THE RGS MOCK MMI BROOKE MILBURN

THE RGS MOCK MMI

BY BROOKE MILBURN TEACHER OF PHYSICS AND MEDICAL COORDINATOR (RGS CAREERS)

Medicine is one of the most competitive courses to gain entry to in the UK with some 23,710 students applying for just over 7,000 places last academic year. Expectations on students are high with many universities requiring students to have undertaken voluntary service, work experience, achieved an excellent set of GCSE grades and a top score in the relevant admissions exam just to get to interview stage. This is where the fun starts!

Many people will be familiar with the traditional interview where a candidate is asked a series of questions by a panel of interviewers.

Over the last ten years, most medical schools in the UK have adopted a new style of interview known as multiple mini interviews (commonly referred to as MMIs). The MMI concept was first developed by McMaster University Medical School in Canada between 2001 and 2004 and involves a series of six to ten short interviews each lasting around seven minutes with only a minute or two in between to give students a chance to catch their breath and prepare for their next ‘station’. Each interview is designed to assess a different skill, knowledge, or competency such as communication skills, critical thinking skills or knowledge of recent medical research and issues in the NHS.

In order to help students to prepare for this, the RGS runs its own annual mock MMI. We typically have around 25 prospective medical, dental, and veterinary science applicants who participate in the event and around 16 members of staff volunteer their time to stand in as interviewers. The session starts with a short briefing and students are directed towards the Lilburn Hall to find their first station. Over the course of the day, interviewers give them a thorough grilling on their understanding of medical ethics, insight into the profession, knowledge of recent developments in medicine among many other things. Candidates are also expected to write essays, complete data analysis tasks and use small talk to gather information from a patient in a role play. Transition from one task to another is seamless with very little preparation time.

It is a gruelling process which typically takes 2-3 hours. By the end of the session, most students feel at least one of their stations was a disaster and feedback is given on their individual performance by each interviewer. A big advantage of the MMI style interview is that the next station is always an opportunity for a fresh start. Knowing the interviewers can make the mock MMI even more nerve-racking than the real thing. However, the event provides a valuable insight into the format of MMI style of interviews meaning that candidates come away feeling more confident that they are able to successfully make their first step on the journey to becoming a doctor.