Medical school interview season is starting and I am trying to put together the tough questions I might ask these young, future doctors-to-be. The problem is how to determine kindness, compassion, empathy within a 30 minute timeframe. Interviewers tend to develop shortcuts and favorite questions to get at these important characteristics. Prospective interviewers, this year I suggest the Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness (ZAP) scoring scale:
The scale is on a -1 0 +1 scoring system as either too little or too much preparedness might be indicative of a problem. It covers the following domains:
1) Awareness of the potential of the Zombie Apocalypse
2) Mechanism available for immediate action
3) Plan for self removal from Zombie threat
4) Mechanism for meeting up with other intact humans to resume propagation of human race
5) Methods for determining Zombie composition to deter future Apocalypses
So, if you are interviewing for medical school, consider yourself forewarned.
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August 10, 2012 at 3:07 pm
Robert C. Bowman
When selecting for family medicine, my vote goes to a focus on compassion. In some of our analyses this was a factor in FM choice. Underserved questions were not bad.
Some questions appeared to go against FM – the more sophisticated types of questions such as ethical decisionmaking or medicine as a business.
Also beware of ethical questions in MMI frameworks. The questions are often polarizing. This violates the context of objective evaluation – known important in MMI or OSCE station type interviewing.
Interviewees that know the questions will often prepare, gaming the system. There are interesting analysis of candidates rated the top interviewees and those that check off the box for economic disadvantage. Going overboard on the “family practice” or “serving the underserved” responses are suspect also. Do those most manipulative have advantages for admission? – Absolutely. As physicians we find many of our patients to be great folks – until we cross them and find out more about borderline or sociopathic, etc.
Another interesting relationship involves appearance. In one of the questions used in the first months of medical school, students less than strongly agree about their “appearance” were more likely to end up in family medicine. I had little choice other than FM since my mom was a family practice RN, but one of my first exposures to a body of FM docs was through a friend. His dad was an FP at a conference and when he went to visit, the FM docs at the CME activity were all comfortably dressed in shirtsleeves. They looked like real people to me. I felt at home – and still do. Do the polished perfer specialization? Wish I had checked out the make and model and year of car they registered with the campus for more data.
Can basic science and clinical faculty who have rarely encountered FM and that look at candidates much as they look at their children (children of professionals and highest educated) – evaluate candidates for admission in ways that help restore health access? Not likely. When those admitted are most likely to arise from combinations of concentration, they are least likely to be found in careers such as FM where over 50% are found serving the 65% of the nation (200 million) left behind in 30,000 zip codes with lower to lowest concentrations. By their origins, training, and policy influences, the children of concentrated origins will end up at 75 – 82% inside of concentrations or even more concentrated that the current 72% of US physicians. Already allopathic private, non-citizen internation, and top MCAT/top research school graduates have this greatest maldistribution.
But school matriculants across MD and DO are moving to higher parent income, higher standardized test scores (before, during, after), and potentially the least potential to serve where needed or choose the permanent broadest generalist most likely to serve where needed for a lifetime.
By the way, congrats on the PA grant for USA. Sadly the funds will at best result in 3 Standard Primary Care Years or 7 – 8 times less result than one of your family medicine residency graduates at 25 SPCYRs.