Question themes
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
Many schools ask about it, and some build their whole mission around it. It is a subject where a careless answer does real damage, and where listening counts for more than knowing.
Why schools ask
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live with a gap in health outcomes that every Australian doctor will meet in practice, in cities as much as in remote communities. Schools want to know that you are aware of it, that you understand some of why it exists, and that you would approach it with humility.
You do not need statistics. An answer full of numbers and empty of people reads badly. What you need is an understanding of the history, of who should lead, and of what you as a doctor would do differently.
Worth knowing before the interview
- History shapes health. Dispossession, the removal of children and generations of discrimination by health and government services are part of why some people are wary of hospitals today. That wariness is a reasonable response to experience.
- Community control. Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations are run by the communities they serve, and many people prefer them to mainstream services. Strengthening the community-controlled sector is one of the priority reforms in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, signed in 2020.
- Cultural safety. Australia’s health regulators define culturally safe care as care that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people themselves judge to be safe. The patient decides, and the doctor’s job is to reflect on how their own assumptions affect the care they give.
- Health is wider than illness. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people describe health as social and emotional wellbeing, connected to family, community, culture and Country. A plan that ignores those connections often fails.
What a strong answer shows
- Humility. Saying what you do not know, and who you would learn it from.
- Community leadership. Solutions led by communities and Aboriginal health workers, with the doctor in support.
- Practical respect. Time, explanation, family involvement where the patient wants it, and the offer of an Aboriginal liaison officer or health worker.
Where answers go wrong
- Speaking for others. Telling the panel what Aboriginal people want. Unless you are speaking from your own community, the honest answer is that you would ask.
- Treating it as one culture. There are hundreds of distinct nations and languages, and Torres Strait Islander peoples have their own cultures. Generalising is a mistake interviewers notice.
- Deficit only. An answer that is all problems and no strengths. Communities run successful services, programs and research, and a good answer knows that.
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.
- Why might an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation be better placed than a mainstream clinic to run some services? What would you want to learn from one on placement?
- A patient has missed three follow-up appointments, and the clinic’s policy is to discharge them from the service. What would you want to know before that happens?
- A colleague says the fairest thing is to treat every patient in exactly the same way. How would you respond?
What these stations usually mark
Schools where it matters most
Other themes
- Ethics scenarios Most circuits have at least one.
- 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.