Internal Medicine Interview

Anaphylaxis
Septic shock
Pulmonary embolus from an undiagnosed DVT
Vasovagal
Cardiogenic shock
Hypovolaemic shock

Open, background questions can be tricky to answer well. Remember the portfolio station is your time to shine and it is important that you are enthusiastic about your achievements and provide your answers in a structured manner to help interviewers score you.

The CAMP structure of Clinical, Academic, Management and Personal is a good way to create a coherent answer. Don't stick precisely to this order, instead put your achievements with the most impact first.

Try to keep each part to 2-3 minutes.

Approach:
Clinical
Application of principles to treat disease
Problem-solving
Clinical competence AcademicPapers you have published
Postgraduate degrees awarded
Research undertaken
Teaching qualifications, courses and sessionsManagementInvolvement with quality improvement
Rota organiser
Committee member
Organising events/course
Writing books
Updating guidelines
Personal
Personal strengths backed up by WBAs
Extracurricular achievements
Sports, musical instruments, etc.

Example:
“I am most proud of my teaching which I have cultivated in my current job as an academic clinical fellow. I have written a text book and regularly teach juniors and receive excellent feedback as you can see from my portfolio. Writing a book required organisational and delegations skills and the final book has received excellent reviews.“Top Tips

Selling Yourself This can often prove challenging as candidates do not wish to come off as overconfident or cocky. Rather use examples and feedback to demonstrate how good you are
e.g. ‘My 360 appraisal graded my communication skills as excellent’

Be Positive and Sell, Sell, Sell Interviewers want to hear how great you are and it is important that you are not bashful or reserved when telling them about your achievements and why they should choose you. Turn everything into a positive and don’t undersell yourself.

Be PersonalTalking about generic things like ‘I have leadership skills’ will not score you as many points as using personal experiences and reflecting on what you learned.

Mind Map Use a mind map or just jot down your main headings (CAMP) and then add in your own personal examples under each term. This will help you to remember all the things you have done and structure your answer under pressure.Exercise
Write It OutWrite out an example answer with four paragraphs covering the CAMP structure. Use personal examples and link them to buzzwords and the person specification.
Don’t worry about it not being perfect first time, just do it and then come back and edit it so that you have a basic template for this common interview question.

A common scenario is colleagues being obstructive. In this case it is the ward staff. Use the SPIES framework and think about how you would deal with this in practical terms.Seek Information
Begin by finding our exactly what is going on. Who is being obstructive? Is it one person or multiple? Find out if you have worked with any of them before and also ascertain how unwell the patient is and is the registrar asking you to do something you feel unhappy with or that can wait.

Patient Safety
This is the priority. Do you feel you are able to safely perform the procedure unsupervised? If yes then does the procedure need to be done urgently, i.e. are they very unwell or could they wait until after the registrar returns from the crash call?

Initiative
Try to build rapport with the ward staff and convince them that you are able to perform the procedure if you feel bale and safe. Negotiate and try to see if there is anyone else who might be able to offer help if you run into trouble. Is there anyone else around who could oversee you?

Escalate
If you are unable to resolve the situation do not become flustered. Inform the registrar. if the registrar is busy inform the consultant.

SupportReflect and discuss the matter afterwards with all involved to try to prevent this from happening again.