How to answer “What qualities make a good doctor?” in a medical school interview

A strong answer to "what qualities make a good doctor" names three or four qualities, explains why each one matters to a patient, and shows that you've seen at least one of them in a real clinical setting. A list of virtues answers the question. Adding the reasons and one observed example is what answers it well.

What the interviewer is assessing

• Professionalism and integrity
• Empathy and compassion
• Self-reflection and growth

Interviewers ask this to find out whether you understand what the job demands, which is a different question from whether you admire physicians. They listen for qualities that come from watching physicians work. Those include explaining a diagnosis in plain words, acting on incomplete information, asking for help, and treating the last patient of the day as carefully as the first. They also listen for whether you connect each quality to a consequence for a patient, because a quality with no consequence attached is only a word.

In a panel interview, this question often leads to a follow-up about which of those qualities you have and which you lack, so your answer sets up the next one. In an MMI, the same material appears inside scenarios about a physician who has fallen short, where the rater checks whether you can name what a good physician would have done instead.

How to structure your answer

1. Name three or four qualities in your first sentence, so the interviewer can follow the rest.
2. Take each quality in turn and say, in a sentence or two, what it does for a patient and what its absence costs them.
3. Give one example of a quality you saw in a physician during shadowing, volunteering, work or your own care, and say what it changed for the patient.
4. Acknowledge one quality that is harder to keep than it sounds, such as patience under fatigue, and say why.
5. Close by saying which of these qualities you have begun to build and how, in one or two sentences.

Choose qualities that differ from each other, with at least one about knowledge or judgment and at least one about how a physician treats people. Four versions of kindness answer half the question, since the job also demands competence. The practice box gives you three minutes: name the qualities in the first 15 seconds and spend the time on the reasons and the example.

Common mistakes

• Listing compassion, empathy and caring as three separate qualities gives the panel one idea three times.
• Naming qualities with no reason attached leaves the interviewer with a list any applicant could recite.
• Leaving out competence and judgment suggests you think a good physician is a kind one and nothing more.
• Claiming you already have every quality you named ends the answer with a boast and invites a question about your weaknesses.
• Describing a good doctor as one who never makes mistakes sets a standard no physician meets and shows you haven't yet seen the job up close.

Follow-up questions to prepare for

• Which of those qualities do you have, and which do you still need to develop?
• Can you tell me about a physician who lacked one of those qualities, and what happened?
• Which quality do you think is hardest to keep over a 30-year career?
• Can a physician with excellent clinical skills and poor communication still be a good doctor?
• How would you know whether a physician treating you was a good one?