Ethics questions in med school interviews

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aalamruad

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Is there ever a strictly "wrong" answer to an ethics question during an interview, even if it is backed up by logical and well-explained thought? The general consensus seems to be that you can basically argue what you personally believe is ethical, as long as you articulate that argument well, but is that always the case?

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If you give an articulate explanation of why physician assisted suicide should be allowed for severe pimples, you'd probably lose some points. Any viewpoint that is reasonable, even if controversial, would not be held against you.
 
If you give an articulate explanation of why physician assisted suicide should be allowed for severe pimples, you'd probably lose some points. Any viewpoint that is reasonable, even if controversial, would not be held against you.
I really doubt that one could provide logical and well explained reasoning for a claim like that..
 
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If you give an articulate explanation of why physician assisted suicide should be allowed for severe pimples, you'd probably lose some points. Any viewpoint that is reasonable, even if controversial, would not be held against you.

I agree but I can't help but think that defending for physician assisted suicide or abortion at an institution like Loma Linda WILL be held against you.

Thoughts, @Goro @gyngyn?
 
You can qualify an answer by stating, "I'm against X for these reasons, but proponents of X justify it by a, b, c"

I agree but I can't help but think that defending for physician assisted suicide or abortion at an institution like Loma Linda WILL be held against you.

Thoughts, @Goro @gyngyn?
 
I remember reading a short 100 page medical ethics book really helped. It gave ethical scenarios and gave the reasons why they chose to do what they did, why it was ethical, they also gave unethical situations to teach you what not to do(think of it like a case book for medical ethics). that really helped, I obviously didn't memorize it, however I had a general idea of what constitued as ethical in medicine, I was able to identify when something was ethical, and generally what I should do in a situation. You can use different phisophical theories if you really wanted(but I didnt do that). When you are on interviews, avoid the straw-man argument. Even if you prove your point soundly, if you didn't provide any counter evidence then you are using the straw man argument. So after you are done, it may be good to add, although in my opinion this is what I would do, arguably someone could take issues with these aspects of what I said. This shows you are introspective, critical of what you have done right and wrong, it shows a lot, it shows you care about your mistakes. So DONT use straw man
 
Is there ever a strictly "wrong" answer to an ethics question during an interview, even if it is backed up by logical and well-explained thought? The general consensus seems to be that you can basically argue what you personally believe is ethical, as long as you articulate that argument well, but is that always the case?

A rule of thumb that I went by in my interviews was to do what was best for the patient. In other words, keep the patients best interests/care the #1 priority.

I went about answering ethical questions I've encountered with that mindset and have been successful!
 
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