Prompt
Why do you want to be a physician rather than a nurse or another health professional?
Practice this question
Try answering it yourself first. The answer guide is below.
After you practice: what this question tests and how to approach it
What this question tests
- Health systems and advocacy
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Self-reflection and growth
How to approach this question
This question tests whether you understand how the roles on a health care team differ, and whether you've chosen medicine for reasons that are specific to it. Speak about nursing and other professions with respect, since you'll work alongside them for your whole career. Explain what draws you to the physician's role, such as responsibility for working out a diagnosis and leading the overall plan of care, or the depth and length of the training. Ground those reasons in what you've seen on teams you've observed or joined. Avoid answers that rank medicine above nursing or rest on salary or status. Show that you considered the alternatives seriously before choosing.
Answer guide
A good answer to "why medicine and not nursing" explains what draws you to the physician's particular role, grounds it in what you've seen of health care teams, and speaks about nursing with genuine respect. Interviewers want to hear that you chose medicine for reasons specific to it, rather than because you rank it higher.
What the interviewer is assessing
This question checks whether you understand the roles on a health care team and have thought about where you fit. The interviewer wants to see that you considered other paths seriously. They're also listening for respect. Physicians work alongside nurses, pharmacists, therapists and many others, and an applicant who looks down on those roles will struggle on a team. Some interviewers ask about nursing in particular, and others ask about physician assistants, pharmacists or public health careers. The same approach works for all of them.
How to structure your answer
- Start by acknowledging the value of the other profession, and mention what you've observed of it if you can.
- Name what draws you to the physician's role in particular. Common reasons include responsibility for working out a diagnosis, leading the overall plan of care, the depth and length of the training, and the range of careers it opens, such as research or teaching alongside practice.
- Connect those reasons to a specific experience, such as watching how a team you volunteered or worked with made decisions.
- Close by noting that you'll depend on the other professions throughout your career.
Roles overlap more than many applicants realize, and scopes of practice differ between provinces, states and countries. Keep your description general rather than claiming that only physicians do a particular task. A careful answer to "why medicine and not nursing" shows that you understand the overlap and still have a clear reason for your choice.
Common mistakes
- Saying nurses do less, know less or matter less is inaccurate, and it will cost you with any interviewer.
- Pointing to salary, status or authority as your reason suggests the wrong motivation.
- Saying you want more time with patients often backfires, because in many settings nurses spend more time with each patient than physicians do.
- Saying you never considered other professions suggests you haven't explored the field.
- Describing in detail which decisions each profession makes can lead you into errors you can't support.
Example answer
Here is an example answer from a fictional applicant who spent two years volunteering at a community hospital's information desk and with its patient transport team.
I considered nursing seriously. Two of the people I respect most from my volunteering are nurses, and I spent time asking them about their work before I applied.
What draws me to medicine is a particular kind of responsibility. On the transport team, I'd often wait at a unit while the team finished a conversation, and I saw how the work was shared. The nurses often knew more about each patient's day than anyone else on the unit. On those units, the questions about what was causing a problem and what the overall plan should be usually came back to the physician. That's the part of the work I want to carry. I like working through an uncertain problem and being accountable for the decision at the end.
I'm also drawn to the length of the training. I want years to build that judgment slowly, under supervision, before I make those decisions on my own.
None of that makes the physician's role more important. I saw how often the nurses noticed changes first, and how much the team depended on them. I'd be relying on colleagues like them for my whole career.
How real applicants answered it
“[There were] questions invited me to sound like an administrator, but I had to keep reminding myself that they were interviewing a future physician. My answers needed to start with the patient and then show how my business training could help me serve that patient better.”
Read how five applicants prepared for their medical school interviews
More on motivation for medicine
All 13 questions on this topicMock interviews
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