Ultimate Medicine MMI Interview Preparation Guide 2024

Introduction

An increasingly common MMI station is role-playing. MMI role-play interviews can come in many different forms. In them, you will be placed opposite an actor and given a scenario. It will be your job to navigate the scenario, responding to your scene partner and their actions appropriately. 

These scenarios are often explicitly medical, but frequently are not - instead, they are testing transferrable skills such as your ability to communicate with a diverse array of potential audiences.

This article details what your key considerations should be, and outlines the ideal approach for medical scenarios. Additionally, be sure to check out our full guide to breaking bad news stations.

Goals of an MMI role-play question

The first thing to consider with any MMI role-play scenario is what exactly you’re trying to do. You are usually balancing a few goals, and so should consider the following:

• What you’ve been told: If you’ve been given specific aims or objectives going into the role-play, then these are your main priorities. Try to achieve them and follow the scenario that you have been given.

• Follow the scenario: You cannot ever change the scenario that you have been given. Follow it to the letter, or you’ll be seen as trying to shirk the challenge that you’ve been given - a big red flag for interviewers.

• Ascertain information: You generally won’t be given all of the information in a particular scenario. Instead, you will have to ask the actor for more information in a tactful way and interpret their answers. Make sure that this doesn’t come at the cost of the quality of the interaction, but it can inform how you behave.

• Be reactive: You should go into the scenario with a rough plan, but be malleable. If you end up set in stone and unable to react to curveballs, then you won’t perform very well.

• Be empathetic: You should always take into consideration the emotional state of your actor, being aware of and responsive to this. Give them space when they need it and let them react to you.

• Know your limits: One of the most important pieces of information that you are given ahead of a role-play is your role. Your powers and responsibilities will vary greatly as a medical student in contrast to, say, a consultant.

Communicating effectively in MMI medicine role-play interviews

Having considered what you want to do, your next step is to think about how to do this. You are constantly being assessed on your communication skills, and following these tips is the best way to score highly:

• Use the environment: Use everything that is made available to you, including props. Most frequently this can mean tissues which you can offer to the actor if they start to cry or hand sanitiser which you ought to use before any medical consultation.

• Use levels effectively: You should seek to follow the actor’s level within the space. This means that when they stand, so should you. When they sit, this also ought to be mirrored.

• Make eye contact: The actor in the role play wants to feel heard. When you look them in the eyes and pay attention, you fulfil this desire.

• Active listening: You should show that you aren’t only hearing what they say; you are listening. To demonstrate this, nod along and gesture in response. Repeat what they have said back to them sometimes, to demonstrate that you understand.

• Don’t interrupt: Do not interrupt the actor. Letting them speak means that you are learning more about how to respond to the situation, and gives you time to think. Additionally, interrupting them could come across as rude!

• Adapt your tone: You wouldn’t talk the same way to a child as you would to an elderly person, so adapt your tone based on whom the actor is portraying. Remember that they may not be playing a character who looks like themself, so you should be cognizant of this.