Stop Sounding Generic: How to Signpost Answers in Medical Interviews (IMG, MMI & SET Interviews)

If I can train a 16 year old kid to say those words, these words need to be expanded upon. And this is the core difference between tell versus demonstrate. But I want you to be authentic and vulnerable in that moment and say something honest and true. It's going to make you stand out. Are you signposting correctly or you signposting generically and sounding like every other applicant listen to the rest of this podcast? I'm going to try and explain to you how to signpost correctly for your medical interviews and how to get the most out of that first 30 seconds to a minute of your answer. Welcome to the Alexander Medical Medical interview podcast where I break down how to nail and prepare for your specialty training interview, your international medical graduate, Australian job interview, or your premedicine med school interview. Start your practice early practice. That is my number one advice. But let's talk about today the generic versus authentic signposting. Now med school, you can get away with this. Okay, specialty training, not so much. Okay. So let me talk about this. The amount of people that come to me, incredibly smart, incredibly driven and well accomplished people. There'll be a situation where it's like, so the consultant comes in smelling of alcohol. They've been making poor decisions recently. And the nursing staff is concerned patients on the table about to go to sleep. What do you do and how do you not aggravate this situation? People say this is a really difficult situation. Very generic. Everybody says that. Okay. So the rule in the interview is to separate yourself. Okay. Use that time. Okay. I understand you might be not sure what to say. That's why you say that and you delaying some time so you can think about it. Okay. That's going to make you stand out. For example, I've worked in many regional and metropolitan centers and surgical training jobs and never have I encountered something like this. But I have encountered inappropriate behavior by seniors. And this is kind of similar in the same vein. So I'm going to talk about how I would approach this, but just using some of these examples as guidance for my thinking. When I say that second thing, you're hearing me go, dang, this guy has worked in a lot of different places. And he's had first hand experience of dealing with difficult seniors. I probably could have added that I maintained the relationship. That would have been a better out on the real learning. So now we know we've got a snapshot of who you are. Okay. You're not afraid to take things on. You're not afraid to be honest and you're not afraid to be clear about what's going on. So I'm then from there, you can catapult yourself into a more clear answer and talk about how while you have an experience, the situation, you're going to have a very clear framework. And this is the main thing. Okay. So a lot of people, when they have the difficult professionalism issues, they get a little bit trapped, right? Because there is honestly almost no way in the situation that I just gave that you can tell a consultant or a boss, hey, you're not behaving appropriately and you seem inebriated or incapacitated. This is a risk to patient safety. I think you need to step down. It's very, it's a very sweaty. My parents just got sweaty then and so should of yours. It's a very sweaty situation. Okay. So the next step to signposting properly, I just talked about patient safety, which is important, right? If any question has the remotest, smallest risk of patient safety, we need to mention it. But I don't want you to just say I'd maintain patients. A lot of people do this. I was a very difficult situation. My main thing would be prioritizing patient safety. And then I would do this or another question might be like, a patient needs to consent. And we're worried about this acute emergency. What would you do? And it's usually specific clinical scenario to the specialty. And they say, I would maintain patient safety above all. I don't mention what part of patient safety that would maintain. Okay. Does that make sense? Why are we mentioning patient safety without identifying the risk to patient safety? So in this situation, you might say my first priority would be patient safety. So I'm considering things like the fact that, I mean, you can say the obvious, because remember, like in oscies, if you don't say it, you don't get the point. So you could say my first priority is to maintain patient safety. My most immediate concern would be the fact that the consultant leading this surgery may not have the ability to perform the surgery in a safe manner, could lead to maiming or avoidable complications or even the worst thing more death in this patient unnecessarily and negligently. So I would be acting negligent if I didn't step in. Okay. Can also cause a compromise of psychological safety of the nursing staff or even the patient themselves if they experience an adverse outcome as a result of this, their trust in the healthcare system can be eroded extremely deeply. And it may cause them to have further health issues unrelated to this particular pathology in the future because they will not present or trust doctors ever again. Unrelated to this particular pathology in the future because they will not present or trust doctors ever again. Now look, is that a bit long in the nose? Yes. It is a bit long in the nose for a two to three minute answer. But I'm trying to demonstrate the different kind of things that you can say rather than I would prioritize patient safety. And this goes for every other thing that you say in most other answers, right? So a good one is I will communicate with what does communicate mean. So you can signposts for saying I will communicate with them, but you need to expand on it a little bit, right? So for example, in this situation, so I would communicate very indirectly about this with the consultant in the first instance. So I might say something like, excuse me, prof, are you feeling okay today? Given a little example, so you could see how I would approach it. I even adjusted my tone and put myself in that situation. You were transported to that operating theater, right? You were imagining that consultant. I know because that's what I was trying to do. And we'll talk about storytelling and the way to use imagery to sound more authentic and be more real and vulnerable in your answers in another episode, okay? So the long and the short of it is if you are starting a question and you feel like you're about to say something generic, I want you to stop and figure out how do I integrate my experience and be vulnerable and open about this. So another example might be patient as fast as for surgery for 10 hours and they end up canceling. So you have to go and break the news to them. How would you break the news to them? I work in a busy metropolitan public health system and theater is very precious. It's a very precious resource. And I am often unfortunately having the unglorious task of telling patients that they are not going to be able to have their surgery today, not conversation with them in an empathetic way. So I would approach it in this way. Or my normal approach to this is I'm kind of catapulting you into the room already. It's like starting the story. It's like saying once upon a time there was a person fasting for surgery and there was a registrar sent to tell them that they cannot have the surgery and there was going to be a conflict. But the registrar was so empathetic and so good at communicating and perspective taking that there was no conflict or the conflict was resolved very quickly. Okay. So keep that in mind. And then the second rule that I said is do not just say anything for the sake of saying something. Okay. Don't just say, oh, I will communicate well or I would manage the conflict well or I would do this well. Tell us how you would do it. Well, okay. And make sure that you're using a little bit of an example to help transmit us to that room while you're having that conversation because the more specificity that you give and the more imagery that you draw on, it gives your voice this dynamic quality that is true and honest. It sounds less robotic. And it helps us, you know, separate the wheat from the chaff 16 year old kid that I've trained to go into an interview of a specialty training and say, okay, so just say patient safety. Don't have to say anything else. And then to say you were communicating, you would resolve the conflict right if it has anything to do with conflict. Cool. Go. Okay. And I talk about this in a master class. I'm also going to make another video here about that. So keep an eye out for that. The difference between tell and demonstrate. Okay. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I appreciate any feedback that you have. Tell me any particular topics that you're really struggling with and I'll try and make an episode about it. Don't forget subscriptions available to my podcast to get the extra episodes. Okay. Good luck.