Hello.
In this video series, I aim to provide you with an updated
version of the key concepts that you need to know so that you can easily master
and be successful in a medical or doctor job interview.
Hi, I'm Dr Anthony Llewellyn
doctor and I'm an experienced medical HR expert and interview coach.
So in this video, I'm going to answer the question how can I
successfully answer clinical scenario questions?
So, firstly, what is the point of asking
a clinical scenario question in the doctor interview?
Well, first, there's the obvious.
It's a medical job with patients,
so it seems weird not to ask at least one question about a clinical case.
That being said, there is not a lot of merit in asking one
or possibly even two clinical questions in a doctor job interview.
If you are attempting to assess someone's
knowledge for the role, one or two scenarios are only going
to test knowledge in a small set of medicine.
You would be far better off giving
the candidates some sort of written examination, such as an MCQ test.
But the main purpose behind a clinical
scenario question, and therefore the way interview panels ought to think about
setting this question, is to examine the candidates process
for dealing with a difficult clinical situation.
I've personally developed a mnemonic
to help you with these questions called Race RACE.
RACE stands for recognise the urgent issues in the situation.
A attempt and assess. Attempt to assess what is going on.
Gather as much history and examination
and investigations to enable you to have an idea about the problem and to assist
in briefing or handing over to more senior colleagues.
C collaborate.
Remember that you are rarely helping
patients in isolation and you will have other members around to help you,
such as nursing staff, doctor colleagues and allied health
workers, and even family and GPs for example, as well.
And finally, E escalate.
Escalate to remember that it's important
that you take the panel through your process for Escalating.
When would you consider Escalating and to whom?
In general, it's better to ask for senior
help or advice earlier rather than later on.
This all might sound a little bit clearer
if we work through an actual question from the AdvanceMed Med Question Bank.
You receive a call about a 75 year old
male patient who is one day post surgery on the ward.
The nurse reports that he has tachycardia.
His vitals are BP 70 over 40,
heart rate of 120 beats per minute and he is looking pale.
How do you plan to manage this patient?
But in this scenario, it's quite clear that this patient is in SHOCK.
So you would recognise that the situation is urgent.
You would tell the panel that this patient appears to be in shock and that you would
call what's called the Rapid Response Team, or Code Blue or MET Call.
If that hasn't already happened,
then you would stay with the patient and you would attempt to assess what
you're waiting for the more senior members of the Rapid Response Team to arrive.
Can you get the file? What medications are they on?
Do they have fluids going?
Can you put a cannula in to help with resuscitation?
And then you would see collaborate
with those around you and the Rapid Response Team as they arrive.
You would ask what role they would want you to take in the situation.
And finally, E stands for Escalate.
Now, you've already escalated as your
first action to the Rapid Response Team, but perhaps your registrar isn't
on that team and maybe the consultant likely is not on that team.
And so they would probably like to know
what's going on with the patient and be involved in their care.
And that's it.
The clinical scenario question using the race mnemonic.
So a few other points here.
Rarely is the clinical scenario about your knowledge of what's going on.
It's good to know what the most risky diagnosis might be and talk about them.
In this case of our example, we talked about the patient being in some
sort of hypovolemic shock, maybe thinking about why that might be.
They've had surgery, so probably there's a leaky vessel.
It depends on what surgery they've had. That's the first point.
It's rarely about getting the diagnosis and the treatment right.
It's more about recognising the risks in the situation and showing how you would
do your best in collaborating with the team and Escalate.
The second point is that at a resident medical officer type level,
it's usually just a clinical scenario, but as you get a little bit higher on,
say, to a trainee registrar level, and definitely as a consultant,
there may be other issues in this clinical scenario and we'll touch upon what some
of those other issues might be in later videos in this series.
So that's how you tackle the Clinical Scenario question.
Now. If at any point you feel that you've
gotten value out of this video series and you want to dive a bit deeper
into mastering the Doctor Job Interview process.
Then I highly recommend to you my Doctor Job Interview Skills course.
Where I do a much deeper dive into each of these question types.
Along with other questions and a lot more
concepts to help you successfully excel in the medical job interview process.
For example, in the course I go over
in a lot more detail about what the panel wants out of the Clinical Scenario
Question and how you can signpost or introduce your answer to this question.
If you click on the link in the video,
either here or at the end of this video, you can purchase this course for a special
discount, just for watching the whole way through.
And I will see you in the next video lesson.