“Why Medicine?” – How to Respond to This Common Medical School Interview Question

“So, why do you want to be a doctor?”

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It’s a common medical school interview question, and is definitely one that you should be prepared to answer!

It can sometimes be overwhelming to think through how you want to respond to this, so let’s go through some elements to consider for your response.

Interview talking points

In this post I’ll discuss six different talking points to give you ideas for what you can use in your med school interview response to why medicine. But this isn’t an exhaustive list and it’s not a laundry list, you don’t need to check each of these off, as you’re giving your answer. You should bring in your own experiences and observations when you think about why medicine, and use the ideas that I bring up to help stimulate ideas for items that you can include within your own response

Medical expert

As a physician, we’re going to become medical experts. If you want to learn about the human body, this could be a great career for you! You get to understand the human body, both in normal function and when issues arise in the full range of options that we have for managing dysfunction, whether that’s pharmaceutical operative lifestyle changes, or even more.

Example talking point

In one of my shifts in the ICU, the patient that we are caring for was actually a nurse practitioner by training. And this patient was there because a benign cyst on their lung was now affecting his breathing. And as the patient was discussing his care with the healthcare team, like watching two individuals speak a completely foreign language to me hear them Converse back and forth with both the medical terminology and the tests that are being ordered. And although I understood almost none of it, the level at which they were discussing the case here was just truly amazing. considering, so many branches of medicine and science, and how we can approach trying to improve and stabilize the oxygen levels and watching it can’t help but being on it sometimes would wonder to myself it’s possible to know so much so I realize it comes with user training and hard work. And it was just so exciting to me that it’s possible to have that level of understanding of the human body, and how to try fixing it. It was really inspiring to me.

Working with patients

So as we accumulate this knowledge, we’re going to be working with patients and a large part of your day is going to be interacting and helping patients in medicine. This means listening to their needs, their unique circumstances, thinking about their medical history what medications they take what other factors could be influencing their treatment. You’ll have to consider their personal philosophies and emotions.

You’ll notice in this example response I’ll talk about the great things about working with patients and how rewarding it can be, but also how it can sometimes be difficult. And that shows my medical school interviewers that I have this realism about the career. This is a learning that I picked up from actual time spent shadowing or volunteering. That I don’t look at the profession with rose colored glasses on, that sometimes patients can be difficult to work with. And in spite of that, I still am passionate about pursuing this career.

Example talking point

In almost all of my experiences patients were just so appreciative and grateful for the impact that healthcare was having on them. When someone’s in a healthcare setting it’s often for unideal circumstances. Sometimes it’s just for a check up, but quite often they’re there because of an issue they have, a health scare or a chronic condition. And there’s just so much appreciation and gratitude typically for the work that the healthcare team does trying to do to correct that issue.

And it’s incredibly rewarding to me the idea that I could play a part in that care and making a difference in someone’s life.

I’ve also gotten to see that working with patients can sometimes be not so easy. One doctor once told me somewhat sarcastically that “medicine would be a great profession if it wasn’t for the patients”. And while that doctor was just trying to be satirical, they thought that there was some truth within this. And in my shadowing experiences I saw patients sometimes being argumentative and not following through with interventions or lifestyle changes that were prescribed to them.

They would show up late to their appointments, or not at all. And that this adds a layer of challenge onto what at best is already challenging. But I got to see that the healthcare team that I was following were always true professionals and continued to do their best day in and day out.

Medicine really gives you the ability to have a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of your patients. So if a patient is seeing you they either have some acute or chronic need, or they’re just trying to improve their health and prevent future illness. And health is one of the most important things, it’s the foundation that allows for everything else. And the fact that you can help multiple patients every day that either have some issue or you’re helping to prevent a future issue is really energizing.

Working with colleagues

Working as a doctor isn’t an isolated career. While you’re able to make independent decisions, you’ll be working within a broader healthcare team. So you’re going to need to be collaborating with others, and hopefully that’s that’s an appealing part of medicine to you.

Example talking point

I hopefully will always have a lot of contribute to any team that I’m working on, but I’m also excited to benefit from the experience of others. I’ve just seen so much value in getting to work with other people that come to situations with a different perspective, different ideas, different knowledge, different previous data points of experiences. And it just helps to make everyone better. And working with others makes for a fun work environment

I know that as a physician, I will have times where I’m just doing paperwork, or doing rounds on my own, but largely I’m going to be working with other people. Working with others is something that does bring me a lot of fulfillment. And I think will help me be a better clinician in my career.

Continuous learning

Being a physician gives you a huge amount of opportunity for variety and learning. Even with routine procedures and evaluations, that specific procedure is going to take on its own unique course. Each angiogram is different based on where the blockage is, each biopsy requires you to follow a different path and include different tissues.

And there’s so many new topics that physicians can learn and get better at. There really is an opportunity for professional development, and continuing to grow and evolve yourself throughout your career, and this is something great for you to bring up in your medical school interview.

Example talking point

Part of why I want to go into medicine is that I really am someone that always tries to be learning and expanding myself. And it’s very encouraging to me that in medicine, you can continue to evolve and grow as a doctor. From what I’ve seen in my shadowing, as a physician is progressing through the career they continue to gather all these data points: what has worked and hasn’t worked for you and your patients; what is research stating is the best practices; what are other physicians trying and recommending to you; what you learn within your continuing professional development. And it’s all about trying to better care for our patients.

So for example in one of the clinics I was shadowing in, a physician was using PRP, platelet rich plasma, to help speed up the healing of injured ligaments. And she told me that this is something that she wasn’t doing even three years ago and what success she was having for patients with it. And she showed me here’s the literature to back it up, how this isn’t just placebo, how this is actually stimulating healing.

I think it’s very rewarding that throughout this career I’m not going to be static. That I can continue to grow as a professional, as I try to provide the best care I can to my patients.

Initial interest

So often a good starting point for why this field is to begin with what initially sparked your interest. Did you have a first hand experience in medicine? Did you get inspired by someone or something in the field that you saw? And this is what I call top down interest: your interest in the field led to your interest in learning more about it, going on to study science to pursue it, etc.

Or alternatively your interest could be more result of a bottoms up approach: you begin with an interest in science or the body, and your curiosity in these fundamental building blocks led to an interest in careers that allow you to use that information.

So let’s go through an example of a bottom up approach, and after we’ll talk about a top down approach example.

Example talking point: bottoms up approach

I grew up pretty curious about most things. And in part because of one really great teacher, I ended up studying science all the way through high school. And I realized I was most curious about how living things work which led me to study medical sciences from undergrad. And to be honest, up until my undergrad, I wasn’t really thinking about what I want to do later in life, what career I want to follow. I just knew that I was interested in how the human body works.

So that’s a bottoms up introduction: interest in science led to curiosity in fields that utilize it. But you can substitute in your spark – whether that was top down or your own bottoms up experience.

Another good talking point is discussing what options you considered and how you vetted those options in deciding that this specific field is the right one for you. They’re asking you “why medicine”, but there’s a secondary implied question there – why not other fields?

So you need to show them that you’ve made an intentional and well informed decision to pursue medicine specifically.

Just as informed consent means that you consider all the options to make an informed medical decision, the same goes for choosing your career.

Example talking point

During my undergrad, I ended up looking at a wide variety of career paths that followed my interest in medical science, ranging from more traditional academia versus fields that more applied that knowledge like industry or healthcare. And after speaking with a lot of people, I realized that healthcare was most aligned with my interest and seemed the most rewarding to me.

I knew that whether in academia, or industry or healthcare, that I was going to be helping people. In all there’s problem solving, they have unique challenges, and there are opportunities for growth.

But I liked the direct impact I could have in healthcare and getting to firsthand see the effects that I was having in helping patients lives.

So at this point I’ve narrowed down to healthcare and explained why. And I’ve implicitly answered the question, “f you want to help people why not be a teacher or a firefighter”, because this all started with my interest in science. I made it clear that I want to apply my interest in science and the body.

So now the question you need to answer is why medicine specifically, why not nursing for example? So if I’m applying to be a doctor, I’m trying to demonstrate that I want to be a doctor specifically, and not another role in healthcare, like a nurse or a dentist. Again, we need to show that we thought about all the options and made an informed decision.

And there’s probably a laundry list of reasons why you chose this field specifically, but you don’t just want to start listing them all off. Focus on the big picture, and they can always ask you to unpack more if they’re interested.

Example talking point

The past three years, I’ve been shadowing and working in the ICU. I’ve gotten to see that as a physician, the depth of understanding of the human body, and how to repair it is truly remarkable.

I’m someone that always wants to learn as much as I can and know that I’m working at a high standard to help patients. And I think medicine specifically will allow me to pursue this.

I really like that in medicine there’s a system of generalists and specialists, and the best person for the job is the one undertaking managing care, while working within a team of smart and passionate individuals. So when I talked with clinicians, I hear this time and time again that you’re surrounded by other super smart really passionate people who are all working together to help patients in need. And I just feel like becoming a doctor and playing a role in that team allows me to apply my knowledge of the human body to helping people. And that’s something that would just get me out of bed excited every day, each day of my career.

So there really are lots of aspects that you could discuss. Talking about the patient centric aspect of care, degree of competency, working with patients and others in the healthcare team, the relationships that you had to form with other individuals, skills that you have that make you a good fit like problem solving, analysis, and life long learning. And just general insights from your work and volunteer experiences. When it comes down to it, you want to think about what are your core values, really motivates and drives you and how is this going to play a part in driving you throughout your career.

Personal anecdote

Alright so what we just discussed was a very bottoms up approach. But another approach, which can also be really great, is to begin by opening up with some sort of top down anecdote.

So you’re going to use some specific instance or circumstance that really inspired you and led to your pursuit of everything else, and from there you can go and choose to go through what we’ve just discussed in the last example. You build upon this anecdote into how you developed your interest, the general qualities that you hope to employ in the field, and relate back to that anecdote.

So let’s go through an example of a top down anecdote, leading to your curiosity in the field.

Example talking point

So one of the first things that got me interested in the field was this experience I had when I was 17.

I was working as a camp counselor. And one of our six year old campers fell, and scraped his knee. And we wanted to apply a topical antibiotic, and he was just so terrified about stinging, and just didn’t want to cooperate. And I knew that he was very attached to a superhero figurine that he’s brought around everywhere with him and I asked him would the superhero be brave enough to treat its injuries, and he said yes.

So we applied a bit of topical antibiotic onto the figurine. And then I asked him if he could be brave like the superhero. And he said yes and proceeded to cooperate to the first aid.

And experiences like the one I had with the six year old are what makes me excited about helping patients in my future career. I’ve always been interested in science and how the body works, and the opportunity to really connect with the individual and come up with ways to best uniquely help them and positively impact their lives inspires me to become the best doctor that I can.

To see that through, I’m committed to building on what has brought me success as a student, and in my hospital volunteering so far, like open mindedness, an eagerness to learn, and a passion for helping others.

So you can see that this is a very different take on why this field. Things to note in this approach are that it was very top down. I used an anecdote as the vehicle for showing the type of person I am, what’s important to me, and what I want to achieve.

And there are a lot of anecdotes that you can use throughout your life if you like this approach, and relate them to the field. Interest in lifelong learning, being analytical, working on a team, helping others. And other things that people like about the second approach is that it feels personable to the individual. So whether you take the first approach, the second, or a combination of the two, you should think about how to present your answer so it comes across as genuine and true to you.

In this example, there was a lot less focus on the specific steps. And after the anecdote, I just really discussed who I am and the big picture of what I want to accomplish in medicine.

And I encourage you to try both and pick and choose elements to craft the narrative that works for you.

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In this post, I’ve given you a lot of different ideas to give you concepts for talking points that you can use. But I certainly wouldn’t use all of these in my response! It gets too long winded and tries to accomplish too much in one answer. Remember this is an interview and they can ask follow up questions if they want to unpack certain ideas, so I’d encourage you to think about what gives you the most bang for your buck, in terms of delivering value and communicating what you want to say without joining on too long, about why you want to become a doctor.

I hope this helps! If you’re preparing for your medical school interview, head to the classroom for more free lessons on medical school interview prep!

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