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Motivation & Insight into Medicine 5


A doctor’s role can be very challenging. It is therefore vital that universities assess a candidate’s motivation, in order to ensure that they are committed to a career in medicine. Discuss with the examiner why you would like to be a doctor, and not any other medical professional
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Average Candidate Responses
  • ‘Doctors have more authority’ – this is incorrect; all medical professionals play an equal role in the MDT to provide holistic patient care.
  • ‘Doctors can prescribe drugs’ – although doctors are able to prescribe drugs, nurse practitioners are also able to prescribe some types of drugs.
  • ‘I enjoy learning about the human body, and how it works’ – although a medical degree will enable you to do this, this is not a specific quality to a medical degree. A physiotherapy degree, for example, will also allow you to do this.
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Excellent Candidate Response
  • Although all members of the MDT have roles of equal importance, I feel that the role of a doctor is best suited to my skill-set. The vast scope of scientific knowledge which I find very interesting, alongside being able to demonstrate softer skills such as communication, is something that I find very attractive in this career.
  • Operating on patients is something that is specific to the role of a doctor, and is something that, from my work experience, I find particularly interesting. (The candidate may describe the post-graduate training for a doctor, highlighting the uniqueness of this in comparison to other disciplines).
  • The variety of different aspects to a doctor’s role is also very attractive. Doctors are often able to take time out for research and teaching amongst other interests.