Leicester Medical School Interview Guide
Founded in 1975, the University of Leicester prides itself on providing the most state of the art facilities for teaching. No wonder, it’s a highly sought-after destination for lots of medical school applicants.
1. ABOUT YOUR LEICESTER MEDICINE INTERVIEW
At Leicester, their interviews are in the format of multiple mini interviews (or MMIs for short). The MMI Circuit will consist of around 8 stations, lasting 8 minutes per station.
- Station 1 – Video Consultation (data gathering)
- Station 2 – Numeracy (SBA and calculations)
- Station 3 – GP video (cues and responsibilities in a team)
- Station 4 - Comprehension
- Station 5 – Interaction/ Patient Contact
- Station 6 – Motivation and Suitability akin to traditional Interview
- Station 7 – Communication Skills
- Station 8 – Personal Qualities presentation and interview
2. ABOUT THE COURSE
You may be wondering why it’s important to know about the course at Leicester. Well, take a look at the section above again. Did you spot that one of the stations at Leicester centred on your motivation and suitability to attend the school? To perform well in a station like this, you need to do your homework. From our experience as examiners, there’s nothing worse than a student sitting across from you on the table fumbling over why they want to study Medicine and not knowing much about the medical course, that stretches beyond the website.
TEACHING STYLE
Teaching is mainly delivered through problem-based learning in the smallest teaching groups in the UK. New first-year medical students will also be given an iPad, in order to access e-learning which supplements the content delivered through their lectures and teaching sessions.
CLINICAL WORK
Teaching at the medical school revolves around patient-centred care and is complemented by early patient exposure.
ANATOMY TEACHING
We’ve recently written a post about the anatomy teaching at UK medical schools. At Leicester medical school, they teach anatomy via full dissection. During anatomy classes, medical students will be carrying out the dissection themselves on cadavers who have donated their bodies to medical science.INTERCALATION AND ELECTIVE OPPORTUNITIES
“With fantastic teaching, a strong sense of community and plenty of opportunities for early clinical exposure, the University of Leicester is an excellent place to study Medicine. It has recently built a brand spanking new Medical School and developed a splendid e-learning system, facilitated through the distribution of free iPads to each student. Leicester is unarguably embracing a future with technology at its core.” - Current student at the University of Leicester.
3. TIPS TO PREPARE FOR THE LEICESTER MEDICINE INTERVIEW
These vary greatly from the more traditional panel-based interviews. MMIs are an opportunity to showcase a variety of different skills and make multiple first impressions. You will likely be faced with one or two examiners on each station. There will be a particular style of question or topic for each station e.g. role play or data interpretation. So, how can you prepare for MMI circuits?
These vary greatly from the more traditional panel-based interviews. MMIs are an opportunity to showcase a variety of different skills and make multiple first impressions. You will likely be faced with one or two examiners on each station. There will be a particular style of question or topic for each station e.g. role play or data interpretation. So, how can you prepare for MMI circuits?
WORK TO A TIME LIMIT
It’s really important to factor in the time pressure. With no time limit, it would be possible to answer each question quite well eventually and cover most of the points on the marking scheme. The time limit adds pressure and may make you more likely to freeze or make mistakes. It’s crucial then to time yourself whilst giving answers to practice questions. You’ll quickly realise if you talk too much or too little. If you’re speaking too little, you need to think about preparing more content to speak about in your interview. If you’re speaking too much, maybe you have a tendency to ramble or waffle, in which case, you need to ensure that you’re applying a structure to your answer. For help on applying a structure to answering an opinion based or example-based question, join one of our Medical School Interview Courses.
REFLECT, REFLECT, REFLECT
It’s all very good knowing lots about the course or your work experiences, but you can’t forget to reflect. Often students tell us that they’ve been given this advice before. They ask us “What does reflecting actually mean?” Reflection involves relating your experiences back to your career in Medicine. It can be achieved in many ways but we recommend asking yourself one or two of the following questions, each time you refer to an experience.
- Why does this experience make me want to study Medicine?
- What have I learnt about the career in Medicine or the healthcare system from having this experience?
- What skills have I seen or started to develop that will help me in my career in Medicine?
Can you see that by asking yourself these questions every time you talk about your experiences, you’ll be showing good reflections on your career in Medicine? It takes a bit of time to get your head around it but give it a go - you’ll see automatic results in the quality of your answers! If you want more help on how to reflect or structure your answers, head to our Online Interview Course. It’s packed full of hints and tips to improve your interview technique.
PRACTICE WITH STRANGERS
Ok, so we don’t mean find someone on the street and start talking to them about why you want to attend Leicester Medical School. BUT from our experience, students who regularly practice with their best friends or family tend to fall into bad habits or are not critical enough on their interview responses. Where possible, try to book some time with a teacher or with a classmate who you don’t know so well, so that you have a chance to practice with someone who’s being objective. The more timed practice that you can do, the more confident you’ll feel on the day.
If you are looking for more practice from experienced doctors and medical students who have years of experience in providing feedback, head to one of our mock MMI circuits.
3. TIPS TO PREPARE FOR THE LEICESTER MEDICINE INTERVIEW
“Develop some specific interests. Read up on the refugee crisis, social inequalities, the nutrition transition - anything that you can talk about in an interview that will pique the interest of the admissions officer.”
If you are struggling to find any up-to-date material about things happening in the medical world, follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We regularly post about the latest hot topics in Medicine.
We hope you have found this information helpful in preparing for your Leicester medicine interview. If you have any questions or want to speak with a medical admissions expert email us at [email protected]!
