MMI professional school interviews overview

The MMI is used for many health-related admission interviews (e.g., medicine, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy). It is believed that the MMI is a better way to decrease the bias of interviewers and judge future performance by assessing soft skills (e.g., communication, collaboration, interpersonal, ethical-decision making, empathy, compassion, integrity, etc.). The MMI is similar to an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) used by health-related programs.

MMI format

Each candidate rotates through a series of stations, usually solo, but at some stations there will be another candidate or an actor. Each room has an interviewer and/or an observer.

You may be required to interact with others in person or theoretically through your answer. By considering others, it can reduce the likelihood of biased answers. Display your ability to communicate and empathize with others as this will demonstrate to evaluators your ability to interact with clients in a professional/ personable manner.

At each station candidates have two minutes to read the question/scenario/stem outside of the interview room. Sometimes the length of the question can add stress to the situation. A bell or buzzer indicates when the candidate can move into the interview room. The question is also available in the interview room for reference. After the candidate has finished answering the question the interviewer may ask probing questions.

Each program/school handles MMI interviews differently. These differences may include:

• Number of stations (usually between 6 and 12)
• Length of time provided to answer question in interview room (typically 6-8 minutes)
• Whether candidate can take notes outside/inside the interview room (rarely allowed)
• Whether candidate can take longer than 2 minutes to review the question prior to entering the interview room, which then reduces the amount of time to answer in the interview room
• Whether there is a 1-minute warning to wrap-up answer

2-minute prep time

The 2-minute preparation time outside the station is an important component to MMI performance. This time allows candidates to read the question, strategize, and mentally prepare. The questions can be purposely long, brief or obscure to see how a candidate will handle the situation. Use the 2 minutes to identify the type of station and the key points to cover. For each station type, the expectations will be different, and knowing what they are will help candidates structure their response. However, do not be thrown off if the situation in the room is different than expected. For example, the question might state that you will interact with a male colleague and when you enter the room, the person is a female. Review the models below to help you identify a strategy to use when you enter the room. Some stations provide extra information that may or may not be valuable. Try to narrow down the prompt to the question being asked and identify missing information. One tip is to focus less on numbers and statistics, as they are often supplementary information that help to contextualize the situation, but may not be relevant to the answer.

1. Read and understand important components of the question/scenario/stem
2. Identify the type of question
3. Organize your answer using the appropriate model
4. Knock on the door, enter the room, smile, shake hands, introduce yourself and stay calm

Sample MMI questions/scenarios/stems

More detailed information on MMI questions, scenarios, and stems are presented in subsequent pages:

• Acting/role play stations
• Critical thinking stations
• Collaboration stations
• Debate stations
• Delivering bad news stations
• Ethical scenarios stations
• Pilots stations
• Rest stations
• Standard stations
• Understanding of profession/health care knowledge stations
• Video clip(s) stations