Question themes
The profession, and what you know about it.
Questions about the job rather than the patient: the training, the hours, burnout, technology, how medicine is changing. They test whether you know what you are signing up for.
Why schools ask
A school is offering you the start of a training that lasts a decade or more. It wants to know you understand what is at the end of it, including the parts that are hard.
These questions also check whether you follow what is happening in health. You do not need to read journals. You do need to have thought about the issues doctors are talking about.
Worth knowing before the interview
- The training is long. Medical school, then an internship year, then usually several years as a junior doctor before a specialty training program, which can take three to seven years more. The pathway planner on this site draws it out.
- Burnout is common. Long hours, night shifts and the weight of the work wear doctors down, and junior doctors have campaigned about unpaid overtime and unsafe rosters. A good answer knows this and has thought about how to look after yourself and your colleagues.
- Medicine is a team. Doctors work alongside nurses, pharmacists, allied health staff and many others, and the best care comes from that team working well. The teamwork page covers how this is marked.
- Technology is changing the job. Telehealth, electronic records and AI tools that read scans or draft notes. The questions usually ask what stays human, and who is responsible when a tool is wrong.
What a strong answer shows
- Eyes open. Knowing the hard parts and still wanting it, for reasons that are yours.
- A few issues, properly. One or two issues you have thought about with care. A long list of names you cannot discuss helps nobody.
- Self-care as a skill. An honest sense of what wears you down and what you do about it.
Where answers go wrong
- All glory. An answer about saving lives and being respected, with nothing about the paperwork, the hours or the uncertainty.
- Doom. The opposite: so much about burnout that the panel wonders why you are applying.
- Buzzwords. AI and telehealth named without a view on either.
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.
- Junior doctors have protested about long hours and unpaid overtime. Should doctors ever take industrial action?
- Should an AI tool ever make a diagnosis without a doctor checking it? Who is responsible if it is wrong?
- Whose job is it to keep doctors well: the doctor’s, the hospital’s, or someone else’s?
What these stations usually mark
Schools where it matters most
A station on the same ground
Other themes
- Ethics scenarios Most circuits have at least one.
- 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.
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.