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Best Ways to Prep for MMI or Multiple Mini Interviews format


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Not sure what an mmi is exactly. In general there is no way to prep for interviews but perhaps consider your answer to three common questions.

 

1. Why you wanna be a PA and also why pa vs a doc

2. What to do in an ethically questionable situation eg your co worker is an alcoholic

3. What do you do for fun and how do you deal with stress

 

 

In group interviews do not talk over people. The point is to show you can communicate as a team. Encourage your peers and back them up but don't be too shy so get your voice heard.

 

Interviews are fine. You will do great. Just relax and be yourself!!!!

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Not sure what an mmi is exactly. In general there is no way to prep for interviews but perhaps consider your answer to three common questions.

 

1. Why you wanna be a PA and also why pa vs a doc

2. What to do in an ethically questionable situation eg your co worker is an alcoholic

3. What do you do for fun and how do you deal with stress

 

 

In group interviews do not talk over people. The point is to show you can communicate as a team. Encourage your peers and back them up but don't be too shy so get your voice heard.

 

Interviews are fine. You will do great. Just relax and be yourself!!!!

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Not sure what an mmi is exactly. In general there is no way to prep for interviews but perhaps consider your answer to three common questions.

 

1. Why you wanna be a PA and also why pa vs a doc

2. What to do in an ethically questionable situation eg your co worker is an alcoholic

3. What do you do for fun and how do you deal with stress

 

 

In group interviews do not talk over people. The point is to show you can communicate as a team. Encourage your peers and back them up but don't be too shy so get your voice heard.

 

Interviews are fine. You will do great. Just relax and be yourself!!!!

WAS: I assume the OP is referring to Multiple Mini Interviews --> MMI

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Found this <clearing throat> on another site similar to ours ;-)

 

What to Expect and How to Prepare for Multiple Mini-Interview for Medical School Admissions

 

by Carleen Eaton, M.D.
Prehealthadvising.com

 

Introduction

Originally developed by researchers at McMaster University1 and widely used by Canadian medical schools, the Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI) has recently been adopted by several U.S. medical schools as part of the admissions process. An MMI typically consists of six to ten timed stations through which applicants rotate. At each station, the applicant is presented with a question, scenario or task. Since MMIs are significantly different than the traditional interview, becoming familiar with the structure, logic and expectations of an MMI will help make interview day less uncertain.

 

Background

Understanding the reasons for the use of an MMI requires a look at the overall goal of the medical school admissions process. Medical schools seek to admit individuals who will make not only excellent students, but ultimately become outstanding physicians. As any patient knows, the best physicians are those who are not simply repositories of information; they are ethical, caring professionals and excellent communicators. The MMI was created as a potentially more effective means of assessing qualities that lie outside the realm of grades and test scores.1

The traditional interview process allows an applicant to interact with one or more interviewers and provides an opportunity for the school to assess the interpersonal skills of an applicant. However, each applicant will not necessarily be interviewed by the same interviewer or interviewers. Some interviewers may be less challenging in general or a better fit for particular applicants, thus providing those applicants with an advantage.1-3 In addition, standard interview questions may not reveal an individual’s communication skills, problem-solving abilities, level of professionalism or other skills important for the practice of medicine. The MMI approach uses a series of stations to assess specific skills and qualities and assigns the same interviewer to rate all applicants at a station in order to address some of the weaknesses of the standard interview format.1

 

Structure

Although the exact set-up varies from school to school, an MMI usually includes six to ten stations from eight to ten minutes in duration with a group of applicants rotating through the stations. The instructions for the station may be posted outside the room and the applicant is given two minutes to read and analyze the instructions prior to entering the room. Typically, six to eight minutes are allocated to completing the station before moving on to the next one. Types of stations may include:

  • Ethical dilemmas or questions about policy or social issues. The instructions describe a situation and then ask the candidate to discuss the ethical or other issues involved. The interviewer may follow up with questions designed to probe the applicant’s response.
  • Interactions with an actor. At these stations, the applicant is provided with a scenario involving an individual who is played by an actor. The applicant may need to give the individual bad news, confront the person about a problem or gather information. An observer present in the room will rate the applicant based on his or her interaction with the actor.
  • Standard interview questions. An MMI may include one or more stations with traditional interview questions such as “Why did you apply to this school?” or “Describe an obstacle that you have overcome.”
  • A task requiring teamwork. Since the ability to work as part of a team is essential to medicine, some stations involve two applicants working together to complete a task.
  • Essay writing. Some schools include an essay component as part of the interview process so a station may involve responding to a prompt in writing. This station may be longer than the others to allow for the applicant to formulate and write the response.
  • A rest station. An interview takes a lot of energy, since the applicant is “on” the whole time and being presented with challenging tasks at every station. Fortunately, many MMIs include a rest station. Avoid spending the break time rehashing previous questions and what you should have said or done. Clear your mind and get ready for the next station.

Preparation

MMIs are distinctly different from the traditional med school interview and therefore require a unique approach to preparation. Schools may provide you with a list of sample questions which you can use to help guide your preparation; however, preparing for these interviews does not require knowledge of the exact questions being asked. Instead, an applicant should focus on developing his or her ability to formulate a logical, thorough response within a strict time frame.  Although the scenarios may not involve medical issues, familiarity with bioethics issues can be helpful in understanding the approach to ethics issues in general. Also, start reading about current events and policy issues. This will hone your ability to analyze the various sides of a problem and to see the costs and benefits of a particular approach. To prepare for stations involving an actor, consider the steps you would take when interacting with an individual in a difficult situation. What questions would you ask?  What is required for effective communication?

 

One of the major challenges of this set-up is the strict time limit for each station; therefore, practice under timed circumstances is important. Once you have completed the initial phase of preparation, try addressing scenarios that you have not seen before within the ten minute total time allowed by a typical MMI.

 

Conclusion

Although MMIs can be challenging, they also offer applicants the chance to demonstrate skills and qualities that are not always evident on a written application. The existence of numerous stations, each with a different interviewer, also frees applicants from the worry of the med school interview consisting of interactions with only one or two individuals with whom they may not happen to “click.”  The use of MMIs has continued to expand and may replace traditional interviews at more medical schools in the coming years. Therefore, students preparing to apply to medical school would benefit from a thorough understanding of this interview method.

 

References

 

1. Eva, K.W.; Reiter, H.I.; Rosenfeld, J.; Norman G.R. An admissions OSCE: the multiple mini-interview. Medical Education. 2004, 38, 314-326.

2. Edwards, J.C.; Johnson, E.K.; Molidor J.B. The interview in the admission process. Academic Medicine. 1990, 65, 167–75.

3. Kreiter, C.D.; Yin, P.; Solow, C.; Brennan, R.L.   Investigating the reliability of the medical school admissions interview. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2004, 9(2),147-59.

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Guest MedLib42

MMIs are hard to prep for! I had a couple of them, and they weren't my favorite. The questions they can ask really seem to come out of left field - anything from ethical scenarios ("what would you do if..."), standard interview questions, or the character type questions (if you could be an animal, what kind would you be... I didn't actually get that exact question, but was asked questions of that nature). My best suggestion, if you can do it, would be to have a mock MMI practice day - get a few people together and set them up at stations. Give them practice questions to ask you, or have them make up their own (try not to look at the questions ahead of time). Rotate from person to person, having them ask you the question while giving you a set time (five minutes, seven minutes, etc) in which you need to answer. If you can't do it that way, just have a friend go through the list, ask you the questions, and time you.

 

There are practice questions for the MMI you can use online at sites like this: http://multipleminiinterview.com/mmi-questions/

You can find more by googling "sample MMI interview questions".

 

Keep in mind, becoming really familiar with the actual questions you find online won't help you much, because the schools make up their own, and I haven't seen anything on the internet that's too similar to what I was asked in my MMIs (I think most of these on the internet are geared toward medical school or other allied health professions anyway). So rather than focusing on the content of the questions themselves, use them as a way to learn to formulate a clear response to a variety of questions in a timed environment. 

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George Washington PA and PA/MPH program uses the MMI format. If I recall correctly, if you go to their PA program website, you can find about 4 practice MMI questions to think about.

 

 

From my experience interviewing at that school, it really is just a shot in the dark. There is no way to really adequately prepare for it, as you literally have no idea the topic that may come up. Without speaking to what some of the questions/scenarios were last year, just realize that there are a wide variety of things that you may presented with. Best advice I can give is to just be knowledgable in a wide variety of topics, current events, philosophy, etc....but don't put too much time into it. Working on personal skills and communication with others would be a more valuable way to use your time as opposed to trying to think of situations that may come up. Additionally, you could practice having a friend or family member ask you a question and practice answering it intelligently in 4-5 minutes.

 

Good luck!

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

...as an introvert this terrifies me a little bit. I have an MMI interview at UTSW in 2 days D:

 

Jokes aside, this thread was really helpful. Thanks, everybody!

 

Oh admit it, jokes are helpful.  :-)

 

Also, maybe this is helpful.  As a somewhat introverted person (certainly not an "extrovert") I found the MMI to play right into my hand.  At the MMI, you largely turn off your social, mingling, image-conscious brain and turn on your analytical, problem-solving brain.  If you just focus on the problem, come up with some good solutions, and work well with your teammates, you'll be fine.  I really felt like in the MMI, more than any other format, ideas and process were much more significant to the "interviewers" than performance or charisma.  I really liked it for that reason.  

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Oh admit it, jokes are helpful.  :-)

 

Also, maybe this is helpful.  As a somewhat introverted person (certainly not an "extrovert") I found the MMI to play right into my hand.  At the MMI, you largely turn off your social, mingling, image-conscious brain and turn on your analytical, problem-solving brain.  If you just focus on the problem, come up with some good solutions, and work well with your teammates, you'll be fine.  I really felt like in the MMI, more than any other format, ideas and process were much more significant to the "interviewers" than performance or charisma.  I really liked it for that reason.  

 

This is great! I think I can do that! Haha. Thanks so much.

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...as an introvert this terrifies me a little bit. I have an MMI interview at UTSW in 2 days D:

If we could find research on other interview formats I bet we'd find that all interview formats favor extroverts. I personally haven't seen the MMI first-hand, but from what I've read I'd tend to agree with Zoopedia: it's the format that disadvantages introverts the least.

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My MMI was my best interview performance yet and I got accepted. As a mostly introverted guy, I don't think anyone has anything to worry about with the MMI format. If you can articulately get points across, be mindful of the point of the station, etc it doesn't matter if you are extroverted or introverted. 

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