100 Multiple Mini Interview Questions & How to Answer

While the fast-paced format of the multiple mini interview may sound intimidating, MMIs can work to your advantage, as your final evaluation is an average of how you performed in each interview, as opposed to everything riding on a single first impression.

However, despite the advantages of MMIs, they are more difficult to prepare for. They come with a broader range of questions and scenarios that are designed to keep you on your toes.

This guide provides 100 multiple mini interview questions as well as tips on how to craft answers that will impress your many interviewers.

 

Multiple Mini Interview Questions vs Regular Interview Questions

While MMIs differ from school to school and year to year, generally, multiple mini interviews are composed of 6 to 10 interview stations run by different interviewers, and each will feature a different format.

While you will likely encounter some regular interview questions, such as “tell me about yourself” and “why medicine”, at a station with a standard interview format, you may also circulate through stations with patient actors, essay writing stations, an ethics station involving questions about social and policy implications, and even a rest station where you can catch your breath.

Each station lasts about 8 minutes, though some stations, such as the standard interview or essay writing stations, may last a little longer. Before entering a station, you’ll be given a prompt and allowed 2 minutes to read the prompt and formulate an answer. The prompt could be a written prompt, a behavioral question, a scenario to act out, etc.

Keep in mind that this is general, as each school handles MMIs in its own way. Some stick to a strict format, whereas others may blindside you with unexpected questions and scenarios. Considering the number of variables you have to contend with, you can never be 100% prepared.

Another difference between MMIs and regular one-on-one interviews is that schools often have a standardized rubric that each interviewer must follow to ensure everyone is scored on the same set of conditions. This is commonly based on a 1-10 Likert scale, but once again, this varies. The program could use its own unique evaluation system.

To learn more about MMIs, read our comprehensive Multiple Mini Interview Guide: How to Approach MMIs with Confidence.

 

Multiple Mini Interview Questions

Practice by reading each of the questions below for 1 to 2 minutes or less and crafting a comprehensive yet succinct answer in 4-8 minutes.

MMI stations are often about 8 to 10 minutes; however, some stations may be longer or shorter, and you may encounter multiple questions at one station. Practice giving succinct answers in varying time limits so that you’re capable of giving a 2 to 3 minute answer or a 6 to 8 minute answer, depending on the situation.

Introductory and Personal MMI Questions

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Why medicine?
3. Why are you interested in our medical school?
4. How do your own personal goals align with the mission and goals of our school?
5. When did you first decide that you wanted to become a physician?
6. Did your parents push you toward medicine?
7. Has anyone tried to convince you not to enter the medical profession?
8. Convince me that you have adequate experience to understand that becoming a physician is right for you.
9. What kind of doctor do you want to be?
10. Please describe your most significant life experience.
11. What do you like about the city where you’re from?
12. What are three adjectives you would use to describe yourself?
13. What’s the best piece of advice that you give?
14. Describe a situation in which you did something that you truly regretted.
15. Do you know what it’s like to be sick or to be a patient?
16. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
17. How would you contribute to the diversity of the next class?
18. Why should we choose you over other applicants?

Career MMI Questions

1. Did you ever consider any other professions?
2. If you couldn’t become a doctor, what career would you pursue?
3. What specialty are you most interested in so far?
4. Are you interested in an MD/PhD dual degree? Why or why not?
5. Do you have a medical role model?
6. What is a more important trait as a physician, compassion or intelligence?
7. What do you anticipate will be the most difficult part of medical school?
8. How would you help tackle the issue of physician burnout?
9. What would you do if you were asked to work more than the legal amount of 80 hours per week as a resident doctor?
10. What would you define as the top 3 qualities of the ideal physician?
11. What qualities make a great physician leader?

Beyond Medicine MMI Questions

1. What do you do for fun?
2. What’s your favorite book?
3. What was the last movie that you saw?
4. What was the last book you enjoyed and why?
5. What book has most impacted the way you think?
6. What was your favorite non-science class?
7. If you could be any human organ, which would you be and why?
8. What do you value most in your friends?
9. What superpower would you like to have?
10. Who is your favorite superhero? Why?
11. Do you have any travel experiences?
12. Are you comfortable with your own mortality?
13. Have you read a news article lately that disturbed you? Why?

Application MMI Questions

1. Are there any red flags in your application that we should know about?
2. What sort of clinical experience do you have?
3. What was your most significant non-medical volunteer activity?
4. What was your most rewarding extracurricular activity?
5. Describe your research to me as if I were a four-year-old.
6. What are your favorite and least favorite things about research?
7. Do you think research is something medical students should be required to do?
8. Describe your favorite patient interaction.
9. What has been your favorite leadership role?
10. What was the toughest challenge you faced as a leader?
11. What has been your experience with underserved populations?

Ethical MMI Questions

1. How would you deal with a colleague/patient who has different values than you?
2. What would you do if your boss made an error and tried to hide it?
3. What would you do if you saw your best friend cheating on a test in medical school?
4. If you’re in a car accident with a driver who you know is HIV-positive, and he needs first aid, would you help him knowing that you don’t have any protective equipment?
5. Is it ever ethical to lie to a patient?
6. What would you do to reduce physician suicide rates?
7. Would you give your telephone number out to patients?
8. What would you do if a friend or colleague had a problem with alcohol or drug use?
9. What would you do if a patient came to you and asked you to perform a procedure that goes against your code of ethics?
10. If you knew your colleague was lying to patients, what would you do?
11. What would you do if a doctor showed up to work with alcohol or cannabis on their breath?
12. Are physicians more important than other members of the healthcare team?
13. A patient refuses a blood transfusion based on religious beliefs. What do you do?
14. What are your thoughts on abortion?
15. How do you feel about state governments determining a woman’s right to choose?
16. How do you feel about AI’s role in medicine? Should it be limited or expanded?
17. Should we have the death penalty?
18. What would you do if you were treating an eight-year-old child who was in a car accident and needed surgery and a blood transfusion, but the parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses?
19. An alcoholic and a non-alcoholic need a liver transplant. There is only one liver to give. How do you choose who gets it?
20. Two people need lung transplants today, or they will die. There is one lung available. One person smokes, and one person doesn’t. How do you choose who gets the lung? What if the smoker has been on the transplant list for three times as long as the non-smoker?
21. If someone gave you concert tickets to see your favorite band play, and you knew the tickets were stolen, would you still go?
22. Do you think we should keep people alive for as long as we do on machines knowing that the majority of our healthcare dollars are spent treating patients at the end of life?
23. Describe an ethical dilemma and how you resolved it.
24. Do you believe physicians have to be 100% honest with their patients?
25. Do you believe that physicians ought to be upstanding citizens in the community?
26. Do you think friends/family members should be allowed to donate organs to relatives who are not number one on the donor-recipient list?
27. Do you think people should be able to pay for organs if people are willing to sell them?
28. A patient on whom you did a vasectomy comes in to have it redone because his wife is pregnant. You start the procedure and realize the vasectomy is intact, and there is no way your patient got his wife pregnant. What do you do?
29. A patient who has previously declined blood transfusions for religious purposes is now unconscious. Would you give them the transfusion now?
30. What would you do if your patient’s family asked you to not disclose his terminal cancer diagnosis for fear that it would cause tremendous psychological harm?
31. Your patient contracted HIV from an affair. He refuses to tell his wife. What do you do?
32. Should parents be allowed to clone their dying child?
33. Would you tell a patient that you made a mistake even if there were no consequences for that mistake?
34. Do you think it’s moral for pharmaceutical companies to charge so much for medications?
35. Do you think it’s okay to use animals for research?
36. If you had a limited supply of drugs, how do you decide which patients will get them?
37. If you had suspicions that your research mentor or principal investigator was manipulating data, what would you do?
38. The attending surgeon shows up for surgery drunk, and no one intervenes. What do you do? Does it matter if you’re a premed, medical student, or resident?
39. If we were to believe in the survival of the fittest theory, why should we waste resources saving those at the end of life?
40. Would you perform an abortion?
41. What would you do if you were asked to perform a procedure that you disagreed with for non-medical reasons?
42. Do you think we should have to opt-out of organ donation versus opt-in?
43. Do you think gender reassignment surgery should be covered by insurance?
44. I’m the father of a child who died because you accidentally gave him the wrong medication. What would you say to me?
45. What do you tell the parents of your patient who are refusing vaccinations for their child?
46. What can be done about doctor shortages?
47. How do you feel about resident doctors protesting about low pay and intense hours?

 

How to Best Answer Multiple Mini Interviews

1 | Be Clear and Succinct

Be mindful of the timed format of MMIs. You’ll only have between 6 to 8 minutes to respond to each question, so be clear and succinct with your answers. What’s the most important point to get across within a limited amount of time?

In order to articulately respond to each question within your allotted time, you must practice communicating your entire point within 6 to 8 minutes. Do this for different types of MMI questions, such as writing stations, acting scenarios, policy questions, ethical dilemmas, etc.

Don’t assume you’ll naturally be able to deliver coherent and concise answers on the day of. Set yourself up for MMI success by practicing within a timed format. Practice within the typical MMI format, but also practice answering with more or less time because you never know what to expect from one school to the next.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable!

2 | Remain Unbiased and Ethical

While many of the questions you’ll face won’t have a clear right answer, it is critical that your answers remain unbiased and ethical. Answer every question this way, as any moral dilemmas you need to respond to are specifically designed to evaluate your ethics and understanding of the Hippocratic Oath.

When in doubt, refer to the four tenets of ethics:

1. Beneficence (do good)
2. Nonmaleficence (do not harm)
3. Respect for autonomy (control by the individual)
4. Justice (fairness).

Ethics are about as important to doctors as an intimate understanding of human anatomy. Therefore, it’s vital to demonstrate that you have both a deep understanding of the moral foundations of physicians as well as the ability to quickly assess a situation from an ethical standpoint and act appropriately.

3 | Use Conditional Statements

When responding to ethical questions, it’s best to utilize if/then conditional statements. Conditional statements enable you to put your knowledge of ethics on full display while also providing a diplomatic answer to vague moral questions.

For example, “If this is the situation, then I would respond this way. However, if this is actually the situation, then I would respond this way.”

Ethical questions are purposely ambiguous. If/then statements allow you to reframe the situation and add crucial context, demonstrating your ability to assess both sides of an argument, think ahead, and consider the potential consequences of your decisions.

Here’s an example scenario:

You see a fellow student, Aarush, steal a textbook from the school library. What would you do about it?

An if/then conditional answer would look something like this:

“I would find a time to calmly approach Aarush in a private setting and encourage him to explain his actions. It’s possible Aarush is experiencing a financial crisis. If so, I would offer to help him apply for a scholarship or find additional opportunities for financial aid so that he can afford his textbooks. If he agrees to let me help him, then I would encourage him to return the textbook and support him through the next steps of solving the core issue. If, however, Aarush ignores me or becomes aggressive, then I would have no choice but to report him to security. In doing so, I would tell Aarush first and do my best to remain nonjudgmental throughout the whole process.”

 

Unlimited Practice Questions

The unique format of the MMI is meant to keep you on your toes. You won’t be able to have an exact rehearsed answer because you never know what question or type of station you’ll encounter next.

This makes practicing all the more critical. You need to not only know what you’ll say for common interview questions, but also be able to think on your feet and craft an engaging answer, no matter the question.

You won’t know what questions will come up on interview day, but by practicing under pressure, you’ll build your interview skills and ensure nothing throws you off. Surprise yourself with random questions so that you can get comfortable being uncomfortable.

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You’ll have unlimited practice questions along with tailored, actionable insights on content, tone, body language, eye contact, filler words, and more to ensure you are prepared for any question come interview day.

With the quick format of MMIs, you’ll need extra practice thinking on your feet, and our interview course is just the tool you need to hone these crucial skills.

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For more tips, check out 10 MMI Prep Strategies to Conquer Your Multiple Mini Interviews.