Ethical questions are not asking you to be right. They're asking you to think out loud.

This is another live webinar session, this time focused on ethical scenarios and the MMI format. We ran mock stations with participants and gave feedback on the spot.

The MMI throws you into a scenario with no clean answer, on purpose. A coworker is cutting corners. A patient refuses treatment. A friend asks you to do something you shouldn't. What they're evaluating is whether you can see multiple sides, name the tension, and reason your way to a defensible position without panicking.

The worst thing you can do is answer instantly and confidently in one direction. Slow down. Say what makes it hard. Then decide.

What we cover:

• How the MMI format works station by station
• Ethical scenarios worked through live with participants
• A framework for reasoning out loud under pressure
• Why acknowledging both sides scores better than certainty
• Common mistakes people make in ethical stations
• Real-time feedback on real answers

Resources:

PA School Interview Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/physician-assistant-school-interview-guide

PA School Interview Course: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pa-school-interview-course

Mock Interview: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/mock-interview

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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Interview season is still in full swing, you guys.

So this week we're going with part two of the Interview Prep webinar where we'll focus on ethical questions mmi and answering more of your questions.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to.

Become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to today's episode of the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you're new here, welcome.

If you've been around for a while, welcome back.

I'm Savannah Perry.

You're a dermatology PA in Georgia and your host and the creator of the paplatform.com thank you for listening.

And if you heard me in the beginning, say this is part two and didn't know what I was talking about.

A couple weeks ago we had part one on the podcast and these are also on YouTube if you'd prefer to watch of our Interview Prep webinars, which is a webinar series, we post it on social media and in our newsletter,.

Which if you're listening in real time,.

You may want to go follow the PA platform on Instagram because we have a scrub giveaway going on right now.

And then also our newsletter will be.

Going out in just a few days,.

So make sure you go to the paplatform.com newsletter to make sure you are on that list as well.

But today's episode is all about interviews and this is a really fun way in our webinars where we get a lot of audience involvement with bringing people on stage to answer the questions.

So it's a little bit like a mock interview where you get to hear someone's answer and then we give them some feedback and critique.

So I hope you really enjoy this and that it is very helpful to you.

I think we got a lot of really good feedback from the sessions and you know, you never know exactly what to expect walking into an interview, but the more you can practice and review and familiar familiarize yourself with different techniques and questions, the more prepared you'll feel.

So we'll jump into that.

And don't forget if you want to practice one on one with a pa, the PA platform only uses practicing pas.

PA students, although they are awesome.

We just really feel like to get the most out of a mock interview, you need to work with someone who has been through every part of the process and has been trained in interviews so you can go to the PA platform.

The link is in the description as well and don't forget that you can use the code Future PA for a discount on that mock interview service.

Highly recommend booking as soon as you have your interview invite because we cannot guarantee that someone will be available if you wait till the last minute.

And we've definitely been booking up this year.

Even just all of our coaches are.

PAs and a lot of them work.

In the ER, which is a little.

Crazy right now too.

That's a little insights into that process.

And if you need more interview help, the PA School Interview Guide is available.

That link is also in the description.

The PA School Interview Course [email protected] the discount codes work on that as well.

And then we have tons of free resources on the PA platform with interview.

Preparation worksheets you can download on YouTube.

There are so many videos I've done on interviews as well as old podcasts.

Since we are officially on episode 208,.

You have plenty of old podcasts to go through.

All right, we'll jump in and make sure you follow along on social media so you don't miss out on any future webinars coming up.

Nice.

I know some of you are probably still in that waiting phase, and that's okay.

Some schools haven't even started interviewing.

These cycles are still kind of messed up from the pandemic.

So last year we saw schools interviewing a lot earlier and doing pretty much all virtual.

This year it's been a lot of virtual up to this point, and now we're seeing a little bit more of in person.

I think some schools are even this is just my two cents, not from schools, but I think some schools are even waiting a little bit to see what's going to happen and see see if they can do in person interviews.

Some schools are doing virtual and in person.

There's a little bit of everything.

And so you've got to just be ready.

Especially with virtual interviews.

You never know when they might call you and say, hey, you know, we had somebody dropout for an interview tomorrow.

Would you like to interview y'?

All?

I get people emailing like, hey, can I do a mock interview at midnight, my interview tomorrow?

Or at 5am before my interview?

At that point it's a little late, so you really have to go ahead and start doing your preparation, thinking about interviews before you get the invite so that you're ready to go.

And I'm sure some of y' all have stories like that.

I just, I hear them all the time.

Okay, I think we are good to go.

We are also going to make like if you are still in your preparations.

We have the PA School interview guide.

Let me see if I have one close by.

There's one, so.

All right.

Yeah.

Okay.

I saw somebody in the chat ask, you know, is this session only about MMIs?

Can we ask questions regarding the application process as well?

This webinar is specifically about interviews, and a lot of these interview tips you can apply to any type of interview.

So even if we talk about ethical questions, those are probably going to come up in a traditional interview or an mmi.

And a lot of the things and techniques we talk about in MMI you can use in regular interviews.

But this isn't really a general admissions webinar.

We've had those in the previous month, so you can go back and watch those.

And we'll have some more coming up in the future as well.

Thanks, Becky.

You're like, seriously the mvp.

Okay, so let's talk ethical first, which I have to remember what chapter this is, chapter six.

So if you, you know, are wanting to work on your ethical questions, that's where you want to start.

But when we talk about ethical questions, what schools are doing is trying to look at your morals and your thought process between deciding between right and wrong.

That's the simplest way to put.

Gets more complicated than that when we throw in some scenarios and situations that you have to talk through and think through and explain.

But the base of that is just, you know, are you going to be, as a healthcare provider, someone who makes the right decisions and stands up for your patients and helps them, even if it's outside of just medical things?

Because there are some ethical issues within medicine.

In the chat.

Tell me some.

Some ethical issues that you hope don't come up in your interview that you would prefer not to have to talk about, or if you were asked, you know, tell us about an ethical dilemma in the US Right now.

What way?

Or in medicine, what would you kind of put in there?

If you're having any issues with the sound or the connection, use the little refresh button at the top, and it should bring you right back to the session.

And then the replay should be fine.

Okay, so with.

And then we're gonna do a couple ethical ones, and then we're going to get into talking about mmi.

But remember, there's a lot of crossover with this.

Let's see.

All right, so.

And if you do just.

If you do raise your hand, make sure that you are, like, able to come on the stage, not somewhere noisy or, you know, try to be.

Be kind of ready for that.

All Right.

I'm seeing a couple people here.

Let me grab my pen to take notes during our question.

Okay.

Is itchy new lip gloss.

Okay, we have, I think, Sarah, I'm going to try to bring you up.

Let's see what happens.

And if it looks like we're having technical difficulties, we'll kind of move on pretty quickly.

But you can raise your hand again, and we'll try again.

If it doesn't work, when you do come up to this stage, you'll have to turn on your microphone and your camera.

So one of these.

I see some things about COVID Like, could you be asked questions about COVID You know, you can really be asked questions about anything.

And some programs will even try to kind of put you on the spot, not expecting you to have the perfect answer or even an answer at all.

They just want to kind of see how you respond in a tough situation.

And so in those situations, it's okay to say that you maybe don't know everything about that topic or that's something you need to research more or learn more about.

And your honesty goes further than digging a hole that you can't get yourself out of.

All right, that, Sarah, I don't think is working.

Let's try Sarah's in there twice.

I don't know if it's two different Sarahs, but we'll try the second one and see what happens.

Okay, I have my question ready.

I'm gonna write down so I say it right.

Also, if you follow me on Instagram, I talked about it, but I had my hair a treatment done where I can't wash my hair for three days.

So if it looks so, hopefully this time will too.

How would you feel about treating a patient with COVID We probably all have.

All right, it looks like it may have worked.

Let's see what happens.

It should be either at the top or in the corner.

Okay, cool.

Can you see me?

Yes, we can.

All right.

Sorry, I'm with my pajamas.

I just came back from work.

It's okay.

I am too.

I just have a sweatshirt on, so you're good.

Thank you for being our first volunteer slash victim.

Okay.

Have you interviewed anywhere?

No, actually, I mean, I said it.

I've got two rejections, and I still waiting for four more replies, so pray for me.

Yes, yes, we.

You have a lot of people on your side, and, you know, hopefully.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Backing you up now.

I'm also, like, reading your interview guide, and it's really, really helping.

So I'm praying so.

Well, you're Ready.

So you'll be ready when.

When they call.

So that's hopefully.

Hopefully.

All right, well, let's try some ethical questions and see how it goes.

Okay?

All right.

Don't judge me, though.

Oh, yeah, no, no.

All right, where this is.

They're gonna hype you up.

It's good.

Okay, so tell me about.

I'm gonna be taking notes.

Tell me about a time you broke the rules.

One time when I was working as a nurse, Aiden, in the icu.

There's this rule in my.

The hospital.

The hospital that I'm working in where nurse states can't do anything.

It's critical when it comes down if, like.

And so, like, what I did is I. I heard you.

I hurried up.

I hurried up and I got a mask and I started CPR immediately.

Otherwise, I don't know what could have happened.

So I remember that time when I was scared that I'm gonna be, like, you know, punished or reported, but the nurses were glad that I actually did that because other than that, the patient might have been dead.

Final answer.

Also, I remember.

Oh, God, I got stuck on this.

Sorry.

It's okay.

You're doing good.

I can't get any, like, anything on the top of my head right now, but I, like, I've seen other nurses how, like, they break the rule, and, like, they, like, try sometimes to go around the rule just, like, to save a patient.

And I really appreciate when they do that because sometimes the rules could.

Sometimes it could be, like, critical and it could be life threatening in a way.

Yeah.

Okay.

How'd you do, guys?

Let us know.

Everyone's so encouraging and supportive.

I love it.

Okay, let's break down your answer.

But I think overall you did a really good job, especially with being nervous and being the first one.

And you'll never have to do this in front of 200 people again.

So.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So good initial answer.

Break the rules to save a patient.

So one thing like, well, let's just talk for a second, which clearly, like, this is not a real thing.

And, you know, like we said, set it up.

Well, they don't tell me what their role was.

They don't tell me what the setting was or what was going on.

And in this type of question, when I said, tell me about a time.

Time you broke the rules.

Some people would also jump into a little bit more of what you got into at the second part.

Like, it's okay to break the rules if you're saving a patient, or, you know, you never need to break the rules or in some cases and be more.

That's more of a general response.

That would be more of a response to me asking you, is it okay to break the rules?

You know, But I asked you for a specific example, and that's what you gave me.

So that phrasing that tell me about.

Give an example.

That's an example of a behavioral or situational type question, which can also be ethical.

Okay, so you told me your role nurse aide in the icu.

That was awesome.

That already makes me go, oh, you have.

You have good experience.

Like, that's quality, especially in the times that we're living in.

So.

So that is awesome.

And then you very clearly also told me the rule.

And so that is important to lay out.

Like, I want to be able to tell from your answer that you answered it.

So you said, okay, you know, nurse aides cannot do anything critical.

Got it.

And then you told me the situation.

So nurses were busy.

A patient's O2 is going down.

It was a COVID patient.

I knew that was a bad situation.

Explaining more about the nurses doing that, you can a little bit.

One thing with this type of question, if you want to take it that kind of next step or that full circle is you explain what happened, but going into a little bit more of why and your mindset and what kind of what you were thinking in that moment.

And we'll talk about this again.

I'll bring it back up when we do mmi.

But if you, you know, can explain, you know, in my mind, I was thinking, if I don't help, this patient could die.

If I do help, I could get in trouble.

And to me, the benefit was helping the patient versus what consequence I would have.

So, you know, although I broke the rules in that situation, I felt it was warranted.

And, you know, as a pa, I probably would have made the same decision.

But I respect the rules, but I also, you know, patient.

In that case, the patient is my first priority.

Something like that.

But, yeah, so I think you did really good overall.

One thing I just wanted to point out, I don't know, I haven't been able to really follow the chat to know what everyone else came up with for their.

Like, what you would have come up with for this question.

But it doesn't have to be medical.

And so that's just for any of these questions.

I don't want you all to get stuck in a rut where you feel like you have to pull from your medical experiences because you want to show the variety of your experience.

You want to also Talk about your volunteering and your shadowing maybe while you are shadowing your preceptor.

You know, example.

I thought you did a really great job, and I think the chat did too, so.

Yeah.

But the thing is, what I noticed is that during my answers, I tend to say a lot of ums and likes.

I tried to avoid that, but that is really hard to do.

So that's something that I really need practice on.

So that was really helpful.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

No, you did great.

And it.

It's.

It's.

You know, and the best way I found to combat that is to just slow down.

So take a second breathe.

It's gonna feel long to you, but it.

It doesn't.

It's not really that long.

So just like, take a breather.

And that tends to.

To help with that.

So.

Yeah.

But thank you so much for coming to the stage.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right, so I see in the chat, and I think this is interesting.

Is it okay to say never?

I said I've never broken the rules.

No, it's not.

I don't think that's.

Have you ever ran a red light or a stoplight?

Have you ever sped.

Sped.

Done speeding?

I don't know what to say that whatever missed a curfew turn something in late, even on accident like you, you should be able to find a time you broke the rules.

I also had somebody one time I asked, tell me about a time you struggled academically.

And they said they never had, which isn't accurate.

Even if you have all A's, you don't have all one hundreds.

And there has to be a subject that you struggled with.

Even if you didn't get C or an F. You can tell me something that was difficult for you to learn because we're not trying to trick you.

We're not trying to, you know, see if you're a bad person.

It's really just, you know, seeing what that means to you and what you come up with.

I.

Today, Michelle, who helps me, and I were doing some work this morning, and I said the first thing that comes to my mind, which, if you follow me on Instagram, you probably know this, but I really like Taylor Swift.

But the first thing that came to my mind was, number one, speeding.

Like, you know, we just.

Sometimes we go faster than we're supposed to go, and that is something I know I'm not supposed to do.

It's something I'm aware of, and it's something I have to pay attention to.

You know, and you could go that route of talking about, you know, that something I'm aware of.

And I've never got a speeding ticket, but I, you know, want to make sure I'm protecting everyone else and doing what I'm supposed to do and go into that argument.

But the first thing that came to my mind was the last Taylor Swift concert I went to, which was reputation.

I went with my friend Taylor, who's now in PA school, and we, where we were seated, we were kind of near like another section that was closer up, and the person holding the rope was like, listen, if you want to go to that section, you can.

So even though our seats weren't there, she kind of, you know, was like, you can go there.

But technically it was breaking the rules, you know, sitting somewhere you're not supposed to go.

But I jumped at the chance because it was kind of a once in a lifetime chance, and I don't regret it.

And so I think in that situation, you know, I made.

Made a decision.

May I would have gotten kicked out of the concert if I got in trouble or something.

But to me, that was a time where the consequence outweighed the.

Or the risk outweighed the consequence.

And so even something like that, it seems silly, but those things show a program that you have personality and interest and hobbies, and you just never know how you'll connect with your interviewer.

All right, I'm gonna go to our document here real quick and see what questions we have.

Okay, let me see.

Try to go through these.

We'll go back through that.

If you go blank on a question, this is a good, good question.

We kind of said it before.

Go back and just breathe.

Like you can say, let me take a second to think.

I need a second.

I haven't thought about that before.

Just take a second.

If you're really stuck, just, you know, say, can we come back to that question?

I wouldn't.

I would try not to do that for multiple questions, but that's, you know, reasonable to do.

Try to hide these.

Is it okay to have a semi funny story that's not healthcare school related?

I think that would kind of be like my Taylor Swift one, which I think would be it.

Okay, here's the thing with any of this.

Like, you got to read the room.

So, like, you got to read your interviewer and kind of the situation and see if you can get a read on how things are going to be taken.

I interviewed at one school where I had two separate one on ones and one was super rigid.

And intimidating.

And the other one was so laid back and so nice.

So you have to take that into account a little bit and kind of may change your topics and your stories to fit who you're with at the time.

School interviews, they might really.

Anything's fair game.

You may get anything in a group interview that you would get in a normal interview, too.

Okay, there's a couple questions about what if a.

What if a reason you struggled was due to mental health?

What's your advice when an answer involves a personal struggle with mental health?

There.

Is there a stigma behind it?

This is another kind of like, read the room kind of thing.

And there's also.

Just from reading personal statements and doing mock interviews, there's times when you are more vague and there's times when you're more specific.

And in your.

In both of those, your essays and your.

In your interviews, you'll probably be a little bit of both of those.

And so, you know, but it's a fine line because if you say I had a medical condition, without going into too much detail, you are with medical people, so you're talking to PAs, and so sometimes, you know, you want to give enough background so they know what's going on.

Because when I read those things, I tend to assume the worst.

Like, I.

Maybe that's just the way my brain works, but, you know, I assume things are really bad.

Same thing with.

If people just allude to, like, an academic struggle, I assume it was really, really bad.

And then a lot of times I'll see their application, their transcripts, and it was like 1C, but they made it into seem like this big thing in their essay by just not stating what it was.

So in those situations, you just want to state things very directly.

And the biggest thing is if you bring up a personal struggle is showing how you've grown from it and how it won't be something that you feel like will impede or affect your ability to practice as a PA or complete PA school.

Those things can also help you empathize with patients and relate to them better and help your classmates to understand things better.

So it's not something you have to completely shy away from, but you also don't like.

I've had other.

I've had people who go into a lot of detail about, like, family and relationship things that don't necessarily relate to either the question or them becoming a pa.

So you want to make sure that everything you're including relates directly to you.

Engage or acknowledge the other interview's response.

I think it is I think it part of reason schools do that is to see how you interact with other people because PA school is such a team based effort.

And so if you're completely ignoring them and they're there, that's going to be a little weird.

I was actually in a group interview where somebody did that.

So, you know, I think it, you can build off of their answers.

You can just, you know, very casually refer to them, use their name.

And I think that's adequate for those situations.

Okay, we're at the 8:30 mark and I want to make sure we don't run out of time.

We'll come back and do more ethical questions, but we'll also talk more about ethical questions with mmi.

Make sure I haven't missed anything.

Okay, so with mmi, has anyone been in an MMI situation?

Let me know if you have.

I'm going to explain a little bit about what this is is first and then I'm going to talk about some strategy.

We'll put a blog post in the chat about MMI strategy, which is basically what I'm going to talk about.

So that'll help you.

And I think There's a specific YouTube video on that also.

So multiple mini interviews are a technique that med schools have been using for a long time and PA schools have more recently started to adopt or more schools have.

Some have been doing it forever.

But this.

I'm interested now that a lot of y' all have had mmi.

So tell me when I talk about if you had a traditional one or if you didn't have a traditional one.

So a traditional MMI looks like basically stations.

So you have five to 10 stations and they typically are five to seven minutes long.

So you go between every interviewee, go for kind of the basics of it.

A traditional MMI is blinded, which means they don't know anything about you.

They don't, they haven't seen your application, they don't know your grades, they don't know your experience.

They've got nothing.

A traditional mmi.

Also, your interviewer will not respond to you.

It's not going to be conversational.

You're not going to be going back and forth.

It's going to be just you talking or doing whatever the situation is.

The goal of MMIs is to have different stations that identify different characteristics.

So they're looking at empathy, you know, confidence, decision making, critical thinking, all these different things I haven't listed in the book.

There's a chapter that, you know, they're trying to evaluate you on these principles that they feel are important for healthcare workers to have or for you to have as a PA.

So it sounds like we're.

We have some traditional MMIs in the chat.

This is.

Yeah.

So the one, the, the problem I.

See.

With a lot of MMIs is that people struggle with timing.

So if you know you're going to have an mmi, you want to make sure that you're practicing your timing.

Most people cannot fill five minutes of talking.

The majority of answers when I'm practicing with people are maybe 30 seconds to two minutes.

It's very rare that people go over that.

And so that's something we work on a lot during mock interviews when we practice for mmi.

And that's something you can do, too, when you video yourself is make sure that you are, you know, watching your timing and seeing how things go.

These questions can be very interesting.

So sometimes they're just like off the wall, random questions to kind of see what you do with it.

There can be scenarios where you're acting something out where you are a.

You are a patient, you're, you know, a tech, something where you're working with a patient.

You know, things like that physiology, anatomy stuff you may be expected to do.

And then there would also be some ethical stuff, especially those situations, scenarios, things you walk in, there's an angry patient, there's a patient you have to help, or just an ethical situation you have to address, which we'll do another one in a second.

A little bit more MMI style.

Teaching something.

So that's what somebody just put.

Teach a student to tie a shoe without using my hands.

Yeah, so that's something.

When we do MMI practice, a lot of times what I'll say is teach the person how to put gloves on or teach the person how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

If we have time, we'll do one of those.

We'll see if we have time because those, those are kind of fun.

And then what else?

I mean, it can be anything.

And so you really have to be ready for everything in an mmi.

You also have to be ready and okay with kind of letting things go.

If you do poorly or feel like you do poorly in one station, you've got to pick yourself up, move on to the next one, and be ready to go.

And if you feel like you did bad, other people probably do too.

So don't worry about it.

Just brush it off, go to the next one, and that's it.

That means okay.

All right, so let's see if we can bring somebody up Back up to the stage.

We're going to ask a question.

Pretending it's mmi.

It's still ethical, but we're going to talk through MMI strategy following this question.

Okay,.

Let's see.

Okay, Emily's up next.

Let's see if it'll bring you to.

The stage.

And say, let me.

I need to reference this.

Let me see.

I want to make sure I do one that's not in here.

So MMIs are chapter seven.

Oh, that's a good one.

Interpreting graph.

Another one?

Or hello, Hello.

Reading articles.

That's another one.

Okay, cool.

Let me see.

I want to make sure.

Okay, awesome.

Have you read this?

This is ethical.

I'm not going to respond to you during it.

Okay.

Not.

Not too much pressure.

And then afterwards, we'll talk about it.

Okay, so.

Hold on.

My pen stopped working.

So let's pretend that.

And you would.

In a real mmi, you would probably, like, read this prompt before you go in the room.

And you'd probably have a couple minutes to prepare.

So you would, you know, a lot of times I'll give you some time to think about it.

You can kind of organize your thoughts before you get in.

Okay, so let's pretend you're in PA school.

So in PA school, you find out that one of your classmates has become romantically involved and is dating their preceptor from a rotation.

And so you discover this.

What is your response and what do you do in that situation?

I think I would go to the person first.

I don't know what.

Depending on the school's rules and regulations, if it started during the preceptorship,.

It.

May not be an issue if, I mean, some people work together and they become romantically involved.

I think it would also depend on what the school's rules on it are, because maybe the school has no issue with it, and maybe the school is like, no, this isn't allowed at all.

So I think I would also talk to someone in the school board with, like, a hypothetical.

Like, hypothetically, if I found this out, like, would it affect the student?

Would the school have something to say about it?

Or is it something that the school just kind of doesn't address?

Final answer.

That's it.

Okay.

Well, if we were in a real mmi, we'd sit here for four more minutes looking at each other.

Okay, that's awkward.

I would love to hear people about that situation, but I've heard it happen.

All right, so.

Okay.

Thank you for answering.

You did some really good things that we're going to Talk through.

And this is all in the blog post.

The main thing you want to keep in mind is thinking out loud.

And.

And you did a good job of that with kind of going down these different paths.

You want to show me what is happening in your brain, because I don't know that.

And that's what a lot of people come out and just say, you know, I wouldn't do anything, or I would go to the person and tell them that wasn't right, or I'd go to my teacher.

And that's awesome.

Like, we're not trying to kind of figure out.

We're not asking you to be the final decision here.

Okay.

And some of these questions will not have a right answer.

I saw some earlier where, you know, you have one kidney to give to somebody, and these are the two people.

How do you decide between them?

Or I'm sure schools are throwing out the whole ventilator.

There's one more ventilator in the hospital for a COVID patient.

Who do you choose?

There's no right answer there.

And you're not playing God.

Like, there would be a lot of things involved in those decisions.

It's not just they're going to come to you and ask you that.

So it's more figuring out your thought process.

So when you're organizing your thoughts, one thing, I understand those logistics, and that's okay.

You just need to clarify that a little bit if that's the case.

But being able to say, okay, from what I understand, I'm a PA student.

I have completed my didactic year.

I'm in my clinical year.

I have classmates in the program, and I discover that one of them is dating or romantically involved with one of their preceptors from their rotation.

And that's all the information I have.

Got it.

So this is where I think it's helpful to, like, in my mind, I should draw this out.

Like, it makes sense where you kind of go down different paths and you tell me what those are.

So being able to say my decision, my options right now are to do nothing, to go to the student, to talk about it with my classmates, or to just go to a teacher or admissions or staff and talk to them or to figure out if this is a problem with the school.

Okay, so those are my options.

Now I'm going to talk about.

You don't have to say this, but, you know, I'm going to then go into the pros and cons of each option.

So I'm going to go.

Okay.

If I do nothing, you Know, to me, ethically, that's not the right option, because when I think about it, this could be an ethically immoral situation or a problematic situation, because what if that student is getting preferential treatment?

They're getting to do things other students aren't getting to do.

They're getting graded on a scale that may have favoritism because of their relationship.

They maybe aren't focused on patient care and learning because of this, you know, relationship.

And so they're not going into.

Into it with a student mindset and really there to learn.

And so that could become a problem later on when they're taking care of patients.

You're going to feel kind of like you're rambling, but.

But really you're just laying your thoughts out.

So that's why this is a problem.

Okay?

So to me, I cannot say nothing because I feel like it is something that needs to be addressed.

I could talk to my classmates about it, but that would be gossiping.

I don't think that would get me anywhere.

And I think I would prefer to go straight to the person, even though that would be uncomfortable.

And it's okay to say that same thing, like cheating.

You know, you can say, I don't.

I wouldn't want to be the person to have to tattletale or go to.

And I like the, like, questions.

You said, you know, how has this been going on?

Like, what's happening?

This is what I heard.

Is it true?

You know, find out from them, get some details.

And then this is where you've got to go back into your thought process of, okay, I've got to break down, like, is this ethically wrong to me?

And be able to tell them, you know, I don't know if this is appropriate.

I think we need to look at the school rules.

Even then, I think you probably need to disclose it to the teachers or the director.

And I'm happy to go do that with you, but if you don't want to do that, I do think I'll have to tell them.

Just, I don't.

You know, again, I'm.

I know about this now, and I'm involved, and I don't really want to be, but I've got to do something.

And that's what schools want to know, especially when it comes down to things like cheating.

Like, they just want to know that you're going to do something.

This comes down to translating to patient care.

And you can say that.

You can say, you know, once I'm in patient care, if I see something that is not Appropriate in a medical setting, such as someone takes medication or talks bad about a patient or a coworker.

You know, I will be the person to step up and make sure that I am being appropriate in those situations and taking action, even if I don't want to.

But does that make sense?

I feel like I'm rambling, but, you know, no, that makes sense.

It's you.

You have to think and.

And talk through how you think.

And so I think practicing that is important.

And then that goes.

I'm gonna look at the questions in a second.

But that also goes for when we're talking about, like, instructing someone to do something and all that.

So hopefully that helped you.

It was not too overwhelming, but thank you.

Make it longer, because I didn't want to ramble about nothingness for four minutes.

So it makes sense to, like, talk out your thought process.

So you're expanding what you're saying, and you're able to get more in with that in four minutes instead of just twiddling your thumbs.

Yeah.

And just you're.

You're helping the interviewer to understand how you think and understand your thought process in those situations is the goal there, so.

Yes.

Well, thank you for volunteering.

Thank you.

Okay, cool.

See, I don't know if anyone's still here.

Sorry if the Internet's being weird.

Definitely refresh if needed.

Let's see if I missing something.

Okay, cool.

Okay.

I think I've answered most of this.

All right, I think we have time to bring one more person to this.

Joanna, are you coming?

Maybe not.

Maybe not.

Okay,.

Next we have Ashley.

Hello.

Hello.

I.

And I can't tell if people are still here or not.

Like, it literally just, like, put your names up in a list.

All right, Let's go with Sophia.

I feel like everyone's gonna show up on the stage at the same time.

Make sure I'm missing questions here.

One question here is, would you ask whether it's a blind interview or not?

Oh, it worked.

I. I probably wouldn't.

You may be able to tell just based on the questions they ask, or they may disclose it if they say they do.

Mmi.

I would assume it's blind, but you just never know.

And in general, you kind of want to assume your interviewer doesn't know anything about you because it's very unlikely that they've reviewed your whole application, so.

Hi, Sophia.

How are you?

Hi.

I'm wonderful.

How are you doing?

Good.

How is your interview season going?

Any interviews yet?

Yeah, it's actually going really well.

So I Am actually a sophomore this year, but I have an opportunity to apply early to a program, and so I'm going to be going through that process, and I'm really excited just to see what happens.

Cool.

So are you applying now or next year or so?

I'm applying early decision to one program this year, and then I'll be applying at the end of my junior year to the rest of my program.

Cool.

So it's like a three plus two?

Yeah, something like that.

It's just through my school and then like a combined program.

Oh, perfect.

That's awesome.

Okay, cool.

All right, well, we are gonna do one of my favorite types of mmi, which is giving directions, because these are very interesting to me just to hear people's responses.

We may actually do two questions, but we'll see.

Okay.

All right, so tell.

Pretend there's my else here.

There's not, but tell this person how to make a ham sandwich.

Ham sandwich.

All right, so the most important part about a ham sandwich is that we have all of the ingredients first, of course.

So you're going to collect your two pieces of bread probably, and then as many slices of ham as you want.

And if you want anything else on there, lots of people put on, like, cheese or mayo or mustard.

So gather your ingredients, and then you'll probably want something to put it on.

So like, some kind of plate in front of you.

You'll put one piece of bread on the bottom, and then you're gonna put your ham on top of the bread, the cheese on top of the ham, and then whatever, like, condiments you want or lettuce, anything else.

And then you'll put a piece of bread on top.

And that is my final answer.

Okay,.

For your next question, if you could be any type of tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?

I think I would probably be a cherry tree because I've like.

I remember looking at cherry trees when I was a kid, and I thought they were so cool because you could get, like, both fruit from them, but you could also just get joy from, like, seeing the flowers when they bloom in the spring, and they're just, like, so pretty.

And in the snow, they also have, like, this really, really cool pattern when the snow, like, lands on the leaves.

So I think I would be a cherry tree just because you can both, like, provide fruit for people, but you can also just kind of provide, like, joy in the winter season when it's kind of like, dreary outside.

Interview.

Like, sometimes your interviewer will just ask you these and Honestly, if I'm in an MMI and somebody, I don't know why my camera's not focusing and someone's not doing or they're doing really well, I'll, like, start asking them crazy questions just to kind of throw them off.

So let's talk about the instruction one first.

And the best way, I think, to start thinking about these and practicing these is, especially if, you know, you have an MMI coming up, is to just think about everything you do and think about it very specifically.

So I think you did a good job, like, listing out the ingredients, but you may even want to be a little bit more specific.

And if you are in a real mmi, they may have a student doing this, and that student is going to act like they've never made a sandwich in their life.

And so when you say, you know, would you.

I think, what'd you say?

Put one piece of bread on the bottom.

Like, they may do something weird, like try to stand it up or, like, you know, they're gonna act weird about it.

And so you want to be just so incredibly specific.

Like, you know, you would open the refrigerator and take out, like, I get really specific.

Like, take out the hand with your left hand and set it on the counter.

You would take the.

Hold both sides of the ham container and take the lid off.

You would grab two slices with your right hand and place them on the top of the plate.

Like, so specific.

And then, you know, you would hold the mayo jar in your left hand and turn the lid to the right with your right hand.

Like, it sounds so silly, but we're just trying to make sure that you're specific and good at giving directions in those kind of weird situations.

So things like think about brushing your teeth.

I think that's a good one to practice making food things that you're doing very specifically.

Okay.

And then.

But overall, good job.

Like, that's just a weird one.

I like to ask, because they'll ask you.

Like I've heard they will ask you.

They'll give you, like, a box of blocks or something and have you create a bridge or make something.

Or they'll have the person sitting there with an easel and tell you, you know, tell them how to draw a tree without saying the word tree.

And that's a good one, too.

I think those are kind of fun.

So that's something you could even practice that might be fun with family or friends, too.

All right.

And then these questions of, like, what would you be and why?

I think those are partly to throw you off, but also partly to get to know you and learn something about you.

So you did a good job picking a tree, which is important.

Sometimes people will be like, I'd be this one, or I'd be this one, or I'd be this one.

So just pick one and go with it.

And you.

I like that you told a personal story.

Like, you know, I remember this from when I was a kid.

I think that kind of gives it that, you know, feel good kind of aspect of it's something important or how that is part of you.

So, you know, this.

This tree is fruitful.

How do you provide fruit?

What do you provide to your community or your family or friends that makes you similar to that cherry tree?

And then we're talking about joy and.

And, you know, that's such a great thing.

You know, I have a positive personality.

I try to be really optimistic.

That's something I try to bring to my friends and my classmates, and I want to continue in PA school and as a pa bringing to my patients and co workers and kind of pointing those out, even talking about, you know, it has a specific pattern in the snow.

You know, I.

We all go through different seasons.

I've had seasons where I've struggled and seasons where I'm, you know, happy or sad, and I try to, you know, maintain and really continue to stay true to who I am.

You know, some of those are going to feel like a stretch sometimes, but it really is just you taking creative liberty to use that situation to tell them about you.

So I think.

I think you did a great job, especially with those weird ones.

Thank you for.

For volunteering and good luck at your upcoming interviews, hopefully.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

I appreciate the opportunity.

Yeah, for sure.

All right.

Okay.

So somebody said it's saying something like a palm tree cliche.

Not at all.

If you can, you know, make points from a palm tree, whatever, really, whatever tree comes to mind.

Sometimes you're like, I. I can't think of any treats.

You know, you kind of got to go with it, make it work for the situation.

All right, guys, we are right at our hour here.

Sorry if the Internet was a little glitchy.

The replay will not be.

And as I said, the first part will be up on YouTube for the.

End of the year.