Oxford Medical

Interview Questions

General

Tell us about yourself

Talk through your career so far

What is your background?

What is the one achievement on your CV that you are most proud of?

Summarise your experience so far

Do you have any changes to make to your CV?

How many jobs have you applied for previously?

Do you have any other job applications in at present?

Did you apply for this post last year?

Have you looked around the area?

Have you met any of these panel members?

What are your career plans?

Do you feel there any gaps in your CV?

How could you have improved your CV?

Why medicine?

What made you choose this speciality as a career?

Do you think it is important to gain experience of other specialities?

What sort of things did you gain from in your own experience outside the speciality?

What are your career goals?

Why should we give you this job?

Why do you want this job?

What makes you the best candidate for this job?

Where do you see yourself in 10 or 20 years’ time?

What is your special interest in this department?

Why do you want to work in this deanery?

What can you bring to this hospital?

How are you going to raise the profile of this Trust?

What are your strengths?

What’s your biggest weakness?

What makes you angry?

What do you think about this geographical area?

What do you do in your free time?

Tell us about a recent triumph

Tell me about your biggest failure

What are the qualities of a good doctor?

Have you ever been criticised?

How would your best friend describe you?

What three adjectives describe you best?

What sort of hospital would you rather work in and why?

How will your previous employer remember you?

Are you a professional? Why?

What feedback have you obtained from your patients about yourself?

What would you like your obituary to say?

How do you measure success?

Are you successful?

Would you like to get involved in management at some time?

What have you done that is different to other candidates here today?

What will be the biggest challenge in this post for you?

What are you hoping to gain from us?

How do you know you’re making the best career move for you?

Will you be happy being an average trainee?

What are the qualities of a successful consultant?

What skills do you need to develop the most?

Which job have you enjoyed the most and why?

Teaching

Tell us about your teaching experience so far

What methods of teaching do you use?

If you were asked to teach a group of six junior doctors on a particular subject how would you go about preparing for your teaching session?

How would you convince a colleague of the importance of teaching?

What is problem-based learning?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of problem-based learning?

Tell me about a case where you learnt something new

How do you assess competence in a trainee?

Should trainees be involved in teaching?

How could we improve your training?

How might we identify your training needs?

How do you keep your skills up-to-date?

How does your previous training make you suitable for this job?

Talk us through your training so far

Why did you do a Bachelor of Science degree?

Are there any deficiencies in your training?

How do we know you’re a good teacher?

Have you any knowledge of formal education and teaching methods?

Who is responsible for management training?

What management courses have you been on?

Did you find your management course useful?

How will you improve the training of junior doctors?

Who pays for training?

What is SIFT?

How do we attract the best junior doctors in the current competitive climate of MMC?

Should doctors teach nurses?

What is the purpose of a college tutor?

How does this differ from an educational supervisor’s role?

How do you teach?

Tell us about any teaching that you have done recently and the methods you used. How did the students feel?

Discuss any new teaching methods that you are aware of

What are the problems with assessing competency?

How do we currently assess competency?

What’s the worst or best case that you have managed?

What do you think of competency-based training?

How do we as doctors improve our knowledge?

What is CPED?

What’s the most useful course that you been on?

What is e-learning?

How do we assess behaviour?

What is appraisal?

Are there any changes currently planned for future appraisal methods?

Research

Have you performed any research?

Tell me about your research experience

What type of study did you use?

Where did you get your funding from?

Why is research important?

Tell me the steps that you went through whilst setting up your research project

Should all doctors perform research?

Do you see yourself performing research in this job?

Why bother doing research?

Tell me about a recent paper that you have read

Tell me about a recent paper which changed your clinical practice

Tell me about the advantages and disadvantages of evidence-based medicine

What is research governance?

How do you grade different levels of evidence?

Does evidence-based medicine apply to all specialities?

How does research differ from audit?

Tell me about an audit that you performed

What’s the difference between an audit and a survey?

Describe an audit cycle

Is audit valuable?

Which is more important - audit or research?

What journals do you read?

Tell me about your last publication

What has been the most significant advance in your speciality recently?

What are your research interests?

What makes a good audit?

What changes did your audit result in?

How do we measure the outcome of an audit project?

Should everyone by performing audits?

Give me an example of an audit project in your hospital that changed clinical practice

What national audits are there and give an example?

What is a gold standard?

Who is responsible for setting the gold standards?

Clinical Governace

Can you tell me about clinical governance?

Has clinical governance improved patient safety?

How does clinical governance interact with your day-to-day patient care?

Is clinical governance justified?

Who is responsible for clinical governance in your Trust?

Can you tell me about clinical risk management?

How do you manage risk in your practice?

What happens to the different parts of the critical incident form once they have been submitted?

Tell me about a NICE guideline in your speciality

Please tell me about the National Patient Safety Agency

What is the Hospital at Night project?

What are your opinions on Modernizing Medical Careers?

What is the purpose of PMETB?

What do you know about Foundation programmes?

When were you last appraised?

What is the purpose of the appraisal process?

Is the appraisal process a total waste of time?

How do you prepare for your appraisal?

What do you understand by revalidation of an assessment?

Why do you think the public has lost trust with doctors?

What you think of the nurse consultant?

Do you agree with nurse prescribing?

In risk management is it really a blame-free culture?

Should we follow protocols?

Should we follow guidelines?

What’s the difference between a protocol and a guideline?

What you think of managers?

What’s wrong with having doctors as managers?

Why was NHS Direct formed?

How would you deliver a new service program?

How do you go about writing a business plan for a new service?

What problems are there with introducing change and how have you managed them previously?

Are you a leader?

What qualities are required in a leader?

What’s the difference between leadership and management?

What’s your leadership style?

What’s your management style?

Give me an example of where you showed leadership skills

Give me an example of where you managed a clinical scenario well

Can you be a good manager but not a good leader?

Give me example of a leader who you admire and why

Explain how we deliver locally nationally agreed standards of care and give an example

What is practice-based commissioning?

What is the Private Finance Initiative?

What are the problems with a PFI project?

What is ‘MONITOR’ and what do they do?

What are the award star ratings for Trusts?

What is Agenda for Change and does it affect doctors?

What is the purpose of the Modernisation Agency? Give an example

Have you read Good Medical Practice published by the GMC? What is it about?

What important points are there from this document?

What is the purpose of the National Clinical Assessment service?

What are GMC Affiliates?

Politics

Is clinical governance a good thing?

What do you think of NICE?

Have you had the last Healthcare Commission report for this Trust?

What is the Healthcare Commission for?

Can you tell me about any recent NHS white papers?

What is the purpose of ‘Payment by Results’?

What is the tariff and how is the tariff going to change in the years to come?

What changes have affected the GMC recently?

What you know about the Bristol heart scandal?

Do you know about the Alder Hey scandal?

What has been the outcome of the Shipman scandal?

Do you think that increased spending in the NHS has been used well?

What is the purpose of the Foundation status hospital?

Is there rationing of healthcare in the NHS?

What was the purpose of the reduction in junior doctors’ training hours and how has this affected patient care?

What do you think of the new consultant contract?

What you think about private practice?

What you think about independent treatment centres?

Ethics

If you came to work and felt that your consultant had been drinking how would you handle the situation?

What would you do if one of your colleagues turned up to work drunk?

A patient insults your colleague who then refuses to treat the patient.  What do you do?

The patient refuses to be treated by a colleague because he is foreign, what do you do?

Your consultant deliberately ignores a protocol.  How would you handle the situation?

You feel that your consultant does not provide training.  What would you do?

A colleague is constantly late for work. How do you handle the situation?

A colleague turns up to work and looks unwell.  What will you do?

Your consultant has frequently made inappropriate sexual remarks to you - how do you handle the situation?

Your consultant prescribes blood to a Jehovah’s Witness who has previously refused a blood transfusion.  What should you do?

A junior colleague whilst changing has needle marks on his arm.  How do you proceed?

One of your colleagues has been seen taking envelopes and other stationery from the departmental Secretary’s office. What will you do?

Management

Are you a good communicator?

How do you know?

Give examples where you used your communication skills to their full advantage

Have you ever failed to communicate properly?

What makes a good communicator?

Are you a team player?

What makes a good team player?

Do you work well as part of the team or do you prefer to work on your own?

Have you worked in a multi disciplinary team? Give me an example

What is leadership about?

Give an example of a leader in your previous Trust

What does leading mean to you?

Is every team a good team?

As a leader how would you motivate your team?

How would you motivate or manage an underperforming colleague?

A member of the team is not pulling their weight - how would you react?

Give me a situation where you showed good leadership skills

Give me an example where you used your initiative for the benefit of a patient

Have you ever got angry or lost your temper at work?

Have you had to manage a conflict with a colleague? Tell me about it

How did you go about managing the situation?

What methods are there for resolving conflicts?

How would you handle a poorly performing colleague?

Have you ever felt stressed at work?

How did you deal with that stress?

How do you know when you are stressed?

Have you ever made a very stressful decision in the clinical setting?

A member of the team is rude to you.  How would you handle it?

Have you ever had to manage resources?

Give an example of how you have to manage difficult resources clinically

If you’re a clinical director of your speciality and were given £50,000 how would you spend it?

Have you ever received a complaint?

Have you ever made a complaint?

What do you know about the complaints procedure?

Consultant Interviews

Overview

After submitting your application the shortlisting process occurs.  During this process each candidate is assessed according to the person specification that was published with the job advert.  Essential and desired criteria are awarded points with varying degrees of importance.  Each candidate’s application is therefore scored in each of the areas looking for your skills, knowledge and attributes.  The score is allocated by each member of the Advisory Appointments Committee and averaged so that the candidates may be ranked.  This process is used so that the cream of the applicants can be separated from the rest. These candidates form the shortlist and are invited for interview.

This process normally takes in the region of three to four weeks.  You will be informed by the Human Resources department, either by telephone, email or post, of your invitation to attend interview.

Candidates must be aware that there is normally very little time between the publication of the shortlist and the interview process itself.  Normally it is released the week before the interview which gives candidates approximately ten days to prepare for the interview itself.  Don’t forget that during this ten- day period you will also have to make appointments to see the Chief Executive, Medical Director and Clinical Director, and also provide your normal clinical duties at work.  This leaves very little time to prepare for your interview.  Ideally, this preparation should have been done prior to being invited for interview.

Visits

The pre-shortlisting visit

Within the job advert itself candidates will be invited to contact a member of the department to find out a bit more about the job. If you have never worked in the hospital or department before it makes sense to find out a bit about both and therefore you can arrange to have a look around the department during a “pre-shortlisting visit”.

You will need to arrange this appointment before you plan your journey. It is common to have many applicants for an advertised job and it may impact on 7the department to have 50 applicants wandering around on the same day. The department will make a decision which is usually an ‘all or none’ verdict about whether to allow candidates to visit before the shortlisting process.

The main aim of the pre-shortlisting visit is to assess whether you would like to apply for the job. The interview itself doesn’t formally start at this point but impressions made by you during your visit will stay with you if you decide to apply. It is sensible to have done some basic reading about the hospital and job before you meet the Clinical Director. Generally speaking you should approach this visit with a similar attitude to the pre-interview visit.

Some departments have unwritten rules that they will not consider an application for shortlisting unless a pre-shortlisting visit has been made.

The pre-interview visit

The pre-interview visit is an essential part of the job application process. The Trust and department will be employing the successful candidate for an estimated 30 years and the dynamics of the department could be damaged if they do not select someone who will fit into the job and department. Nearly every department across the UK has at some time appointed the wrong person who has at a later date caused problems within the Trust or created conflict at some level. It is very difficult to remove a consultant once appointed and therefore they will want to meet you to assess how you might fit in. Personality and your opinions are difficult to assess on a CV but are easily assessed on a face-to-face basis. The interview process formally starts during the pre-interview visit.

As mentioned in Chapter 1 you will have a short period of time once invited to interview before the actual day itself, and will need to be ‘switched on’ in order to arrange to see the many people who you need to meet during the pre- interview visit. It is therefore wise that you prepare for this visit with the same degree of effort as you would for your AAC panel interview. Details of how to prepare, dress, communicate and more are discussed in detail within this guide.

You should make appointments to see the Clinical Director, Medical Director and Chief Executive, and whilst you are there it will do you no harm to say hello to as many prospective consultant colleagues as you can. As these managers’ diaries are already busy and will become full with other candidates visiting, you may need to visit the hospital more than once. Once you receive your invitation to interview it is not a bad idea to get straight on the phone and arrange your appointments to hopefully be accommodated within one day, thereby saving you having to make multiple journeys.

There are some who advocate making appointments for as late as possible so that you are one of the last candidates to see the managers. The theory is that you will be fresh in their minds but this is not an approach that we would recommend.

Please dress with a suit (male) or smart attire (female). Some say wear your second-best suit and save the best suit for the interview itself but I would just go with the best that you have for both the pre-interview visit and the interview. Take several copies of your CV on good quality paper, as it is common that these managers will see you between meetings or clinical commitments and therefore may not have this to hand. Do not attempt to contact the Chairman, the Royal College representative or the University representative before the interview as this is considered canvassing and is not allowed by the AAC panel. Your application can be thrown out if the panel considers that you have been canvassing external members of the panel.

AAC Panel

The Advisory Appointments Committee (AAC)

• Chief Executive

• Medical Director

• Royal College representative

• Chairperson (a lay member, usually the Non-Executive Director)

• Clinical Director

• Consultant colleague

• University representative (usually if there is a teaching or research component to the job which most advertised consultant posts have)

Each member of the panel will follow a structured process whereby they ask questions for approximately five to ten minutes.  The questions will have been decided before the interview and should be put to every candidate.  This should be the foundation for a level playing field.  If you look at the dynamics of the AAC there are normally two external members, one being the Royal College representative who is usually a consultant in the speciality that the advertised job is for, and the second being the University representative who may not be from the department.  There will also be dynamics between the management appointments (Chief Executive and Medical Director) and the department which is represented by the Clinical Director and the consultant colleague.

On a simple note the department will be trying to impress the management, who in turn will be trying to display the Trust in a positive light to the two external representatives. This is where the consultant medical interview becomes a difficult process.  If the candidate does not understand the dynamics of the committee they may not answer the questions appropriately in order to keep the general body of the AAC panel happy.

Commonly, there is a conflict between management and clinicians.  Management may be interested in cost effectiveness and turnover which is not naturally compatible with the clinicians’ vision for delivering a high quality service.  Therefore, candidates should balance their answers so that they are aware of this potential conflict in order to keep both sides of the equation happy.For example, a candidate who continually refers to providing a high quality clinical service which under no circumstances is negotiable may satisfy the clinicians’ assessment but will fail on the managerial assessment.  Likewise a candidate who disregards quality of clinical services and would rather put forward a more cost-effective approach to his or her work will get approval from the management staff but not from the clinical staff.

It is therefore important that when answering questions candidates are aware of the dynamics of the committee and tailor their answers accordingly.

Not all interviews will be the same; however they will follow the same structure.  The panel’s purpose is to find the right person for the job and, therefore it is in their interest to initially welcome you to make you feel comfortable.  This initial ‘friendly’ section of the interview will then lead into the main section, where different approaches may be used by each of the AAC members.

It is important that the candidate remembers that the opening, friendly section is to attempt to help the candidate shrug off initial nerves so that they become more fluid with their answers.  Do not forget that this is still an assessment.  Drop your guard because the interview starts in a nice, friendly manner and you could make a fatal mistake for your application.

During the final stages of the interview the Chair will give you the opportunity to ask questions - don’t - after which you will be told how the Committee’s decision will be conveyed.

The Consultant Medical Interview involves some of the most senior clinical and management staff of the Trust.  Unlike other medical interviews the interview is highly structured.  There are various representatives present on the panel who have separate roles.  Fortunately these roles are well known.  When you prepare for your interview you should sit down and practise questions that may be asked by those representing each of the categories involved. Each of the representatives, their role and the type of questions that they ask are discussed in detail below.

The Chairman’s role

The Chairman is normally one of the non-NHS executives or the Chairman of the Trust.  They are lay people i.e. not medically trained; however they have been appointed to sit on the Executive Board of the Trust and to help in the strategic planning for the Trust as well as the day-to-day running.  The function of the Chairman is to chair the AAC panel. 

They will sit down on the morning of the interview and introduce all the representatives to each other before the interview process commences.  They will also be responsible for determining the order in which the representatives interview the candidates.  Before the interview starts, questions that are to be asked by each individual member will be discussed in order to prevent the same question being asked twice. 

When you enter the interview room you’ll be greeted by the Chairman.  They will introduce themselves and also the other members of the panel and will indicate what each of their roles is.  After this introduction the Chairman will hand you over to the first member of the panel and the interview will start.  Normally the first member of the panel to interview the candidate is the Royal College representative. The Chairman also asks questions at the end of the interview. These are discussed later in this guide.

The Royal College representative’s role

Historically, a representative from the relevant Royal College is invited by the Trust to attend the interview panel.  Recently, with the formation of Foundation Trusts, Trusts are no longer required to have a Royal College representative present.  However this has not been enforced by any Trust and the time-honoured presence of the College representative continues.

The College representative will be a consultant in the same field as the applicant.  They may however have a different sub-speciality interest.  The representative will have seen the CVs previously, as they would have been involved in the shortlisting process.  The main role of the Royal College representative is to run through the training background of each applicant and to determine, from the College perspective, whether the candidate has the training for the job.  Generally speaking, candidates who have been invited for the interview have the appropriate training and the skills to do the job.  It is essentially a formality that the College representative runs through the training of each candidate to clarify that this is the case.

This is normally the first part of the interview. It is generally quite relaxed and involves a general chit-chat about where and when you have done your training.  They will also be interested to explore any additional professional training that you may have done, for example, a BSc, MSc or PhD.  If you are applying for a sub-specialised field they will also be interested in the length of training in this field and will also want to find out about what specialist societies you are a member of.

Basically, they are there to rubber-stamp your training and also to go into detail about how much interest and what duration of interest you have in this particular sub-speciality field.  Questions that they ask you may include:

• Tell me about your training

• Tell me about yourself

• What was your training program like?

• How do you know you’re fully trained?

• How do you know that you can do the job?

• Are there any aspects of the job that you feel uncomfortable with?

• Are there any aspects that you wish you’d received more training on?

• Tell me about your Bachelor of Science degree

• Tell me about your PhD. What was the subject of your thesis?

• Why have you done all your training in London?

• Why did you move training programmes?

• Did you enjoy working in X hospital?

• Tell me which societies you are a member of

• Why are you not a member of Society X?

• Why have you not been to any of their annual meetings?

• Do you think that the EWTD has affected your training?

• Do you feel ready for a consultant job? How do you know?

• When is your CCT due?

• Are you on the Specialist Register?

• Are there any cases that you might be unhappy with as a consultant?

• Talk me through your CV

The basic position that you should adopt is that from the training perspective you are the “finished article”. You have been trained to a high standard, one set by your Royal College. You are competent in every aspect that is required for the job. There are no holes and no areas which require more training. Whilst there are naturally going to be areas that you might be unhappy with, do not express this to the panel unless it is simply a case that you don’t have the training for it. For example, a paediatric anaesthetist would not be expected to perform an on-pump valve transplant in a 70-year-old. They would simply not have the training.

The University representative’s role

If the advertised job has a teaching or research component to it then a representative of the attached university will normally be invited to the interview.  This is someone who is trained with an interest in medical education and research.  They will hold formal medical education degrees and may be a professor of an academic department.  Usually the University representative is a practising consultant who has an honorary clinical lectureship or professorship with the university.  They may or may not be from the same field.

The function of the University representative is twofold.  Firstly, they can ask questions on a research-related area and secondly, they can ask questions based on medical education. Most prospective consultants fail to prepare for this part of the interview adequately. A detailed section on medical educational theory and teaching techniques is included in this guide for this purpose.

The rest of the panel: the Chief Executive, the Medical Director and the Clinical Director

There is not really a clear-cut distinction between what these individuals can ask. The Clinical Director can ask both clinical and non-clinical questions, the Medical Director (responsible for clinical governance within the Trust) normally asks questions on clinical governance, and the Chief Executive can ask anything as long as the same questions are posed to each candidate. Recent NHS topics, governance and management are the norm and these sections are described in detail in the A-Z of hot topics which can be found later in this guide.

Preparation

Interview preparation overview

Interview preparation can be a daunting process. You not only need to know about yourself but also about the institution and the environment that you’ll be working in. Generally, important areas can be broken down into:

These are very much like building blocks.  They go hand in hand and are

structurally related to each other.

An effective answer imparts the correct factual information which is then used to convey a reasonable opinion.
Poor answers fail to follow this simple principle.  They either contain factually

incorrect information or lack one or both of the components.  In order to develop an opinion you need to fully understand both sides or views of a

particular topic. Only then can you give a weighted opinion on the topic.

Opinions that are not based on factual information are ineffective. Don’t forget

that the interviewer is looking for a set of attributes or a particular skill.  You need to demonstrate that you have the correct factual information which is

constructively used to form a reasonable opinion.

Knowing about the job

It is essential that you find out about the job for which you’re applying.  When consultant jobs are advertised a job description and person specification are published.  The job description gives all the key information about the job and Trust.  It should outline the job plan and timetable, giving details on any direct clinical care programmed activities and also supporting programmed activities.  A weekly timetable should also be present which gives information on regular and flexible sessioned activities for each day of the week.  It should also describe what clinical services are present within the Trust and give a Trust profile including geographical demographics and details of the management structure of the Trust.  The duties and responsibilities of the post will detail exactly what additional activities are required.  This will include education, teaching, research and management responsibilities of the post.