hey friends welcome back to my youtube channel my name is connor i'm a fourth year medical student
at king's college london this video is going to be part of a series of videos
all about your medical school interviews we're going to be focusing on different
questions that might come up looking at the common themes how to answer these questions
i'm going to give you how i would answer these questions and then we're going to discuss
the pitfalls of this question what they're really looking for in this question and key things you
should try and include in your answer when i ask the question the question will come up on
your screen you can have a read of it and i would encourage you to pause the video and have a little
think about how you might answer that question before then listening to my answer and discussing
the common pitfalls the question we're going to be looking at today is why do you want to
study medicine now this is one of the most common questions asked in interview it's one that i think
everyone expects will come up and almost everyone will experience being asked luckily it's one that
you've already partially answered by just writing your personal statement almost everyone will have
dedicated a paragraph maybe at the start or the end of their personal statement as to why they're
applying for medicine so you just need to have a look at that have a look at what you've said
and then try and formulate that into kind of an interview answer it's important that you don't
deviate too far away from what you said in your personal statement obviously we can all evolve in
the six plus weeks it's been since you submitted your personal statement but it's important that
you don't say something entirely different to whatever you said in your personal statement
because your interviewers may have that in front of them so why do you want to study medicine
i'd encourage you to pause the video here have a think about your answer
press play and then i'll talk through my answer and we'll talk about some of the common pitfalls
so how would i answer this question well i would take something similar to what i put
at the start of my personal statement and i'll try and give that in a kind of interview answer
so my answer taken and adapted from my personal statement would be i aspire to be a part of the
extraordinary and dedicated team that is at the heart of the nhs as a doctor i would relish the
cycle of learning adapting and improving that leads to excellence in care and procedure i'm
fascinated by advances in medical research that could one day become available to the public
my recent experiences as a volunteer have strengthened these feelings so what have
i actually said in my answer well i've directly answered that question about why i want to study
medicine i've also talked about some of the things i'd like to do after studying medicine i've also
mentioned my volunteering experience and that through volunteering i've only strengthened my
desire to study medicine as in any interview question it's really important that you just
answer whatever question they've asked you that should be the basis of any answer to an
interview question is to answer their question the first part of whatever you're saying needs
to say why you understanding medicine so in my case it was i want to be a part of the team
which i've said is amazing and hard working in the nhs i then said specifically why i want to be
a doctor and that's because i want to be part of that cycle of learning adapting and implementing
new best practice so this is quite a good answer to this question i've mentioned the nhs
i mentioned why i would like to be a doctor perhaps over another of the allied health
professions and i've left room here for someone to ask me some follow-up questions i've said that i'm
interested in recent medical advances that could one day become common practice in the nhs and that
gives them an opportunity to ask me about what i'm interested in what have i read about recently what
could be coming down the pipeline and changing the face of medicine let me ask you this question when
they ask you why do you want to study medicine they're looking for a few things really they're
looking for one or two real solid reasons why you think studying medicine and then practicing as a
doctor would be a really good fit for you they're looking for reasons that are specific to you and
are internal reasons so many people have family members or friends of the family who are doctors
and they might fall into the trap of saying that they were encouraged to do medicine and that's why
they're applying for medicine but there are much better reasons for studying medicine than being
told you should common pitfalls of this question we're going to talk through three i think firstly
people just don't answer the question they might talk about why they want to go to that university
or they might talk about some other aspect of studying medicine and they don't specifically
answer why they will be a good medical student or why they want to be a medical student
another common pitfall is people talk too much about the benefits of being a doctor
so being a doctor is very well paid in the uk and internationally it's not the best paid job
for the hours but it still definitely puts you up in the kind of top deciles of earning being
a doctor is also very well thought of socially it's quite a high social standing position and
i really think it's important not to overlook that but again that shouldn't be a reason for
studying medicine don't say that you're looking forward to the financial benefits don't say that
you're looking forward to the work-life balance of being a gp you need to talk about things in
the earlier stages because being a consultant is when you get these kind of real rewards
and it's a long slog before you get there lastly i think the most common pitfall that people might
give is their reason is not something that's personal or internal to them and what i mean
by this is that their answer lacks reflection in my answer i say that i want to be part of the team
and i say that my volunteering experience that has been strengthened so clearly i've had a think
about the structure of the nhs and where i want to fall within that i've decided i want to be in
a doctor position and i've done some volunteering and through that volunteering i've had a look at
what that role really means that has confirmed that that's where i think i would be best suited
this question is quite a difficult question for universities to kind of mark you on especially
in mmi and this question might come alongside some other questions about your commitment to medicine
or your commitment to that specific university so commonly in an mmi interview with multiple
stations where you might have between five and ten minutes to answer a question this will be
the first question they ask and they'll follow it up with questions such as what have you done
to show you're committed to medicine what have you done to explore other careers in healthcare
how do you know that medicine is the right fit for you why might you want to study at this
and if you weren't doing medicine what would you do so it's probably a good idea to have
a think about those other questions and start maybe formulating answers to those
too if you're preparing for an online interview currently or you're hoping that you're going to
be getting offers now is definitely when to start doing your preparation the best way you
can do that especially for online interviews is with a friend or even by yourself videoing
your answers and if you're doing this with a friend you can do it with a free zoom subscription
and you just record your video either to the cloud or to your personal device
and then viewing it afterwards and having a look at your answer have a look at your body language
are you sitting upright are you articulating what you're saying by moving your hands and gesturing
or is it just a distraction and your words are they coming across clear are you coming across as
being thoughtful or are you coming across as as if you're memorizing a script i really hope you found
this video useful if you have please remember to like and subscribe press that little notification
bell and you'll get notified whenever i upload a new video there's gonna be tons of videos coming
out in the next few weeks all about medical interviews because tis the season and make sure
to check out the other videos in this playlist for more medical interview advice thanks so much
you