Medicine at University of Southampton Medical School & Interview Questions 2024

Key Aspects

🎓 University of Southampton Medicine Interview Questions & Topics 2024

At the University of Southampton, applicants will have the opportunity to participate in a panel and group interview as part of the selection process. 

These in-person interviews will take place on designated selection days, with updates available on the university's website. To help you prepare, we have compiled some insights and tips based on past experiences with the University of Southampton interview process. With these resources, you can increase your chances of turning your interview into an offer.

Medicine interviews at Southampton will be conducted in person. Previously, the interviews consisted of two parts - a panel interview and a group task. Over the past two years, both stages were conducted online.

Each part of the Southampton interview will last 20-30 minutes, making the total length of the interview around an hour.

The university uses a strict selection process to shortlist candidates for their BM5 selection days. 

All applications are first reviewed to ensure that applicants meet the minimum eligibility and academic requirements, such as being over 18 years old when the course begins and having 7 GCSEs at Grade 6 or above in Mathematics, English Language, Biology and Chemistry or Combined Sciences.

Those who pass this initial review are then ranked based solely on their UCAT score. Those with the highest rankings will be invited to interview.

It is worth noting that there are typically around 1,400 applications for the 261 available spots in the Medicine program at Southampton. Interview invitations for the BM5 course are typically sent via email in November and January.

The Southampton selection day is unique amongst medical schools. Traditionally it is a two-part selection day, containing a group task and a traditional panel interview. Both sections are around 20 minutes long.

Applicants must be able to show:

• Are self-motivated and resilient

• Have reflected on and learnt from life experiences (this may include work experience, paid employment and personal experiences both in and outside health and social care settings)

• Can communicate effectively

• Are able to interact successfully with others

• Can demonstrate an understanding of the values of the NHS Constitution

❓ Southampton Medical Interview Past Questions 2024 & 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 interview preparation for Southampton.

Motivation to study medicine

1. Why medicine?

2. Why Southampton?

3. What did you learn from your work experience?

4. Have you ever doubted whether you want to do medicine?

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

6. What do you know about the Southampton Medicine course? How is it taught?

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

8. Why medicine and not dentistry or nursing?

9. Tell us about your volunteering

10. What are your hobbies?

11. What do you understand about what a career in medicine entails? How will the Southampton course help you towards this?

12. What are the negatives of a career in medicine? How did you overcome these thoughts?

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 changes would you make to the NHS if you could?

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

3. What is it like to be a doctor?

4. How do you deal with overpopulation?

5. What do you know about the local area here in Southampton?

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

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

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

9. 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?

7. Should doctors be paid to go to pharmaceutical conferences?

Other Stations

1. Group interview: Discuss the pros and cons of assisted dying. What is the difference between assisted dying and assisted suicide? Reflect on your performance in the group in front of everyone.

2. Group interview: Discuss the pros and cons of a sugar tax. Each person must summarise their position at the end.

3. Group interview: Antibiotic resistance. What would happen if they were banned tomorrow?

4. Group interview: Advantages and disadvantages of free Wi-Fi in schools for 15-16 year olds

5. Understanding of communication techniques needed for different people

6. Data interpretation: explain what this graph shows

7. Talk us through this article

8. Analysis of a newspaper article about medical news, what are your thoughts on it

🗣️ Southampton Medicine Interview Tips 2024

1. Ethical Scenarios - Southampton have ethical scenarios every year at interview. They provided several tips on answering ethical questions. They have mentioned that there is not a single right answer, use evidence or explanation to back up your answers, explain your thought processes, don’t assume prior knowledge on the interviewers’ part – not all interviewers will be medics, and show awareness and recognition of different viewpoints, don’t ‘sit on the fence’ – have an opinion and take a common sense approach

2. Practice Role Plays: Role plays are unique to medicine interviews and so common at Southampton. 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.

3. Learn Medical Ethics & NHS Hot Topics - it is extremely likely that you will be asked about medical ethics at a medicine interview at Southampton, 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.

4. Have examples ready to use: many of the questions asked at Southampton 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.

5. Know what to expect - Remember interviews can be conducted by a range of professionals and you may not only be interviewed by a doctor. You may encounter careers professional, actors, professional support staff, and teaching staff, particularly in MMIs. Avoid using very technical terms, you may have more clinical knowledge than those assessing you.

6. Personal Attributes - Southampton is very likely to ask you about personal attributes during their vMMI interview. As such it is paramount that you go through and learn these.

7. Know the doctor training pathway: this is useful to mention in answers to show awareness about the career in medicine - and demonstrates that you have a considered approach, fortunately, we have a guide to the NHS and the doctor’s training pathway.

8. 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.

9. MMI Stations - remember that each MMI station at Southampton 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.

10. Know the Southampton 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? Remember there is very early clinical exposure at Southampton - this can be an advantage!

11. Know the local area - Southampton is in a diverse region of England, with a number of local factors and diseases that differentiate the midlands from the rest of the UK. Ensure that you research both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the area. They have a number of services here including Southampton university medical centre to support students. How might this impact healthcare provision in the area?

12. Reflect Well - the Southampton 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.

13. 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.

14. Learn about the non-academic societies at Southampton - 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 Southampton University. Spend time on their website, or looking at their Instagram for ideas about societies that you could think about joining.

15. 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.

16. Good Medical Practice - Southampton 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.