Prepare for your Doctor Interview.

As a doctor, your next job role is within your grasp! The position is within your desired salary band and will allow you to progress within your chosen speciality. All you need to do now is secure the role at interview.

The good news is, if you have been offered an interview through Sanctuary Health, the role is already highly suitable. You just need to demonstrate you have the right level of experience and knowledge for the role.

Your individual Sanctuary Health consultant, who specialises in recruiting doctors, will give you a full picture on what the employer is looking for, but there’s still plenty of scope for you to perfect your interview techniques.

Whether you are a junior or senior middle grade doctor, speciality doctor, GP or Consultant, you’ll still want to do some prep ahead of the interview, and here’s a few of the more typical questions you can expect to be asked.

Describe a procedure you’ve followed in finding a solution to a complex medical condition?

Here you’ll want to indicate your problem-solving skills and medical knowledge. The temptation is to go into lots of detail because complex cases are complicated. But try to keep your answer relatively short. Make sure the salient points are there but don’t worry about including every little detail. If the interviewer wants further information on an aspect of your answer, they will ask you to elaborate.

What communication methods do you find work best within a multi-disciplinary team?

The interviewer is looking for more than just the standard of answer of you saying you appreciate input from other staff members. Perhaps you can think of an example where strong multi-disciplinary communications you were party to helped deliver a positive outcome for a patient; an outcome that might have been very different if it wasn’t for clear communications across different specialities.

How do you safely move from one patient to the next?

As a doctor, you need to offer a strong answer that shows how you take a practical and safe approach in managing change in a highly pressured environment. Again, think of an example but try and keep your answer succinct.

Describe a challenging time as a doctor. What lessons have you learned?

Nobody is perfect and the interviewer will know and appreciate this. You could use this question to how you realise when you have reached a stage in treating a patient where they need to be referred to speciality doctor or consultant. This shows an appreciation for safe practise.

What is your opinion of research?

Often, this question will be used to by the interviewer to discover how interested you are to learn new skills and progress your knowledge within your desired specialist area of medicine. Be prepared to cite some recent research and how you translate your research into your role.

You could even look to see whether there are any recent research papers published by any of the consultants and professors already working there.

You could be asked any number of questions. But here’s a few tips:

• Be concise and focused in your answers. Pause before answering.

• For frequently asked questions, keep your answers to just a couple of minutes. You can always ask the interviewer if they would like you to elaborate.

• Always provide a short summary before you go into detail on each answer.

• For competency-based answers, adhere to the STAR formula; situation, task, action and result.

Our interview guide will tell you everything you need to know...

Hopefully these tips will help you prepare for your next doctor job interview. If you’re looking for your next position, why not take a look at our wide range of doctor roles?