Interview Question Bank

[Seren y Gogledd]

Oh and also "Who founded the NHS?"

I had no idea. Despite him coming from the valleys. The shame...

[gymmet]

Shame on you Seren :P it was Aneurin Bevan, there's a statue of him in Cardiff and everything! (though I only know this because for some reason it's a random fact I've retained from GCSE history...)

[chunny]

I did remember one weird question that threw me off...

"What annoys you?"

Then, for a few seconds I sat there thinking... and a train of thought ran through my head trying to think of an answer that would be acceptable to say in an interview, and came out with one word...

"Lawbreakers."

lol!

[gymmet]

oh chun you make me laugh

at mine they asked me if I'd had any experience with self-directed learning. at the time, I thought, pfft, it's a lecture based uni, what's that got to do with it...

and now our almost entirely self directed learning anatomy exam is TOMORROW. argh. how naive I was.

[Thestableboy]

They asked me: "What is the biggest killer in Wales?" I was like: "CHD"
Then they said: "What are the 3 main causes of it?" I said: "Bad diet, lack of exercise, but cant remember what the third one is."
The interviewer then began mimming and stated: "Women are doing a lot more of it know". But i still had no idea what the hell he was on about. He then told me that it was smoking. The phrase "Dohhh!" sprang to mind...

[Lucy xxx]

I was asked:

• If I was still taking music exams,
• A scenario... if I had to go back to my old school and give a 3 minute speech to an assembly of 15 year olds what would I say if the topic had to be on getting a job as a sales assistant?! I found this very hard to answer as didn’t really know what they were looking for!
• This led on to body language. I had to explain what I meant by open body language and aggressive body language. I had to describe what happened to peoples eyes when they were angry.
• How I would diffuse a situation if a customer was irritated or angry. How members of the public are judged and perceived by others and how this might influence their treatment by sales assistants/ prejudicial situations etc.
• This led on to a situation in a hospital environment. What are the causes of aggression, anger or stress in a hospital environment. Who would it be that was stressed and how would I deal with diffusing the situation?
• About my work experience at the EMI nursing home. What did I feel could have been done there more efficiently/ to give the patients better care or treatment.
• What was my role as a volunteer there, what I felt the first step should be in taking care of the elderly. (I found all these questions hard to blag as i'd only spent 1 hour there!)
• In the future would care for the elderly change? This led on to a debate about research and technology, whether it was or wasn't ethical to prolong lives artificially in the elderly. Whether more time and money should be spent providing care and treatment for younger patients who had whole lives to live than on elderly patients who should die soon anyway.
• This led on to a discussion about the funding research gets, where the money comes from, if it should go to other areas of medicine etc, then on to rather political topics about how much of a say the government should have on what happens in the NHS or whether everything should be decided by the doctors themselves.
• This went into vested interests from doctors.
• The discussion then went back to my experience in the nursing home (which was rather hairy for me as my whole interview was being based on a one off, one hour visit I made,and a job id only had for 2 weeks before quitting!) and I was asked from my observations there what did I was think was wrong with the elderly patients.
• Then everything got more scientific and I had to explain what dementia was scientifically. Then I had to give my own ideas as to what the cause of this could be, and the development of possible treatments in the future. Again this was more scientific but also led on to medicine in the media as we began talking about technological advances, growing body parts and skin grafts, and although I tried very hard to avoid it, stem cells!
• Again this linked in to ethical implications, not only of treating elderly people who perhaps should be ‘left’ to die at their natural time, but also onto the ethics of destroying embryos in the name of stem cell research.
• What did my friends think of me being a doctor? (I said they found it hilarious) Did they think I would make a good doctor? Why did I think that was?

The questions themselves were more probing than those at Leeds, and enabled discussions which encompassed current ethical, political and social issues with my science A levels and experience so far. I really enjoyed it as I was able to ‘argue’ my point of view and felt that I was able to bring all my knowledge of medicine together. However, it was done very cleverly and of course they knew exactly what they were doing, I could almost feel them waiting for me to fall into a trap! The layout was different from my others also. There were just two of them, both male, one on either side of the table, with I at the head. One of them questioned me at a time, one asked the scientific and technological questions, the other asked more about my opinions, what I would do in situations. However, as one was talking to me, the other was staring at me and was, I felt, analysing every move I made!
This is a very long post...copied and pasted from an email to my careers tutor who wanted details on my interview,which by the way,was very late-last day in april x

[Looopylu]

Looks like there's a huge difference in the questions Cardiff ask. Anyways I know it was helpful when I applied so heres mine...

Was only in there for 10 minutes, if that. Which made me worried that they hadn't liked me for over 3 months before I got my offer lol. :-S

1. Did you go on the tour?
2. Why do you want to come to Cardiff?
3. What do you know about the course structure at Cardiff?
4. What made you choose medicine?
5. Do you want to go into research (I don't know why she said this, I hadn't mentionned this at all)
(that was all the ENT surgeon, then onto the obs and gyny guy)
6. So you play football...?? (yup I didn't think that sounded like a question either. I think this guy was trying to see how I'd react to him asking strange questions)
7. You used to be captain of your team, but you're not captain of your new team.. (evidence of above)
8. Tell me about your work experience (hosp and nursing home)
(then onto Medical student)
9. Do you think that people with dementia are treated differently in nursing homes?
10. Do you think it's important to have a good social life in Med school

And that was that...!!

[Rosebot]

yeh mine was more like yours loopylu and also reallly short which made me worried cus everyone else was in there for ages
cant remember everything but i had
1. why medicine?
2. why not nursing?
3. tell me about your work experience and questions relating to this like differences between primary and secondary care etc
4. why cardiff?
5. What does the silver surfers which described in your ps involve (its a computer and technology class for the elderly)
6. Can i ship my parents down to it on the train?
7. what is your favourite of your extra curricular activities you have listed
8. About learning styles and self directed learning
it was all very quick but they were all very friendly and try to put you at ease
be prepared for a long wait though
i didnt get my offer until the 3rd batch
which was a week after they had told us offers would go out on my interview day
nervewracking times!

[rachel x]

I had my interview today. Very nice and chilled out. Friendly panel. Made me feel very at ease. I had a consultant paediatric endocrinologist, a nurse specialist dermatologist and a 4th year med student.

1. "Do you know what paediatric endocrinology is?"

2. "What did you learn from your work experience with the GP and why did it make you want to be a doctor?"

3. I mentioned reassurance and holistic medicine and so they asked me "How did the doctor use his communication skills to reassure the patient?"

4. "What work experience have you done in a hospital setting?" (i mentioned my w.e. with surgeons)

5. "Why did the surgery team work so well?"

6. "Why was the consultant such a good team leader?"

7. "You're working as a healthcare assistant at the moment so why do you want to be a doctor and not a nurse?"

8. "Have you been to cardiff before?"

9. "Was not getting into medical school last year your biggest failure so far in life and how did you cope with it?"

10. "Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?"

11. "Do you know what child protection is?"

12. "What do you think went so wrong that Baby P ended up dying?"

13. "If you were minister for health and you had a million pounds to spend tackling obesity then how would you go about doing it?"

14. "Is it important to educated parents about childhood obesity?"

15. "Why is Jamie Oliver a credible role model for the general public?"

I didn't feel my interview went too well but it must have done because the med student came out afterwards and told me I'd been highly recommended for an offer. Fingers & toes crossed for March!!

[Darren A..]

I had my interview on Monday, but I feel awful because Cardiff is my joint 1st choice, and I was too nervous and might have messed up my chances

Anyways..

-Tell me about yourself. (I was visably surprised because I was all ready to answer why medicine? lol)

-You mentioned about having w.exp/voluntary healthcare placements, tell us about it... (I talked about observing the doctor at a hospice when I was volunteering, but they interupted me before I could talk about any other w.exp)

-You mentioned seeing the doctor-patient relationship...tell us an example of when you saw that relationship fail (panic!.. I had no examples but scrambled an answer about being an HCA and seeing how a GP was slightly reglectful of a resident who ended up in hospital from simple dehydration)

-(looking unsatisfied with my answer) and what do you think caused that relationship to deteriorate? (I felt really stumped but said how maybe some doctors think old age goes hand in hand with inevitable problems so are not as concerned about itm which isn't fair)

-So you are an HCA, what does that entail?(talked about washing, dressing etc. and how I had to respect dignity and individuality)

-You mentioned how the dementia patients can be aggressive or violent, how do you deal with those situations?

-so what are the aims of your gap year?

-how are you keeping up to date with scientific subjects during the year? (talked about reading lots of news+articles eg: the recent stem cell trials and we talked about that briefly)

-(again looking unsatisfied)any other ways you are keeping in touch? (i talked a bit about a book on the history of the human race i recently read)

-You seem to be a very relaxed person (i suppressed laughter becuase i was shaking with fear), when was the last time you were really stressed? (talked about when I took my violin diploma)

-How did you deal with the stress? (I said that i put it to one side and enjoyed the performance, but also how music is a good outlet for stress in general etc)

-You say in you PS that you will be getting involved in the musical activities at uni, how will you find time for both your medical studies and music?

The interview lasted about 25 mins, but I know I have left out a couple of questions that I can't remember.