Hey SDN,
I applied to medical school last year but I didn't get in, and when I called them I was told that I didn't seem to express my drive to do medicine during my interview.
Where can I go to improve upon this? I've checked my school's career center, but they mostly focused on job interviews, so there wasn't too much overlap there.
Thanks.
You should be able to answer the question, "Why do you want to become a physician?" These types of questions are often the hardest to answer because they force us into such deep introspection, so really explore the depths of this answer in your personal life and experiences.
So, first of all, you need to know exactly what the components are to your answer (basically, all the experiences that you've had that contribute to your drive to become a physician, in no particular order just yet). Most likely, it includes an anecdote from when you first realized medicine was right for you, and then, it probably includes your later clinical experiences that reinforced this decision. Also, you might want to think through your goals as a future physician as well, for our future goals can be just as motivational as the past experiences that helped to develop them in the first place. Once you've thought through all of this, you need to be able to explain each these experiences independently as they relate to your motivation for entering medicine.
Next, you need to be able to tie this all together. So, once you have gathered your thoughts about all those things which have contributed to your desire to become a physician, you need to craft an outline for the best way to string together your thoughts and to create a clear answer to the question. The organization to your answer will most likely be chronological, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
Last, you should practice giving this answer and giving it concisely. And when I say practice, I mean that you should literally talk out loud and practice verbalizing it, first by yourself and then to others. You need to be comfortable with talking about this. Also, when I say you should give the answer concisely, you want to provide enough information to actually answer the question and to inform the interviewer about your drive; however, you only want to give enough information so that you hook the interviewer and give them an "in" to ask more questions. You don't want to drone on and on about the topic; instead, you want to invite them to ask more.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions about my thoughts on this.
🙂
