Medical school interview questions about teamwork and conflict

Medical school interview questions about teamwork appear because medicine is practiced in teams, and a physician who can't disagree well, or can't raise a colleague's lapse, is a risk to patients. The questions in this topic share a tension between loyalty to one person and duty to the group, and nearly all of them ask what you'd say to the person involved.

What these questions test

Interviewers test whether you'd address a problem with the person before going around them. The co-organizer who found out you'd gone to the board instead of to her shows the cost of skipping that step.

They also test whether you can separate a person's conduct from their value to the team. A volunteer of 15 years knows the inventory and owns the only van, but she still drives new volunteers away. A rater listens for whether you can hold both facts and act on the second.

Being asked to present a concept you argued against tests whether you can disagree, lose the vote and still commit. The teammate who has missed five of six meetings tests whether you ask what sits behind a lapse before you judge it. A story about your own conflict or a leadership challenge tests whether you can admit you were partly wrong.

How to approach them

1. State what the team needs, such as a finished project or a referee who stays, and what the individual needs.
2. Go to the person first, in private. Describe the behavior you saw and its effect in specifics, and let them respond before you decide on a consequence.
3. Ask before you conclude. A teammate who has missed five of six meetings may have a reason, and a peer evaluation written before anyone asks him is a judgment on half the facts.
4. Say what you'd do if the conversation changes nothing, and name who you'd involve and why.
5. For a story about your own conflict or a leadership challenge, pick one with a real disagreement, then say what you did, what happened and what you'd do differently. When asked what makes a good team, answer with one team you were on and what made it work.
6. In a role-play station the rater scores how you speak to the person, and the follow-ups escalate until they threaten to quit, so plan what you'd still say. A panel asks for a past example.

Common mistakes

• Going to the manager, the board or the league before speaking to the person costs you their trust.
• Choosing a conflict story in which you did nothing wrong tells the panel that you learned nothing from it.
• Describing a good team in abstractions, without an example, gives the interviewer no evidence that you've been on one.
• Treating a vote you lost as the end of your obligation, by withholding your effort afterward, shows that you can't commit to a decision you didn't make.