Is it normal for applicants to significantly exaggerate their work/activity hours?

[TwinsFan]

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One interview I had this past cycle (not verbatim):

"You left medicine to do something not related to medicine? You don't look motivated to be a physician."

"I left my scribe after 1000 hours of experience. I was a human typewriter, and I learned a lot, but there wasn't anymore growth there. I would like to do more thinking and less mechanical work. Now I'm doing a more technical side of medicine."

"There's nothing in medicine that's technical." <-- this is verbatim!

"So, if I wanted to find out more about your school, what would you say?"

"Why is this relevant? Do not avoid the question."

"I'm answering it, can you humor me?"

"This is not my job, go onto the school's website."

"That's my point, a website, which is hosted on a server, and used by future and current physicians to-"

"Do not try to confuse me with technical words like server. If you do not want to answer the question, we'll just move on."

"Dr. X, I'm sorry. I'm trying to say technology is more entwined with doctors nowadays, and I got to help create the software a practice in NYC not only uses to make appointments, but to do virtual sessions with their patients!"

"What about people who do not have technology? Would you let them die?"

The interview did not get better. It was one of two interviews, and the second went better, but I got rejected after.

Lesson: lie, lie, and lie again. Medical schools do not want the truth. If I had said I am a medical website designer or some BS title instead of my actual title, I wouldn't have been destroyed at that interview.

I had a very similar interview to this where the interviewer constantly contradicted and tried to argue with me. I stayed positive, kept my composure, answered his questions with a brief why behind them and acknowledged the value of his point of view. After about 10-15 minutes of this he sat back, paused, smiled, then said "very good..." After that the entire interview changed and he was pleasant with interesting questions.
Result: accepted

While this was only one of a number of interviews, it does and can happen. Be aware that a few may use the interview as some sort of "testing" grounds but really the interviewer has all the potential in the world to be your best advocate.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Here's a random thought... For those who do end up volunteering around 1000+ hours by the time they apply; unless you truly believe in the cause, it must be a bad feeling looking back at those hours. I volunteered between 300-400 hours at the hospital ED when I finally quit due to my acceptance. I was treated like a slave and did scut work that the techs loaded on me. Techs in my area made $15/hr. If you were forced to do free labor as a volunteer and volunteered over 1000 hours, do you realize that you left more than $10,000 on the table? 🙁 Until I realized that I was paying for the convenience, I was upset about the hours I was putting me in. Once I reached around 100 hours, my parents were urging me to quit because they were absolutely disgusted at what was going on.