MMI Question: Should you ask whether your prompt summary was correct?

[huge_epic_gaming69]

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It's a typical strategy to kind of re-state the prompt/situation in an mmi; however, should you ask for clarification that your understanding of the prompt was correct?

In the book I bought for mmi prep which is supposed to be written by adcom faculty, it says that this is a good practice right after recapping the prompt (their rationale is that "physicians check in with the patient after taking a history to make sure they have an accurate understanding"). When doing a mock with my premed advising office today though, they advised me to not ask for clarification of understanding of the scenario and some other people have mentioned this to me as well. Does anyone know which stance is more appropriate to take?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I think so but in a less direct way than you would do in a case interview or something like that. Also should be less than fifteen seconds so you have time to get to all aspects of the question.

 

[Gwynbleidd]

Current applicant so take my advice with a grain of salt. I used this strategy but less as “checking to see if it’s correct” and more just recapping the situation. Like if the ethical scenario is giving an old person vs a drug user a heart transplant, I’d say “X and Y are both candidates for a heart transplant and the ethical dilemma I’m facing is deciding who gets it” or something to that effect, then I would go into my response.

I don’t know whether it’s “good or bad” but it helped me with organizing my thoughts and making sure I hit on all the important parts of the scenario. YMMV.