Formats
The panel interview, and how to prepare for one.
One conversation with two or three people, rather than a circuit of rooms. A few schools on the list run this way. The method is different enough that it is worth its own page.
What a panel interview is
A panel interview is one conversation, usually thirty to sixty minutes, with two or three interviewers who take turns through a list of areas. There is no bell and no next room. The same people hear everything you say from the first question to the last.
The questions are often the familiar ones: why medicine, why this school, a time you worked in a team, a time something went wrong. What sets a panel apart from an MMI is that each answer can be followed up, and the follow-up is where the interview is decided.
Some schools call theirs a structured interview, which means every candidate gets the same questions in the same order against a fixed marking sheet. It is still a panel in the way that matters: one room, one conversation, and people who remember your first answer when they hear your last.
How it is marked
- The whole conversation, by the same people. Nothing is quarantined. A weak early answer colours what follows, and so does a strong one. That cuts both ways, and the useful half is that recovering in the room is possible and is noticed.
- Follow-up questions do the marking. A first answer tells the panel what you have prepared. The second and third questions tell them what you think. An answer that cannot survive one more question was never really yours, and interviewers are good at finding that out in about ninety seconds.
- Consistency. The panel hears your reasons for medicine in the first five minutes and then listens for them in everything else. If the reason was patients and the next forty minutes are about prestige, they notice.
The six things being marked
Each has its own page: what the interviewer listens for, and how to practise it.
- Communication Do you answer the question that was asked, clearly, at the right length, and can you be understood by someone who is not a doctor?
- Ethical reasoning Can you see both sides of a dilemma, name the principle at stake, and reach a decision you can defend?
- Empathy and perspective-taking In a role-play, do you notice how the other person feels before you try to solve their problem?
- Self-awareness When you talk about a failure, is it a real one, and do you know what it taught you?
- Teamwork Can you describe a time you were not the leader, and what you did instead?
- Motivation for medicine Is your reason yours, is it specific, and does it survive the follow-up question?
How I prepare a student for it
Work out what you think first.
Before any practice question, I ask the student to write half a page on why they want this, and then I ask the follow-up questions to the page. Most first drafts do not survive it. The third one does, and it is the one that holds in the room.
Say it in your own words, every time.
A rehearsed answer is obvious within a sentence, and some schools say in writing that it counts against you. I agree. We practise the same question many times, and the answer is never the same twice. That is the point.
Practise being followed up.
In sessions I do not let a first answer stand. I ask what you mean and what the other side would say. By the mock, you expect the follow-up question before it comes.
Then a full mock, with the same panel for the hour.
One run under interview conditions with the feedback held until the end. Panel interviews reward composure over a long stretch, and the only way to practise a long stretch is to sit one.
Practise it now
The stations on this site run to time, one question at a time. Nothing is recorded and nothing is scored.
Schools that interview this way
As checked against each school's own admissions page. The page for each one says what is particular to it: the shape of the interview, when it falls, and what the school says it is marking.
- University of New South Wales A structured interview with two interviewers, who are academic staff, medical practitioners or community representatives, across a wide range of topics. Late November for rural entry, then mid December and mid January for everyone else.
- James Cook University A live online interview with a panel of three, usually a health practitioner, an academic and a community member, run on the Kira Talent platform. Typically two rounds: late November, then early January.
Every school on one page, with the format and timing of each.
Other guides
- Start here What the interview is testing, and how the cycle runs.
- Timeline planner Put in your interview date and get a week by week plan.
- Pathway planner The whole road from school to consultant, drawn around your choices.
- Practice stations Real MMI stations with a two minute reading phase and a station clock.
- By university The interview at every undergraduate-entry school: format, timing, and what is marked.
- What is marked The six things every station marks, and how to practise each one.
- How to answer The questions every panel asks, what each is testing, and the follow-ups to expect.
- Question themes The subjects questions come from, from rural health to the profession, with prompts.
- Interview dates When each school sends invitations, holds interviews and makes offers this cycle.
- When you hear back Every school’s offer dates, and why the wait after the interview is so long.
- Formats What an MMI and a panel interview each are, and how to prepare for each.
- Interview soon? Days to go? What you can still book at short notice, and the prices.
- For parents Who your child is working with, and what I will not promise.
If you want a session
Thirty minutes, $40, online, and it comes off any package you go on to book. Tell me where you are applying and when the interviews are.