there aren't any things like overly technical
jargon that is only accessible to again that inner circle of professionals. Not everyone is
going to be able to access that so breaking that information down and giving it to the individual
on the level that they can process effectively and do so in an emotional, a potentially emotionally
tense situation is really important here. E is for emotions which is to say responding with empathy
to emotional reactions. Allowing space for those emotional reactions. You're in an acting station
time is counting down you may feel like you need to really rush through everything to make sure
you get everything in, but let me tell you it is much better to take a little bit of time to allow
that person to have their emotional response even if it's uncomfortable than it would be to try to
rush them through something really difficult. And again this often is discussed in the context of
medicine, but it certainly doesn't have to be. Right if you're called over to your best friend's house
and you were supposed to meet up and go out and they actually just got home from meeting with a
financial advisor who told them that their home is going to be foreclosed upon because of their
late payments and things like that, the process wouldn't really be any different. You would be
acting in a particular way because you're their friend and not a professional, but still giving
them that time to process whatever emotion they're dealing with is incredibly important. And then last
the final S is for strategy and summary which is to say presenting some actionable options for
that person to move forward in productive ways. Note you would need to sort of check in first to
make sure they're ready for that step, so then the classic is a doctor giving bad information or sad
or unfortunate information to a patient, that patient might need a day or two to deal with the
emotional reactions, to connect with their family and loved ones, to think through just how they
want to proceed with this and might not be ready to be burdened with a bunch of steps, procedures
techniques, experimental options, all of those sorts of things just yet. So see if they're ready
to receive that kind of actionable information and then move forward from there if they are.
So those are some tips for the various kinds of MMI stations that you might encounter, again we
have tons more information on our blog as well for even more information, tips, even more sample
questions, and expert answers than are found just on our website. Be sure to check out our brand new
book BeMo's Ultimate Guide to the Multiple Mini Interview: How to Increase your MMI Score by 27%,
without memorizing any sample questions which is available on Amazon. I have put a link for
this in the video description so you should see that there. Again, always check out our blog
though, we also have tons of free resources but this is our absolutely most comprehensive book
on the MMI. So I hope you found this video helpful and that you enjoyed it. If you did please do go
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you started on your preparations. We have all sorts of different programs available to suit whatever
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most effectively. Thank you so very much for your time, take care, and I'll see you next time!