Medicine at University of Manchester Medical School & Interview Questions 2024

🎓 Manchester Medicine Interview Questions & Topics 2024

The pre-interview screening process operated by the Medicine admissions team will already have ensured that all candidates called to interview appears to have sufficient academic potential. The purpose of the interview is to take a wider view of the applicant.

The interview itself is a formal, though friendly, process. 

The majority of the interviewers are drawn from both the University and clinical environments and all have undergone specific training for interviewing applicants including issues relating to equality and diversity. In addition, we also draw on the expertise of patient/lay representatives, current medical students and simulated patients.

We appreciate that some candidates will be nervous, so we ensure that interviews are conducted in as relaxed an environment as possible. However, applicants must be able to handle the stresses of their chosen career, and some elements of the interview will be necessarily challenging and/or stressful.

The interview is not a test of your academic knowledge. The aim of the interview is to determine if a candidate satisfies our non-academic criteria in terms of the values and behaviours expected of a medical student.

The Non-Academic Information Form and the Interview will ask for further information and detail in regard to the following areas:

• Experience in a caring role

• Hobbies and interests

• Team working

• Motivation for medicine

• Ability to communicate

• Why do you want to be a doctor?

• Previous caring experience

• Matters of a medical interest

• Ethical and other issues

There are a number of topics that are more likely to come up at the University of Manchester Medical School MMI Interview, which can be derived from past Manchester MMI stations, including

• Ability to communicate - gives spontaneous answers

• Why do you want to be a doctor?

• Previous caring experience

• Matters of medical interest

• Ethical and other issues

Manchester Medicine Interview Format

The interview process for 2023 adopted a four- or five-station multiple mini-interview (MMI) format, with each station being marked by a separate interviewer.

The interview at each station was seven minutes long and there was a two-minute (or longer) gap between stations. No information was provided in advance and there was no reading or writing component to any of the online interview stations.

The starting station was allocated at random, and applicants passed around in order from station to station until they completed them all.

In 2024 all interviewees will be sent detailed information that explains the interview procedure and format of the interview process.

If you’re worried about ethical issues during the MMI, don’t panic – in these debates Manchester states that “candidates should be reassured that neither the interviewers nor The University of Manchester will take a position on any ethical issue.” The interviewers will be interested in how coherently you express the ethical dilemmas facing medical practitioners.

❓ Manchester Medical Interview Past Questions 2023 & 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 manchester.

Motivation to study medicine

1. Why medicine?

2. Why Manchester?

3. Why medicine at Manchester?

4. What did you learn from your work experience?

5. What did you learn about yourself during your work experience?

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

7. What do you know about the Manchester Medicine course? How is it taught?

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

9. Why medicine and not dentistry or nursing?

10. Tell us about your volunteering

11. What are your hobbies?

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

13. Have you had any experience caring for others?*

Personal Insight

1. Why should patients trust you?

2. What are your best qualities?

3. How do you manage stress?

4. How did you develop your relationships with your colleagues?

5. Can you provide us with 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.

NHS & Local Area

1. What is the role of the BMA?

2. Tell me what you know about palliative care.

3. What is the goal of palliative care?

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

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

6. What is it like to be a doctor?

7. How do you deal with overpopulation?

8. What do you know about the local area here in Manchester?

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. Questions on the personal statement - anything

2. Understanding of the four ethical principles

3. Understanding of the GMC’s good medical practice

4. Discuss and evaluate the idea of a 7-day NHS.

5. Should a man with lung cancer from smoking be treated or a man with lung cancer not caused by smoking? What if the finance was limited? Who to spend the money to treat? Who decides who will receive the treatment?

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

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

8. What changes in the last 50 years or so have affected the health of the nation?

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

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

11. Should the MMR vaccine be compulsory?

12. Should obese people be given knee transplants?

13. Should obese people be given heart transplants?

14. What would you do if part of your PBL group wasn’t pulling their weight? Have a discussion with one of your colleagues about your concerns

15. Pharmaceutical industry: should their products be sold over the internet?

16. Should plastic surgery be available on the NHS?

17. Speak to an actor who is a family member of a patient who is dying, comfort them and discuss end-of-life care with them.

Other Stations

1. Role play: breaking bad news

2. Role play: explain to someone how to draw this picture

3. Picture scenario - describe this picture

🗣️ Manchester Medicine Interview Tips 2024

1. Practice picture scenarios - This is fundamental as it comes up year after year at Manchester, they love using picture scenarios in their interviews. Often you will need to describe a picture and explain what is happening, and occasionally explain its relevance to the NHS, this requires practising. “Here is a picture of two lungs, what do you see?”

2. Calculation station - You will be asked to undertake simple mathematical calculations involving data that has clinical relevance. The mathematical skills that are being tested are at or below GCSE level, and those taking A-level Mathematics are not necessarily at an advantage. The sophistication of each task is to recognise which piece or pieces of data need to be manipulated at a particular stage and to determine the precise logical and mathematical approach that needs to be applied. There will be a number of stages in the calculations, and establishing the order in which these are performed is important, too.

3. Have examples ready to use: many of the questions asked at Manchester 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 - Manchester is very likely to ask you about personal attributes during the MMI interview. As such it is paramount that you go through and learn these. Manchester have repeatedly focussed on your strengths and weaknesses as a person, so make sure that you have suitable examples for this. Check out our 200+ interview question and answer guide for dealing with such interview questions. 

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. MMI Stations - remember that each MMI station at Manchester 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.

8. Know the Manchester Course - we would always recommend doing this for every university that you plan to apply to. What are the advantages of PBL? Why does a PBL course suit you? 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 Manchester? Remember there is very early clinical exposure at Manchester - this can be an advantage!

9. Know the local area - Manchester is a diverse region of England, with a number of local factors and diseases that differentiate the Manchester region from the rest of the UK. Ensure that you research both communicable and non-communicable diseases in the area. How might this impact healthcare provision in the area?

10. Reflect Well - the Manchester 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.

11. Practice Role Plays: Role plays are unique to medicine MMI interviews as they do not tend to occur in panel interviews. 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. You might want to also consider practising this with a medicine interview tutor, or booking a 1-1 online mock interview.

12. 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.

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

14. Learn Medical Ethics & NHS Hot Topics - it is extremely likely that you will be asked about medical ethics at a medicine interview at Manchester, 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. Keep up-to-date with medical issues in the media. Interviewers will expect you to have an informed layperson’s view on both the contemporary aspects of medicine, as well as those of current media interest. 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.

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 - Manchester 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.