Effective Physician Interview Questions For Better Hires

The job of a physician is rewarding but also challenging.

They’re responsible for providing high-quality care for all patients by performing routine and urgent medical care. You need to get a real sense of how they’ll interact with patients. And to help you in screening your long list of applicants, we’ve listed some effective interview questions physician for your interview process.

It’s very important to assess not only their skills and knowledge but also their personalities. And these questions can help you do just that. These questions aim to differentiate between candidates with similar skill levels and can help you hire the right applicant for the job.

What Qualities Should a Physician Possess?

Good physicians possess many qualities, from being well-educated to having excellent communication skills.

Some of the important qualities that all potential physicians should have are integrity, compassion, competence, and trust. They need to empathize with their patients, communicate with other healthcare professionals, and provide appropriate care for each patient and situation.

Interview Questions Physician

Education-Related Questions

• What made you decide to pursue an undergraduate degree?
• What has been your approach toward breadth in your undergraduate curriculum?
• How did your undergraduate research experience better prepare you for a medical career?
• What major challenges did you encounter during your studies? Why do you think you had such a hard time in that area?
• What are the benefits of the work, volunteer opportunities, or extracurricular experiences you have had for your duties as a physician?
• What are you hoping to accomplish through your medical education?

Personal Interview Questions

• What do you think is your greatest weakness and strength as a physician?
• What trips have you taken, and what cultures have you encountered?
• Taking advantage of examples from your recent past, how would you assess your empathy and compassion?
• What skills have you acquired as a pre-med student to help manage your time and relieve stress?
• If you could make any three wishes, what would you wish for to make the community a better place?
• What kind of fun activities do you do during your free time?
• How would you define “success” as a physician? After 20 years as a physician, what do you hope to have achieved?
• What do you think are the qualities every physician should have? How can you tell if a physician embodies any of these ideals?
• Do you have any experience working with critically sick people? Did you learn anything from these experiences that you didn’t know beforehand?
• Are you acquainted with any physicians or health workers?
• How have your family members or friends influenced your decision to pursue medicine?
• If you were to invite four people from the past to dinner, who would they be, and why would you invite them? What would be your topic of discussion?

Situational Questions

• How do you deal with difficult situations as a doctor? 
• What is the most difficult question a patient has asked you, and how did you answer it? 
• Can you give me an example of an instance when you had to follow a hospital policy you didn’t agree with?
• What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you while working in a hospital? How did you react?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision as a doctor and how it turned out? 
• What is the weirdest thing that has happened to you while working as a doctor?
• What do you do during disagreements with a patient?
• Have you ever had to make changes to your old practice, so you can improve patient safety?

Medicine-Related Questions

• What excites you about the medical field as a whole?
• How do you perceive the current trends in healthcare in our nation?
• What are your thoughts on some of today’s most pressing health issues? 
• What are your concerns with the negative or restrictive aspects of medicine?
• If you had to choose between clinical and academic medicine, which would you choose? Why is that?

Ethical Questions

• Do you know of any current controversies concerning medical ethics? Please list and briefly discuss some of them.
• Have you experienced moral dilemmas in your practice? What were they?
• What do you think of euthanasia or medically assisted suicide?
• Could you talk about how a terminally ill patient may feel differently than other patients?
• How would you treat a patient who has tested positive for HIV?
• What are some of the ethical concerns that our society considers when it comes to teenage pregnancy?

Final Note

The interview is one of the most important stages of hiring a good physician.

To conduct an organized and intentional interview, be sure to ask the right interview questions physician. You need to discover the right information about the applicant, from educational background to personal attributes.