How to succeed in your Medicine MMI Interview

Have a Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) coming up? The Medic Portal, officially partnered with the Royal Society of Medicine, advises hundreds of schools and thousands of medical school applicants, and has provided some top tips on preparing for your MMI.

Practice your communication skills

The MMI is designed to assess your communication skills and ability to verbalise your thought process in different scenarios. A good way to practice this is to go through our free MMI Question Bank and familiarise yourself with vocalising your answers to friends or family members.

You could also practice your communication skills by explaining a range of tasks to a friend - for example, try giving directions from your house to the nearest shop without using a map, or explain how to tie shoelaces without using your hands. This will encourage you to really think about how you verbalise your thoughts! For an idea of other MMI games to play to practice these skills, you could also look at our blog on 3 Interview Preparation Tips here.

Don’t forget common interview questions

Remember that you may also be asked traditional interview questions at the MMI, such as ‘Why Medicine?’ and why you chose a specific medical school – so don’t forget to practice these using our Interview Question Bank. Remember to research the school’s extracurricular activities by visiting their Student Union page as well as the medicine course itself. Do they use Problem-Based Learning? Is it an integrated course? How do you think this may suit your learning style?

Research the MMI station types

Most MMIs will have around ten stations, with each one lasting around ten minutes, but this varies between universities. MMI stations assess a variety of skills, for example:

• Interpersonal and empathy skills: a station may involve breaking bad news to an actor posed as a patient or you may be asked to respond to an ethical scenario
• Communication skills: you may be asked to explain directions or how to carry out a particular task
• Critical thinking skills: at another station, you may be asked to analyse data or given a reading comprehension task

Many medical schools will often provide information on the kinds of qualities they’re looking for in their candidates on their websites, as well as information on the number of stations and how long they will last - so check this information before the day to prepare.

Remember timing at the MMI

Don’t forget that you’ll only have a set amount of time in which to give your answer at each MMI station, and this can range from seven to ten minutes. However, don’t let this faze you – you can practice before the day giving your answers in timed conditions. Ask a friend to test you with a stopwatch, or jot down a couple of key facts to mention and expand on in your answer to help you stay within the time limit. Another good way to practice your timing may be to try our MMI Circuit, which recreates the real experience with different stations and professional actors.

Research the four pillars of Medical Ethics

Medical Ethics are a key component of any Medicine interview. At the MMI, you may be given an ethical scenario on paper or you may be faced with an actor posed as a patient - at these stations, it’s crucial you know the four pillars of Ethics and how they can apply to different scenarios. The four pillars of Medical Ethics are as follows:

• Beneficence: the benefit to the patient
• Non-Maleficence: the harm to the patient
• Justice: the legality of the treatment
• Autonomy: the patient’s right to make their own decisions

An ethical scenario is usually tricky because two or more of these pillars are in conflict with one another - you could take a look at our Ethics Question Bank to get an idea of how to answer these questions. You can also visit our Complete Interview Guide: Medical Ethics to help you prepare for these questions.