Hello and well done!
QMUL (or Barts and London) hosts a traditional (panel) style interview. There is lots of info on
this page of the website. Although your interview isn't for a month, it's a good idea to start preparing now, so when it comes to the real thing you do your absolute best.
Normally interview panels consist of two members of senior academic or clinical staff, a medical student and sometimes a lay selector. It's not meant to be intimidating, and so try to feel at ease in order to have a good interview!
On the website, it says the following will be evaluated:
- motivation and realistic approach to medicine as a career (i.e. look up the daily challenges of being a doctor, the emotional and physical impact, and think of personal examples where you've experienced this, or found ways of overcoming difficulty)
- show initiative, resilience and maturity
- work well as part of a team (think of personal examples of when you worked in a team - what role did you take? Were you the team leader? Were you successful in your task? What would you change about the experience if you could do it again? How do you reflect on this experience?)
- be well organised and demonstrate problem solving abilities (look up practice problem solving questions for medicine interviews on Google or university websites, or on our website
here! Practice thinking logically and forming both 'for' and 'against' arguments before you come to any conclusions about actions you may take to solve a problem)
- likely contribution to university life (what extra-curricular activities are you interested in? Have you looked up the sports teams that you could join at university? What about societies?)
- communicate effectively in a wide range of situations (this is just to assess your communication skills. Practice this by doing a range of different questions and trying to answer them coherently. Often, it helps to outline an answer first, then go on to explain your answer, and then you can summarise with a conclusion)
Be sure to brush up on your personal statement, so you know what books/literature you've mentioned, and any work experience you've written about. Make sure you are able to reflect on any work experience you've done as well!
Finally, make sure you are up-to-date with your science/maths syllabuses, and medicine current affairs like the NHS and latest medical news. Also, make sure you know the course structure well!
Remember to do plenty of research outside of the advice we've given and try to prepare for any extra things that could come up!
We hope this helps - and good luck!
The Medic Portal