Medicine at University of Buckingham Medical School & Interview Questions 2024

Key Aspects

🎓 Buckingham MMI Medicine Interview Questions & Topics 2024

There are a number of different stations tested in the MMI interview at Buckingham Medical School:

1. A test of the applicant’s ability to arrive at the selected location on time (with due allowance for validated travel disruption), bearing a full set of pre-defined documents.

2. Communicating with, and empathising with, simulated patients. The patients will have complex life histories.

3. Following instructions for a practical task involving physical interaction with a simulated patient. Additionally, assessment of the capacity to interact sensitively and safely with the patient when undertaking the task.

4. Reflecting on their own life events, including those described in the applicant’s personal statement.

5. Comprehension ability at Buckingham and ability in the verbal explanation of ideas presented in writing

6. Numerical skills – this will be related to common tasks that will be encountered during a career in Medicine.

7. Testing of the ability to identify strengths and weaknesses of communication skills exhibited during a simulated consultation between a doctor and a patient.

8. The applicant’s ability to establish a partnership with individuals through negotiation.

9. Testing of the ability to observe and summarise information. This will use a video interview that has been recorded, featuring a patient and doctor. You will need to either summarise this information or comment on the good and bad aspects of the consultation (this can be pre-prepared)!

10. Testing of the ability to communicate and work collaboratively with colleagues through set collaborative tasks.

There are some key domains that you must learn here as outlined in the GMC’s Good Medical Practice:

• Domain 1: knowledge, skills and performance - This covers a doctor’s responsibility to keep their professional knowledge and skills up to date and to always practice to a high standard.

• Domain 2: Safety and quality - This highlights a doctor’s responsibility to comply with risk management systems and to protect patients and colleagues.

• Domain 3: Communication, partnership and teamwork - This area focuses on a doctor’s role within a team

• Domain 4: maintaining trust - This outlines the responsibility of a doctor to act with honesty and without discriminating against their patients.

❓ Buckingham Medical Interview Past Questions 2024 entry & Likely Topics

Please find below a list of suggested questions that could come up at your interview this year, created by our team to help guide your preparation. 

Motivation to study medicine

1. Why medicine?

2. Why Buckingham?

3. What did you learn from your work experience?

4. What qualities of a doctor did you see from your work experience?

5. What do you know about the Buckingham Medicine course? How is it taught?

6. Why do you think you will be well suited to this course?

7. Why medicine and not dentistry or nursing?

8. Tell us about your volunteering

9. What are your hobbies?

10. What are the negatives of a career in medicine?

Personal Insight

1. Why should patients trust you?

2. What are your best qualities?

3. How do you manage stress?

4. Can you provide us with an example of a time when you demonstrated resilience?

5. Give us an example of a time when you demonstrated teamwork.

6. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

7. How would your friends describe you?

8. Tell us about an article that you have recently read.

NHS & Local Area

1. What is the CQC?

2. What changes would you make to the NHS if you could?

3. How would you improve the local A&E department?

4. What are the NHS values and why are they important?

5. What is it like to be a doctor?

6. How do you deal with overpopulation?

7. What do you know about the local area here in Buckingham?

8. What are the main challenges that face the NHS?

9. How has COVID changed the way the NHS operates?

10. What do you think are going to be the long-term consequences of COVID on the NHS?

11. How does the healthcare system differ here compared to other areas in the UK?

Ethical Scenarios

1. Understanding of the four ethical principles

2. Understanding of the GMC’s good medical practice

3. What are the principles that guide patient care?

4. What is the debate surrounding euthanasia, should it be legalised?

5. Who would you give this organ to? [Prioritisation]

6. If you notice that a colleague has turned up to work drunk, what would you do?

7. Who can you escalate concerns to within a hospital?

MMI Specific Stations

1. Role play: speaking to a vulnerable patient

2. Data interpretation - picture scenarios assessing verbal skills and writing medical notes.

3. What are the different uses of a rubber band?

4. Calculation station - working out the correct drug dosages for medicines.

5. A patient needs 75mg of a drug which comes as 50mg/5ml, how many ml do we need to give her?

6. Video - summarise the interactions between the doctor and a patient (common at Buckingham)

🗣️ University of Buckingham Medicine Interview Tips 2024

1. Practice video scenarios - This is fundamental as it comes up year after year at Buckingham, they love using video scenarios in their interviews. Practice watching consultations (like in the BSMS work experience and the RCGP Observe GP work experience) and comment on them, practice writing down your thoughts on the way the consultation was conducted, what was good, and what was bad.

2. Have examples ready to use: many of the questions asked at Buckingham are example-based, ie, they require you to draw on certain examples from your personal life, medical work experience and medical volunteering to help make key points that the selectors are looking for. As such, it is paramount that you spend time learning about these examples and thinking about different scenarios that you can use at the interview. It is helpful if these scenarios are malleable and can be applied to a number of different questions e.g. being a football captain, deputy head girl or playing in the school orchestra.

3. Personal Attributes - Buckingham is very likely to ask you about personal attributes during the MMI interview. As such it is paramount that you go through and learn these. Check out our interview guide for more information on this. 

4. Know the doctor training pathway: this is a common question that comes up at Buckingham, fortunately, we have a guide to the NHS and the doctor’s training pathway.

5. Read the MMI instructions carefully - you get enough time to read the instructions provided before the MMI station. Make sure that you don’t miss anything from this. Try and plan how you will structure your answer thereafter in the reading time that you get. Therefore it is really important that you practice MMI questions and ensure that you think about your structure for as many questions as possible before your interview.

6. MMI Stations - remember that each MMI station at Buckingham is independent of the other. Therefore it is paramount that you try to treat them as such, if you have a bad station, try to forget about it and reset for the next station, this gives you the best chance of scoring well overall. Read our ultimate guide to preparing for medicine MMIs here.

7. Reflect Well - the Buckingham Medicine selectors love reflection, make sure that you are good at not just stating what you have learnt, but also how this helped and what you benefitted from, and what you will carry forward about this at medical school and in clinical medicine. This is especially true when reflecting on your medical work experience during the medicine interview.

8. Practice Role Plays: Role plays are unique to medicine MMI interviews as they do not tend to occur in panel interviews. The only way to ace these stations is to practice! There are so many different medicine role-play scenarios that can come up, such as breaking bad news in the medicine interview, it is paramount that you read about tips for answering role-play scenarios and practice MMI calculation stations. You might want to also consider practising this with a medicine interview tutor, or booking a 1-1 online mock interview.

9. Know the local area - Buckingham is situated in a diverse region just outside of London, with a number of local factors and diseases that is different from the rest of the UK. Ensure that you research both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the area. How might this impact healthcare provision in the area?

10. Don’t over-rehearse - this is a common theme amongst interview students and is very obvious to a trained examiner. As such, we would recommend focusing on the structure of your answer, and then naturally letting it flow when speaking to the answers, concentrating on the delivery of your interview answers. Read about our top tips for medicine interviews here. If you are struggling with this, consider booking sessions with an expert medicine interview tutor.

11. Learn about the non-academic societies at Buckingham - this is really important and might augment your Why Medicine question as well as help you formulate an answer to how you will contribute to life at Buckingham University. Spend time on their website, or looking at their Instagram for ideas about societies that you could think about joining.

12. Learn Medical Ethics & NHS Hot Topics - it is extremely likely that you will be asked about medical ethics at a medicine interview at Buckingham, so there is no excuse not to brush up on your knowledge on these topics, especially the four pillars of medical ethics. Learn how to provide a balanced argument on this. Check out some of our free articles on NHS Hot Topics here. It is good if you have an opinion on them, as long as you present a balanced and well-reasoned argument, ultimately, which side you choose does not matter, but is helpful to have. Check out our bank of 420+ medicine interview questions.

13. Learn the NHS Core Values - This can be drawn into different answers about personal qualities or qualities of a doctor, which has formed a feature of stations in the past, and a good understanding of these core values will help you stand out against others. It is important to know about the NHS in general for your medical interviews - read our article here on this.

14. Good Medical Practice - Buckingham also puts emphasis on knowing the values and qualities of a good doctor, which can be found in this document and are likely to come up at the interview in the MMI stations. This is universal to many universities, and something that we always recommend students cover during their medicine interview preparation.