How to answer a mandatory retirement age for doctors question in a medical school interview
- Kind
- Policy and health systems
Prompt
Should physicians be required to retire at a certain age?
Practice this question
Answer it yourself first. The approach to this question opens below when your feedback arrives.
How to approach this question
What this question tests
- Critical thinking
- Health systems and advocacy
- Professionalism and integrity
How to approach it
This panel question tests whether you can weigh patient safety against fairness to individual physicians who age very differently from one another. Lay out the case for a mandatory retirement age, such as concerns about declining skills and the difficulty of spotting them, and the case against, including age discrimination and the loss of experienced doctors. Consider alternatives like regular competence reviews for physicians at every age. Weigh public trust and patient safety against individual rights and the workforce a region needs. Take a clear position, and explain how your approach protects both patients and physicians.
More on colleague conduct and patient safety
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