How to answer “What makes a good team?” in a medical school interview

A strong answer to "what makes a good team" in a medical school interview names three attributes, defines each one in a sentence, and proves each with a team you've been on. The prompt asks for three, so give exactly three and spend your time on the evidence.

What the interviewer is assessing

• Teamwork and collaboration
• Communication

Health care is delivered by teams of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and clerks, and many errors trace back to a team failure, such as a handover nobody confirmed or a junior member who didn't speak up. The interviewer wants to know whether you've thought about what makes a team work, whether you've been on good and bad ones, and whether you can describe your own part honestly. They listen for attributes that are concrete and that show up in a clinic: clear roles, closed-loop communication, a shared goal, trust that lets people raise a concern, and accountability for the result. Closed-loop communication means the person receiving an instruction repeats it back before acting on it.

In a panel interview the question is conversational, and the follow-ups ask about teams that failed. In an MMI, it is common as a station of its own, and it is also the debrief question after a collaborative station in which you and another applicant had to complete a task together.

How to structure your answer

1. Name your three attributes in one sentence, so the interviewer knows where the answer is going.
2. Take the first attribute: define it in a sentence, then describe a team where it was present or missing and what difference it made.
3. Do the same for the second and third, drawing on different teams.
4. Say which of the three you find hardest to contribute to yourself and what you do about it.
5. Close by connecting the three to a clinical team, such as a ward team, an operating room or a primary care clinic.

Choose three attributes that don't overlap, because communication, trust and respect are near synonyms in an interview answer. Draw on different kinds of team: a job, a sports team, a lab, a volunteer group. Include at least one team that failed, since an attribute is clearest where it was missing. Two minutes is enough, with about thirty seconds per attribute.

Common mistakes

• Naming three attributes that mean nearly the same thing, such as communication, openness and trust, leaves you proving one point three times.
• Defining each attribute without a team you've been on turns the answer into a textbook list.
• Describing only teams that went well hides whether you can recognize a team that isn't working.
• Leaving out your own role on each team suggests you were a passenger.
• Giving four or five attributes when the prompt asked for three shows you didn't listen to the question.

Follow-up questions to prepare for

• What happened on a team you were on that lacked one of those attributes?
• What do you do when a teammate isn't pulling their weight?
• How would you raise a concern with someone more senior than you on a team?
• Which role do you usually take on a team, and which do you avoid?
• How do these attributes apply to a team whose members change every shift?