Baylor Medicine Interview Questions

General Interview Information
​Interview Format
​
Baylor College of Medicine uses a traditional, open file interview format. Each applicant is given two, 30-minute interviews with two faculty members or, alternatively, a faculty member and a student/resident/fellow of the college. The interview aims to assess the candidate's ability to demonstrate:
  • Diversity to strengthen our institution by increasing talent and ensuring a fuller perspective
  • High intellectual ability
  • Evidence of a strong interest in medicine
  • A high level of personal integrity
  • Varied experiences
  • Attributes and experiences that demonstrate leadership and exceptional service to others


Key Dates
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Interviews generally take place between August and February.


Recent Interview Questions

General/Personal Statement – With interviewers having access to the candidate’s application, a great deal of emphasis is placed on their background and work experience. Many interviewers begin with the open-ended question “tell me about yourself”.  Applicants should expect to be asked to elaborate on any and every aspect of their personal statement and provide examples to support their answers. 
  • Tell me about yourself.
  • What do you like to do for fun?
  • Tell me about a time you worked in a team.
  • Tell me about your family.
  • Tell me about a favourite class.
  • Tell me something you're passionate about. How does this relate to medicine? 
  • How have you shown leadership during your undergraduate years?
  • Tell me about a time you were misjudged.
  • Describe a time in which you failed at something (doesn't have to be academic)
  • What are your two biggest strengths and biggest weakness? 
  • Name some good qualities and one quality you'd like to work on/change (about yourself)
  • How would your friends describe you?
  • Tell me about your shadowing experiences
  • What have you learned from your volunteering?
  • Tell me about a moment when you really connected with a patient during your clinical experience.
  • Tell me about your research experience.
  • What made your volunteering work satisfying?
  • What factors will affect your choice of medical school?
  • If you didn't get into Baylor, what would you do?
  • Where do you see yourself in ten years?
  • What was a time you stood up for someone in need?
  • Describe the process by which you choose your undergrad institution.
  • What do you know about Baylor/ what attracts you to Baylor?
  • What makes you an asset to Baylor?
  • What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of Baylor that you've noticed?
  • What negative quality will affect you while in med school? How can you improve that?
  • What do you want to be other than a doctor?
  • Have you ever had to deal with anything difficult?
  • Who was your role model and why?
  • How are your co-workers balancing their practice and research, and how would you do the same?
  • What are some drawbacks about being Pre-med at your school?
  • Recall three specific words you used in your personal statement.
  • What two relationships have most shaped your life?
  • What sets you apart from your accomplished peers?
  • If we gave you a week off, what would you do?
  • What do you do to relieve stress?
  • How do you interact in a group setting?
  • Tell me about your hometown.
  • Define Integrity.
  • If you were on a date with yourself, what would be the thing that would bother you most about yourself?
  • What would your one piece of advice to an incoming college freshman who is interested in being pre-med be?
  • If you had to work with three people in a group setting, what three things would they say about you?
  • Tell me about a time when you were grossly misunderstood, how did you handle it?
  • What makes you special?
  • How would you contribute to diversity in the class?
  • What should I say about you to the admissions committee?
  • Is there anything else in your application that we haven't covered?
 
Motivation and Insight into Medicine - These questions examine both your desire to study medicine as well as your general interest in the issues facing the medical community. While an in-depth knowledge is not expected, an awareness of topical issues, particularly those in the media is highly recommended. Questions may include:

Motivation Based Questions:
  • Why medicine as opposed to teaching or another service profession?
  • Why do you want to be a doctor?
  • Do you have a specific interest in any speciality?
  • If you had to pick one defining moment in your life that made you decide to be a doctor what would it be?
  • Why MDPhD? If you had to choose either the MD or the PhD, what would you choose?
  • What person/people have most shaped you, and how has their influence prepared you for medicine? 
  • Imagine you have been practising for 10 years, what will motivate you as a physician?
  • Tell me about an experience you've had that sold you on medicine that confirmed it wasn't just make-believe, but something you could see yourself doing.
 
Insight Based Questions
  • "What scares you in medicine?"
  • What do you think is the biggest problem in today's healthcare?
  • What are your thoughts on healthcare?
  • What challenges do you think await you and the other members of your med school class when you enter the workforce as physicians?
  • Tell me about your patient interactions. Have you ever shadowed a doctor, or gotten to see what a doctor does on a day-to-day basis? 
  • Do you think you're going to like your daily activities as a doctor?
  • What do you foresee being your biggest challenge as a doctor?
  • What have you heard about life in med school?
  • Give an example or two of an issue(s) that you and the new generation of doctors may have to face, and a potential solution(s) to the problem(s). 
  • How would you solve the 45 million no-access to healthcare problem? 
  • What do you think the institution of medicine is all about?
  • What are some important issues affecting healthcare nowadays?                                                      
  • Where do you stand on the politics of healthcare (i.e. universal vs. managed care)
  • Where do you draw the line between providing help for your patients and realizing your limitations as a doctor?
  • How do you define professionalism in medicine?
  • What do you think the life of a doctor is like?
  • A patient comes to the ER after they crashed while driving drunk. How do you approach that with your public health background?
  • How does politics influence healthcare?
  • How do you treat mid-level providers in a healthcare team, how important are they?
  • As a physician, how do establish and encourage trust with your patients?
  • During our clinicals, medical school students have to be the last in line when treating a patient. First is the physician, attending, resident, etc. so when it is your turn, the patient is usually tired and grumpy. How would you deal with a non-compliant patient in this situation?
  • How do you think the portrayal of medicine in the media will affect your practice?
  • How do you think the health care system in the United States compares to that in Sweden?
  • What would you like to do with a BCM education in your medical career?
  • Name some non-traditional or creative sources of aid that a hospital may be able to take advantage of during a natural disaster.
  • What will you do to find a balance between being emotionally connected with patients and being confident in order to provide a source of strength for your patients?
  • What do you think is the role of the physician in a world where alternative medicine is becoming more and more popular?
  • How would you measure whether you were a successful physician?
 
Ethical Scenarios – These dilemmas may present themselves in two different forms. Either as a hypothetical situation, as an open-ended question, or one where you as the applicant chooses an ethical dilemma from your past to elaborate on.​
  • If you had an ethical problem with what the hospital administration wanted you to do, how would you handle it?
  • You diagnose a man with HIV and he instructs you not to tell his wife, what should you do when she comes to you wondering what is wrong with him?
  • Follow on question: His wife is pregnant and he contracted the disease most likely from prostitutes. What do you do in this situation?
  • You have a patient that has the option for a non-essential treatment (i.e. one that isn't a life or death decision but one that would prolong or improve the patient's life), however, the patient had been turned away from Medicare. What do you do?
  • You’re a urologist who performed a vasectomy a few years ago. His wife is now pregnant and he comes to you to get the vasectomy redone. Once you get started, you discover the first vasectomy is still intact. What do you do?
  • You are a doctor, you have a patient that is two months pregnant but it is just been discovered that her child has Down syndrome...what would you tell her?
  • You’re a resident, and after one of your shifts, you tell a friend on Facebook a patient's name and the specifics of their condition. The hospital you work for finds out and calls you in to speak with your attending. What law have you violated? What would you tell your attending?
  • What are the problems we may run into with genetic engineering?
  • Do you think doctors should be responsible for addressing the under-insured and uninsured population...or is it enough for doctors to give quality care to those who can pay?
  • What ethical issues face OB/GYNs in university settings?
  • Is it ethical for medical students to be allowed to treat patients in public hospitals?
  • If you were at high risk for a genetic disease, would you be tested to see if you had the gene?
  • What is your opinion on cloning/ gene therapy/ vaccinations, etc?
  • Additional MMI Ethical Scenarios with Model Answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank.

Communication Stations - These questions may utilise information from your application or may come in the form of a scenario where you need to explain how you would handle the situation. Ensure that you utilise the 7 Stages of MMI Communication Stations to excel in these tasks. Recent stations have included the following:   
  • Explain your research like you're telling it to your grandmother.
  • What would you say to a patient who didn't listen to your advice?
  • What you would do if a resident who is your "boss" said something offensive to a patient?
  • How would you handle a patient that does not take their medication or show up to office visits?
  • What would you do to ensure good communication between yourself and your colleagues?
  • You are a hospital administrator during a natural disaster; explain how you would handle the emergency.
  • What would you do if two colleagues of yours were not getting along?
  • How would you tell a hypertensive elderly man who refused to take his medicine to take his medicine?
  • Additional Communication Stations with model answers can be found in the MMI Question Bank
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Additional Medical School Interview Questions
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