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Interviews
Pick what you are applying to. You get that program’s own questions and its real clock, rather than a generic twenty minutes.
Nothing is filtered yet, so every question is listed below. Pick a program above and this becomes that program’s questions on that program’s clock.
Whatever specialty you want, these come up. A candidate who has not rehearsed them has not rehearsed the interview.
Why this program
Why our program? You could train in this specialty in a dozen places.
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Tell me about yourself
Tell me about yourself.
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Your weakness
What is your greatest weakness?
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A conflict on the team
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a colleague about a patient's care.
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A mistake you made
Tell me about a clinical mistake you made.
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The thing in your file
Is there anything in your application you would like to explain?
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Your questions for them
We have a few minutes left. What questions do you have for us?
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Difficult feedback
Tell me about the most difficult piece of feedback you have received.
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A decision that worked out
Tell me about a time you had to make a decision that turned out well. Walk me through how you made the call and how you knew it was the right one.
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Source of your motivation
Where does your motivation come from? Tell us who or what inspires you, and why.
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People you find difficult
What kinds of people do you have trouble working with? Give me an example if you can.
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When you're least effective
Tell me about the conditions under which you're least efficient and least effective. When does your performance drop off, and what do you do about it?
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A decision that went badly
Tell me about a time you made a decision that turned out badly. Walk me through what you chose, what happened, and what you did about it.
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Favorite course
What was your favorite course in medical school, and what was it about that course that stuck with you?
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Greatest sacrifice
What's the greatest sacrifice you've had to make to get to where you are today? Walk me through what it cost you and how you think about it now.
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Lessons from past work
Think back to the jobs or work experiences you've had, inside or outside medicine. What have those taught you about yourself?
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Working with someone you disliked
Tell us about a time you had to work closely with someone you just didn't like. How did you handle it?
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Managing a full schedule
Looking at your application, you've had a lot going on at once. How did you actually manage your time across all of it?
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Three things from the fire
Imagine your house is on fire and everyone is already safely outside. You have time to grab three objects. What do you take, and why those three?
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If you don't match
Let's say match day comes and you don't match this year. What are your options, and what would you actually do?
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Adapting quickly
Tell us about a time you had to adapt quickly when something changed on you with little warning. What did you actually do?
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Changing one thing
If you could change one thing about your personality, what would it be? And tell me why that's the one you'd pick.
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Admired and disliked traits
Thinking about the physicians you've worked with or been taught by, what characteristics do you admire the most? And which ones do you admire the least?
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Adapting to a new system
You've trained outside Canada, so what differences do you expect between the health care system here and the one you came from, and how do you think working in it will feel different for you? And what will you bring with you from your previous training?
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Health policy change ahead
Health care policy in this country is shifting pretty quickly right now. How do you think those changes will affect you over the course of your career?
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Patients and diseases here
You trained outside Canada, so tell me how prepared you feel to care for the patient population you'd see here. What do you think is actually different about the patients and the diseases compared to where you trained?
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Medicine in twenty years
How do you think medicine will change over the next ten to twenty years? And where do you see yourself fitting into that?
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The result that names a different father
On your genetics elective, a family is tested after their son is born with an inherited condition. The results show the mother does not carry the variant and neither does her husband, which means he is not the boy's biological father. The parents have come in to hear the results and plan for future pregnancies. How do you approach that conversation?
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Her pregnancy, her family's decision
A woman in her twenties with Down syndrome is pregnant and wants to continue the pregnancy. Her husband and her mother want her to have a termination and have asked the team to support them. What do you do?
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Seventeen, married, and wanting to join a study
A 17-year-old who lives on his own, is married and has a young child wants to enrol in a clinical research study your team is running. The coordinator says he needs a parent to sign. He has not spoken to his parents in a year. How do you think about it?
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The consent the resident wants from the family
A 40-year-old man with schizophrenia, stable on treatment, needs an elective hernia repair. The surgeon explained the operation and he understood it and agreed. The resident asks you to call his sister to sign the consent form, just to be safe. What do you do?
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The trial your preceptor wants you to fill
You are a clerk on a service where the staff physician is running a trial of a new cholesterol drug that is not yet known to be better than what is on the market. He asks you to recruit patients from your own clinic list, and tells you the risks do not really need to be spelled out because the drug is probably fine. What are the issues, for the patients and for you?
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The patient who does not want a student
An older woman admitted overnight with an asthma attack tells you, when you introduce yourself as the clerk, that she does not want to be seen by a student. Your team is busy and the resident tells you to go in anyway because you need the experience. How do you handle it, and how should hospitals balance teaching and patients' wishes?
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The generation that leaves at five
Some senior physicians say that younger doctors are not as committed as they were, that they want to leave on time and work fewer hours. What do you make of that?
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How you know how good you are
Physicians are expected to be able to judge their own competence, and we know most people are poor at it. How do you actually assess your own ability, and how do you check that your assessment is right?
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Ethics, conflict, resource allocation and professionalism dilemmas come up in residency panels too, and there are several hundred of them. They are not specialty specific, so they are not filtered here.
Open the scenario bank