The Interview Advice Every Premed Needs to Hear | Dr. Ryan Gray, Medical School HQ

in the interview the interviewer is leading and you're following it's a conversation where students go wrong with the medical school interview is [Music] so my name is Ryan grave dr. Ryan gray dr. gray whatever you want to call me I'm a physician by training so I went to medical school I practiced for five years in the Air Force as a flight surgeon a couple years into practicing in the Air Force I started a website because I didn't like what I saw out there in the pre-med world with how competitive it was how cutthroat it was how negative it was or is and what I saw from websites like student doctor Network I disagreed with and so I started my own website and podcast seven years ago actually the podcast has turned seven next week nowadays you guys have lots of information and sometimes that's a good thing sometimes that's a bad thing there's a lot of bad information out there and hopefully in our session today I can dispel a lot of myths I can answer a lot of questions we'll do tons of Q&A we'll get you going so that when you are interviewing you are there to to really show off who you are as a person why you want to be a doctor and hopefully that interview will turn into an acceptance so the goal at its core the goal of the medical school interview is to do dance right when you dance one person leaves one person follows in the interview the interviewer is leading and you're following it's a conversation they're asking a question you're answering it where students go wrong with the medical school interview is the leader leads and asks a question and you step right on his or her foot because you have an agenda and you're like no I want to go this way I know you want to go that way but I want to tell you how empathetic I am I'm gonna tell you how dedicated I am and you're just stepping on their feet the whole way and they walk out limping beat up because because you thought that your goal on interview day was to prove that you're empathetic and hard-working compassionate dedicated motivated that you know you want to be a doctor the year amazing doctor that's not the goal of the medical school interview it's to follow the leader in a conversation and so when the leader asks why you want to be a doctor the goal isn't to say because I'm the most compassionate person ever I know that I have the empathy and I love science so much that my eyes bleed because I just love it so much I could stay up all night studying ochem and I know that I'm gonna be an amazing medical student because I'd love science students do that so at the end of the day you want that interviewer to remember you right going back to being memorable for who you are and the story that you tell so why do you want to be a doctor it's not because you like people want to help people in like science all right it's not and yet half of you will say that in your interview and trust me I've seen it a thousand different ways some very fancy ways of saying I like science and I want to help people but at the core that's what you're saying and that's not a reason to be a physician just means you like science and you want to help people I got into an uber many years ago and asked the driver how he was doing he said I'm doing amazing I get to help people today get to drive them where they're going he's helping people he might like science - all right he wasn't listening to a science podcast so I can't prove it but he might like science - and yet he's not a physician so what experiences have you had in your life that have shown you you want to be a physician I have a personal statement book and in the book I call it your seed what is your seed so if you remember me my seed was getting hurt playing baseball and being exposed to physical therapy it's not leading to being a physician but that led me to health care and so you talk about your seed a lot of students will focus so much on grades and MCAT scores that they don't really understand why they're pursuing this path and that come comes across in a personal statement and it comes across in an interview and if the interviewer isn't convinced that you really understand what being a doctor is like number one you probably won't be there for the interview to begin with and number two if you are there for the interview where you probably won't be accepted if you haven't heard being a physician is kind of hard going to medical school is very hard being a resident it's hard so they want to make sure that you understand what those sacrifices are so we have a standard interview right the medical school interview standard interview is a one-on-one type interview either open or closed open interview means they have access to your application doesn't mean they've looked at it it just means they have access to it so they'll know your GPA your MCAT score your essays all of that stuff there are partially blind or partially open partially closed however you want to look at it interviews where they may have access to your essays but not your stats and that's so they don't come in bias with oh the student doesn't have the best stats they're probably not gonna be a good student there are completely closed interviews where they just don't have access to anything there are mmm eyes the multiple mini interview how many of you have heard them about the MMI a bunch of you how many of you are really scared above of the MMI and the rest of you are lying so the MMI actually is a much friendlier interview than a standard interview you have a lot more leeway because it's not just a one-on-one interview you actually have some flexibility with performing poorly in one station and doing well in the other the students who do poorly try too hard and they try to go in and say okay they get psyched up they go all right I need to prove that I'm empathetic I need to prove that I'm compassionate I need to prove that I know all of medical ethics I need to prove that I know all of the steps of of what happens when we have a Jehovah's Witness come in and and they're refusing blood treatment right a blood transfusion but at the end of the day your goal isn't to prove anything other than your normal human being who can hold a conversation with another human being the goal from their point of view is to see if you're going to be someone who is going to be a good member of the class remember that they are not accepting one person they are accepting a whole community of students and they have kind of their idea they meet every year as an admissions committee and say okay who do we want our class to look like do we want it to be kind of the Jockey class this year do we want it to be this science nerds do we want it to be that whatever right what's the makeup of the class that we kind of want to see and that's where when you kind of go outside of the box a little bit and stop trying to sell yourself as to how compassionate and empathetic and hardworking and dedicated and motivated and all of the cliche things you start to show who you are you start to show personality it's important and so as you are picking apart your responses for your interview and this goes for your essays as well for your application pick apart sentence by sentence thought by thought kind of bullet point by bullet point when your frame working kind of your answers and thinking about the answers to your interview and think about is this a generic statement I'm dedicated I'm hard working on empathetic generic statement or is it your story so when you're looking at your answers you need to tell your story so how do you do that well you talk to a lot of people talk to family and friends to say hey mom dad when did I first start talking about wanting to be a doctor hey mom dad when I came home from my first shadowing experience when I was in high school my first clinical experience or I was a candy striper in high school whatever it was when I first came home from that experience what was that like so if you're not right now journaling i highly recommend you start journaling after every clinical experience after every shadowing experience after every volunteer experience after all of your research experiences every day you should be journaling strengths and weaknesses and this isn't a game of I'm gonna turn my weaknesses into a strength guess what we're all humans I think all right all humans here okay second guess what humans are not perfect we all have weaknesses some more than others some bigger than others that's okay your weaknesses are your weaknesses the question is what are you doing to work on them and so if you take a weakness and say oh my my I just care too much that's not a weakness what's your weakness I am so disorganized man it's terrible I forget a lot of things but you know what I started using a new planner I started using this new calendar app and I'm slowly getting better at it cool I can see that you're working on it cool tell me a story that supports it right strengths weaknesses anything in your interview that you can support with a story it's a highlight your answer you're doing well anecdotes really helped seal the deal we as humans love stories they're memorable for us it's how we learned growing up before the written word I would sit around the campfire making sure the saber-tooth Tiger wasn't gonna eat us telling stories stories resonate with us they stay in our mind and so if you can answer strengths and weaknesses well here's my strength here's a story that shows that here's a weakness here's a story that shows it here's what I'm doing to work on it here's the time I failed here's a story here's what I've done to work on it a time that I worked in a group here's a story story story story story that's all that's all I got it's easy it's hard but it's easy all right so yeah let's let's do some Q&A what are some good questions to ask the interviewer typically if you have time an interviewer will ask if you have any questions where students go wrong with asking questions is they asked to specific of questions about the school or they asked to specific equestions about the person and so the wrong question to ask is oh why did you come here it doesn't tell me anything about the school right the interviewer goes if I'm the interviewer oh well my my my wife wanted to come to Texas A&M and and be here I wanted to be in Gainesville Florida because Gators are better right it doesn't tell you anything about the school that hissing is terrible so they most of you have probably heard right ask questions about them people love to talk about themselves and and that's a good thing it'll engage them don't ask questions about themselves don't ask super specific questions about the school or the program because the interviewers interviewing you may not be part of the faculty right not all the people interviewing are part of the school at University of Colorado we have nurses that come in we have lawyers that come in come in from the community to help interview students if they are part of the faculty and you ask something about the curriculum well guess what there's a curriculum committee they may they might not be on the curriculum committee so they don't know those specific answers and so what you don't want to do is ask three questions and the interviewer go I don't know I don't know I don't know shuts it down really fast and so what I like to do is ask about them in a different way and that's about their opinion on things what is their opinion about something so one of my favorite questions is what do you think is your or what do you think is the best part of this school that doesn't get a lot of attention it's not something you can Google it's talking about them because it's their opinion and Lord knows we all have opinions and it's something that they can answer all right they can't turn around and go or they could I've never thought about that and I don't want to right now right usually they go oh that's interesting I'll tell you the answer how personal should I get on the interview so let's let's frame it from a couple of different angles if you are going to cry talking about it I would probably avoid it if you happen to cry during interview that's okay just take a second but if you are trying to again go in with an agenda and go I really need to make sure that they know this about me and it's something super emotional to you I would I would be careful with that right it's a professional interview and yes crying is okay but in the interview process you want to try to kind of maintain your cool again thinking about taking care of mom dad loved ones usually you don't want your doctor crying there with you a lot of times it happens and it's cool and it's just it's in the moment but you want to try to maintain and so kind of that is a top level thing and that's something to think about with your applications as well putting something in your personal statement putting something in your secondary essays if you know that that topic is really really sensitive for you and it may bring up a ton of emotions during an interview maybe avoid it in your application altogether and that's hard to say because it may be a huge part of your journey and if it is then you probably should talk about it and then try to get a little bit more calm before your interview dan from a mental health perspective right unfortunately there's still huge stigma around mental health the ultimate kind of tests for medical schools in terms of your application in terms of your stats and just you as a human being is is the student going to finish school in four years and pass all the tests they need to pass because if you don't they get dinged all right they have accreditation standards and if they have students who aren't finishing school in four years then they have to kind of answer to the the higher powers that be and if you start talking about mental health struggles which is getting personal the question is are those going to come back up during medical school in case you haven't heard medical schools just a little bit hard I was gonna make a joke about Texas ain't in but I won't you're my friends today it's hard it's very very hard and you work a lot and you sleep a little and there's lots of stress associated with it and guess what kind of exacerbates mental health issues all of those things and so that the question in the back of their mind is are you going to be able to complete medical school and for most students with mental health challenges they're fine they may need an extra year they may need some time away but they do fine so so that's kind of where I think about or out the things I start to think about when thinking is it too personal or is it not the other thing and I'll mention this because I have way too many mostly women and I know it happens to men as well but mostly women reach out to me talking about sexual assault and should I put it in my application to explain withdrawing from a semester taking a year off or whatever it may be and in the application process and in the interview process I think it's very easy to read between the lines and if you need to talk about something I like that don't I don't think you need to explain it fully in an application I think if you used a salt or whatever language you want to use I think most people will understand what you're talking about and go okay I get it we can talk about it we can move on whatever you want I think when students start getting a little bit too far into details talking about that stuff makes people uncomfortable and it's not your job to not make them uncomfortable but again if you think about from their point of view if their internal reaction is oh my god that's terrible I don't want to read anymore right that's like the opposite of what you want to do with your application you want them to read you want them to take it in and so whether that's in an interview whether that's in an application just make sure that whatever you need to talk about whatever experiences you've had just make sure that you're you're not going a little bit too far making that person uncomfortable in a way that makes them want to push your application away because it's uncomfortable for them and they may be dealing with their own issues of trauma and so it's just I have to talk about it because because I get emails probably monthly from students do you recommend mock interviews so it kind of goes back to what I was mentioning about not being overly rehearsed I think you should do some mock interviews I think you should get some feedback from your pre-health office pre health advisors hopefully they have some some good mock interview services for you because I think you need to say your answers out loud practicing in your head you sound like a rock star you're like oh I'm gonna crush this I'm amazing and then you say it and the interviewer is like what the heck did you just say you're like oh that didn't come out how I expected I had so practice do mock interviews I don't think you need to do a million of them I think you need to do some just to understand number one how the words are coming out of your mouth number two hopefully they'll record you in video so that you can watch yourself and see if you have any like weird tics or something that you're like always playing with your ear your hair or whatever right so that you can hopefully not to do those things and then even though it's a fake environment your body still is afraid and so how sweaty do you get how like how tense does your voice box get and what do you sound like so that you can understand those things and be prepared with tissues to wipe the sweat pouring off of your forehead and and hopefully just try to relax as much as possible I was I was doing a mock interview with a student my mock interview on skype okay so we're completely separate parts of the world country and like just sweats just come in I could see it on the video I'm like are you gonna like you gonna wipe that he's like oh yeah like you know how your body's gonna react and be prepared for it right it's okay to sweat we're humans we sweat when we're nervous don't let the sweat pour down and just completely drench you and just be be prepared with the tissue what do I do if I get a question that I'm unsure about so question that you're unsure how to answer maybe it's political what do you do in that situation depends on what the question is if it's a question that's like super specific details of something then you say you don't know what you don't want to do is fake it because it's super easy for the interviewer to go hahaha this student has no clue what they're talking about I'm just gonna drill them I'm just gonna keep asking questions and make them sweat you don't do it be open and honest again thinking about you taking care of their loved ones in the hospital you don't want your doctor faking it right the doctor will go oh I don't know let me go google that whatever figure it out so if it's something potentially from a moral or ethical standpoint you should have opinions a lot of students get caught up with I don't know the right answer and during the interview process it's not about the right answer it's about your thought process all of you have different experiences growing up your parents are different your aunts and uncles are different your siblings are different and so all of you look at life and interpret life differently than everyone else and during the interview process when you're asked questions most of the time you don't have to know anything you don't have to have the right answer you just have to have your thoughts what are your beliefs what counts as clinical experience the question I get students asking me all this especially on Instagram after we post something about clinical and shadowing and what the differences are etcetera is like I volunteer here is it clinical I do this is it clinical and I have no idea based on the title based on the location if it's clinical or not it's all about what you are doing so you may you may volunteer an assisted living facility but if all you're doing is is administrative work it's not clinical experience I've had students who are like janitors in a hospital put on their application clinical experience like I'm in a hospital clinical know if you're interacting with patients in even a smidge of a clinical way then I would label a clinical experience let me give you an example of clinical experience it's not clinical experience interacting with patients in an emergency room if you've ever been to an ER usually what happens is you get taken back to a room and then someone comes to you and registers you into the hospital system all right they get all of your information they get your insurance card they get your credit card number they get your social security number they get your firstborn because it's really expensive about the hospital and that person registering you is interacting with a patient and so I had a student who's like this is what I do it's clinical experience I'm interacting with patients and I said no that's an administration that's not clinical experience yes you're close enough to smell the patient which is a fun way of saying close enough like interacting with the patients but it's not clinical experience so you just have to use your judgment what you're doing in that set in that setting in that situation to determine if it's clinical or not how should I prepare for the interview so I'd go to your vitae seeing office here do you guys have pre health office here good so go to your advising office hopefully they offer mock interviews I'm glad you asked I didn't talk much about preparing during the the talk the one of the biggest mistakes that students make when they're doing mock interviews when they're preparing for their interviews is over preparing I talked about selling yourself and going in with an agenda all that stuff if you don't do any of that but you over prepare then you're just running off of a script in your head and so the interviewer says Sally tell me about yourself you go well I was born in Texas and I grew up in Texas and I went to Texas A&M and I majored in biochemistry and I have three brothers and a sister and my mom does this and I really want to and and you're just going off of a script in your head because you've rehearsed it so many times that you've memorized it that's bad too because guess what going back to the core of what the interview is is a conversation not a monologue okay so don't over prepare don't script out your answers the best way to prepare is the bullet point okay tell me about yourself I know I want to talk about where I grew up I want to talk about family siblings I want to talk about what I like to read and what I like to cook bullet point those things memorize those things and then on your interview day let your brain fill in the rest why don't want to be a doctor okay I want to talk about kind of my seed that was planted when when grandma Gertrude got sick and we were exposed to medicine and then I was a candy striper and then whatever right bullet point those things and then let your brain fill in the rest on interview day don't memorize it can shadowing count it's clinical experience so shadowing sometimes shadowing in it's like truest form is super passive like you're not doing anything you're bored out of your mind like oh my god kill me now I know I want to be a doctor I don't wanna do this anymore but I need to do it whatever some physicians will let you interact with patients ask questions take vitals if you're in that situation just estimate how much time is clinical and how much time is shadowing and just put it as two separate entries on your application if it's like one random time that you're like I got to talk to the patient like don't even worry about it but if there's any significant time then you can you can split up one experience into two things so another good example is if you're a clinical research coordinator a lot of students it's a really good job pre-med job for students you're doing research right you're helping run research and you're interacting with patients and organizing all their care and all this stuff but a lot of times the clinical research coordinators will hang out with you in the doctor's office while the doctor is seeing you because as soon as the doctor is done doing that you're gonna take the patient somewhere else for other testing other labs whatever and so your clinical research coordinator job is a ton of shadowing as well in some situations should I send thank-you notes thank-you notes are in my mind something that you should still should be doing a lot of medical schools will tell you like it's not gonna make a difference don't send them if the school tells you not to send them don't send them right if you send them after the school tells you not to send them then you just don't follow directions even if the school says yeah we accept them but they don't matter to still send them it's just like old-school courteous shows that you care and it's another contact point another touch point make them as personal as possible to say hey dr. Smith I really loved our conversation about blah blah blah I look forward to hearing from the school soon I send them as soon as possible usually email us fine written letters are okay if the school is okay with you sending written letters as well how can I show consistency as an on tread the consistency obviously can't start until you start to realize that this is what you want so it's not an issue it's part of your story and in your personal statement it'll likely reflect that there was obviously some change from here's what I thought I was going to do too now here's why I want to be a doctor that's the whole goal of the personal statement is why do I want to be a doctor your personal statement should tell that story and then usually depending on where you're switching from if you were like a liberal arts major a history major or whatever and all of a sudden you start taking all these science classes junior year that paints a picture of you realizing that that you're on a different path so everything will point to it and and if the question comes up it's breezy like I didn't know I want to be a doctor so I wasn't shadowing like people don't just go hang out at the hospital for fun sometimes really old people in retirement they like to hang out at the hospital how do you create a linkage between the two you create a linkage that's one way of saying it but I don't I don't think you need to get really fancy about it I think it's just at some point obviously you were leading one life and something changed and the question isn't for specific specifically for non-traditional students or even for students changing majors it's not why not that thing right if you're switching careers it's not why not being a nurse why not being a lawyer whatever it is but it's why medicine and the question will come up probably why now

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 42,080

Keywords: medical school interview, med school interview, med school, med school advice, premed, pre med, pre-med, premed advice, premed talk, premed advisor, premed advising, med school interview types, medical school, medical school interview prep, medical school interview tips, medical school interview day, med school interview tips, med school interviews, medical school mock interview, dr. ryan gray, ryan gray, meded media, medical school interview strengths and weaknesses, mcat

Id: tVJC0znktlM

Length: 31min 22sec (1882 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020