Ethics scenarios, and the topics they come from.

Worth knowing before the interview

• Consent and capacity. An adult with capacity can refuse treatment, even treatment that would save their life. Capacity is about a particular decision at a particular time, and it is assumed unless there is reason to doubt it.
• Confidentiality. What a patient tells a doctor stays private, with narrow exceptions where someone else is at serious risk. Most scenarios turn on whether an exception applies, and on trying to get the patient’s agreement first.
• Young people. A person under eighteen can consent to some treatment on their own if they understand it well enough. Australian law calls this being a mature minor. It is why a GP can see a fifteen year old without a parent.
• Professionalism. Scenarios about colleagues: an error someone will not admit, a friend who cuts corners, a gift from a drug company. They test whether you will put patients ahead of loyalty, and whether you know to raise it with someone senior first.
• Fairness and scarce resources. Who gets the last bed, the expensive drug, the next transplant. The useful words are need, benefit and fairness, and the useful habit is asking who else should be part of the decision.

What a strong answer shows

• The people first. Name who is affected and how they might feel before you reach for principles.
• Both sides, fairly. The best version of the view you end up rejecting.
• A decision, with its conditions. What you would do, and what would change your mind.
• Help sought. A medical student or junior doctor escalates. Saying who you would talk to is part of the answer.

Where answers go wrong

• Treating it as a quiz. There is rarely one right answer, and an interviewer can tell when a student is hunting for the one they think is wanted.
• Overconfident law. Half-remembered legal rules said with certainty. It is safer to say what you would want to check, and with whom.
• Acting alone. Heroic answers where a student confronts a consultant or breaks a rule on their own judgement. The safer and better answer goes through the right people.

Three prompts to run on the clock

Thirty seconds to read each one, then two minutes to answer it out loud. Record it if you can, and listen back once.

1. 1A patient with capacity refuses a blood transfusion that would very likely save their life. A junior nurse asks whether the team should give it anyway. What do you say?
2. 2A friend in your year asks you to sign them in to a compulsory tutorial they are going to miss. What do you do?
3. 3A patient asks their GP not to record a diagnosis in their file because they are worried about their job. How should the GP respond?

What these stations usually mark

• 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?

Schools where it matters most

• Monash University Publishes ethical reasoning among the qualities it assesses.
• James Cook University Publishes advocacy and ethical reasoning among the qualities it assesses.

A station on the same ground

• Ethics and resource allocation Four questions on a clock. Nothing is recorded or scored.

Other themes

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health Many schools ask about it, and some build their whole mission around it.
• Rural and remote health Australia does not have enough doctors outside its cities, and several schools exist partly to change that.
• Disability and healthcare access About one in five Australians lives with disability, so every doctor treats people with disability every week.
• Public health and the community Questions about what keeps a whole population well: smoking laws, vaccination, junk food, housing.
• The profession Questions about the job rather than the patient: the training, the hours, burnout, technology, how medicine is changing.

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 which schools you are applying to and which of these worries you.

Book an intro session