On Wednesday 20th November, Rushcliffe Sixth Form hosted an MMI (Multiple Mini Interview) evening to prepare our year 13 students for the selection process they will face in applying to study Medicine or Dentistry. MMIs are often considered to be the ‘final hurdle’ in achieving offers for medical school.
Local healthcare professionals including GPs, a Paediatric Consultant, Physiotherapists and a couple of junior doctors, very kindly gave up their evening to help provide this invaluable experience to our students.
11 stations were set up and the students spent a demanding two hours making their way around the timed circuit, taking on the various tasks, including: topical issues, decision making under pressure, ethical issues, situational judgement & prioritisation and safeguarding & patient confidentiality.
At the end of the evening each student was given some personal written feedback on their performance at each station followed by a 15 minute “open feedback” conversation between the students and professionals. Students who attended the evening were extremely positive after the event:
‘I found it extremely useful because medicine MMIs are different from any other interviews I had done before so it was helpful to have the opportunity to experience what it would be like before my actual interviews. It was also useful to have a mixture of interviewers; some who I recognised (which made it less daunting) and some who I had never seen before to mimic what a real MMI will be like. The feedback forms have also been important for improving both my interview/communication skills and in researching and preparing answers to different types of questions.’ – Lena
‘It was such a great opportunity to get a feel of how the real interviews will be and all the interviewers were amazing and so helpful. Thank you for organising.’ – Lynn
The students certainly rose to the challenge and should be proud of how they performed with the ‘interviewers’ commenting on their knowledge, confidence and communication skills – especially under pressure. We would like to thank all the professionals who gave up their time to support our students and, of course, we wish all of our aspiring Medics good luck with their upcoming interviews.
