Medicine at Barts & The London, Queen Mary Medical School & Interview Questions 2024

Key Aspects

🎓 Barts (Queen Mary’s) Medicine Interview Questions & Topics 2024

There are a number of topics that the Queen Mary’s Interview will focus on, these are the key domains for the stations:

• Motivation and reality of a career in medicine

• Initiative, resilience and maturity - examples of this and the ability to demonstrate this

• Teamwork - ability to work well as part of a team

• Organisation and problem-solving abilities

• Contribution to university life

• Communication skills

• Article research and analysis

💯 Barts Medical Interview Questions Scoring in 2024

Ultimately, selection after an interview may consider all assessment factors: interview score, situational judgement test, UCAS tariff points from predicted or achieved qualifications or weighted scoring of degree for graduates and UCAT score.

❓Barts Medical Interview Past, Recent & Likely Questions 2024

Please find below a list of suggested questions that could come up at your interview in 2024 based on the information provided by the university. 

Queen Mary’s Barts Medicine Interview Article Questions

1. Please summarise the article for us

2. What were the issues in the article?

3. Were there any issues with the article?

4. What are the likely implications of this article?

Motivation to study medicine

1. Why medicine?

2. Why do you want to come to Queen Mary’s?

3. What did you learn from your work experience?

4. What do you know about the Barts Medicine course? How is it taught?

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

6. Why medicine and not dentistry or nursing?

7. Tell us about your volunteering

8. What are your hobbies?

9. What do you want to specialise in?

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

11. How will you contribute to life at Barts?

Personal Insight

1. Why should patients trust you?

2. What are your best qualities?

3. How do you manage stress?

4. How will you cope with the stress of medicine?

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

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

7. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

8. How would your friends describe you?

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

10. Should doctors always tell the truth?

11. How do you want patients to perceive you?

12. How would I deal with death as a doctor?

NHS & Local Area

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

2. How would you manage a public health campaign?

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 Barts?

8. What kind of issues do you think people have that live in the local area around Whitechapel?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🗣️ Queen Mary’s Medicine Interview Tips 2024

1. The Queen Mary’s Medicine Interview Article - it is fundamental that you spend time preparing and researching the article that they give you. There is no excuse not to. You must learn everything about it, critically analyse the article and work out its strengths and weaknesses. Make sure that you know how to apply the four medical principles to this article. What are the implications of this article on the NHS or how doctors may act?

2. Expect follow-up questions - this is especially true for the questions on the article, and less so for the personal questions. As such, we would recommend keeping your answers short, at a maximum of 2 minutes to allow them to ask the questions that they must ask so that you can score full marks.

3. Have examples ready to use: many of the questions asked at Barts 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.

4. Personal Attributes - Barts is very likely to ask you about personal attributes during the Queen Mary’s medicine interview. As such it is paramount that you go through and learn these. Check out our 420+ interview question and answer guide for dealing with such interview questions. 

5. Have a question ready - it is always worth having a question ready to ask the panel. If in doubt, ask about societies that you want to join, or any question about the course that you are actually interested in.

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

7. Know the Barts Course - we would always recommend doing this for every university that you plan to apply to. It is paramount that you know about the different topics covered each year. How does this differ from other universities? What is their policy on intercalation? Have you any idea about what you would plan to intercalate in at Barts?

8. Know the local area - the main campus for the MBBS programme at Queen Mary’s is in Whitechapel. This is an incredibly diverse region of London, with a number of local factors and diseases that differentiate it from the rest of England. Ensure that you research both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the area. How might this impact healthcare provision in the area? With it being so close to Shoreditch, Brick Lane and the East End, are there any issues that may arise from this?

9. Reflect Well - the Barts Medicine selectors love reflection, make sure that you are good at not just stating what you have learnt, but also how this helped 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.

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 Barts - 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 Barts 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 Barts, 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 200+ 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 - Barts 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 panel stations. This is universal to many universities, and something that we always recommend students cover during their medicine interview preparation.