Free practice questions for the Surrey medicine interview, with the interview format taken from the university's own admissions pages.
Surrey runs virtual Multiple Mini Interview events for shortlisted applicants, and says the full MMI cycle takes under an hour. You are marked independently at each station against agreed criteria, then placed into offer, waiting list or reject. Surrey does not publish a station count, station timings or fixed dates. Check your invitation for current timings.
Original MedicHut practice questions. Real interviews may differ.
Medicine is a demanding course that leads to a career spanning several decades.
1. What first drew you to a career in medicine?
2. How have you tested that this motivation is realistic, beyond reading or watching about it?
3. What would make you reconsider this career path partway through training?
Follow-up: If a close friend told you they thought you were only applying to please your family, how would you respond?
Many applicants say they want to combine science with helping people.
1. What specifically about medicine, rather than another science or caring career, appeals to you?
2. Which part of a medical career do you expect to find hardest to sustain over many years?
3. What have you done to check your motivation is more than an assumption?
Follow-up: Describe how your answer might change if you later discovered you were far better suited to research than to patient-facing work.
Doctors must continue learning formally and informally for their whole career.
1. What about continuous learning attracts you?
2. What about it worries you?
3. How do you plan to keep motivated during repetitive or less interesting stages of training?
Follow-up: Tell me about a time you had to keep going with something after your initial interest faded.
Reflect on an achievement, inside or outside education, that you are proud of.
1. What was it?
2. What qualities did you rely on to achieve it?
3. How does it connect to your motivation for medicine?
Follow-up: How would you respond to someone who says personal achievements unrelated to healthcare tell us little about whether you will be a good doctor?
Surrey's course places emphasis on clinical placements with partner NHS trusts and use of simulation and virtual reality facilities.
1. Why does a course built around early simulation and partner NHS placements suit how you like to learn?
2. What do you think you might find difficult about moving between simulated and real clinical environments?
3. What have you done to prepare for the mix of simulated and placement-based learning?
Follow-up: If you discovered you learned far better from direct patient contact than from simulation, how would you adapt to a course that uses both?
Surrey describes a spiral curriculum where students revisit topics at increasing depth as the course progresses.
1. Why might learning in a spiral pattern, rather than a strictly linear one, suit you?
2. What challenge do you think this structure could create for your own revision and organisation?
3. How would you plan your study to cope with returning to earlier topics in more depth later on?
Follow-up: How would you explain, to someone considering a more traditional course structure, why a spiral curriculum might still produce well-prepared doctors?
Surrey's admissions process ranks applicants using the UCAT before moving to interview.
1. What do you think is a reasonable role for an aptitude test like the UCAT in medical admissions?
2. What are the limitations of judging an applicant mainly through a test score before interview?
3. What do you think an interview can reveal that a test score cannot?
Follow-up: If you had scored poorly on an aptitude test but strongly in every other part of your application, how would you want admissions tutors to weigh that?
Surrey's interview is run as a short MMI cycle under one hour, in a virtual format.
1. What do you see as an advantage of a short, multi-station interview compared with one long conversation?
2. What do you think is a disadvantage of moving quickly between several short stations?
3. How will you prepare differently for a virtual interview compared with one in person?
Follow-up: If a technical problem interrupted your interview partway through a station, how would you handle it?
Think of a period of work experience, paid work, or volunteering relevant to healthcare or care of others.
1. Describe one specific moment that changed your understanding of what the role involves.
2. What gap in your own knowledge did that moment reveal?
3. What have you done since to address that gap?
Follow-up: If that placement had not been available to you, what would you have done instead to gain similar insight?
Reflect on an interaction you observed between a healthcare professional and a patient during work experience or volunteering.
1. What stood out to you about how the professional communicated?
2. What would you have found difficult about managing that interaction yourself?
3. What does this tell you about the skills needed beyond medical knowledge?
Follow-up: How would you prepare yourself to have a similarly difficult conversation as a student on clinical placement?
Reflect on a time you saw someone cope with a heavy workload or time pressure during work experience or a part-time job.
1. What did they do to manage the pressure?
2. What effect did it have on people around them?
3. What would you personally find hardest about being in that position?
Follow-up: What would you do if you noticed a colleague struggling under pressure but trying to hide it?
Reflect on a time during work experience or volunteering when something did not go as you expected.
1. What happened?
2. How did you adjust?
3. What did this teach you about flexibility in care or service roles?
Follow-up: How do you think this kind of unpredictability will prepare you for clinical uncertainty as a doctor?
Doctors regularly deliver difficult news to patients and families.
1. What do you think makes delivering difficult news well so hard?
2. What qualities do you think help a doctor do this with compassion?
3. How would you prepare yourself for your first time being present when difficult news is given?
Follow-up: If you strongly disagreed with how a senior colleague delivered difficult news, what would you do?
Medical students and doctors work within multidisciplinary teams including nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals.
1. Why does good multidisciplinary teamwork matter for patient safety?
2. What could go wrong if a doctor did not value other professions' expertise?
3. What have you done to practise working within a team towards a shared goal?
Follow-up: A nurse raises a concern about a decision you have made as a student. How would you respond?
Medicine involves working with patients from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs.
1. Why is cultural awareness important in patient care?
2. Describe a situation, real or hypothetical, where a patient's beliefs might affect their treatment choices.
3. How would you balance respecting a patient's wishes with your duty to advise them based on evidence?
Follow-up: A patient declines a recommended treatment for reasons connected to their beliefs. How do you proceed?
You are a medical student in a small study group. One member keeps missing sessions, and you later learn privately they are caring for an unwell parent.
1. How would you balance supporting this student with the group's need to prepare for an assessment?
2. What would you say to them, and when?
3. What personal quality matters most in handling this well?
Follow-up: The student asks you to keep this private, but their absence is affecting the group's mark. How do you respond?
Honesty is central to the standards expected of doctors.
1. Describe a time telling the truth was the harder but better option.
2. What made it difficult at the time?
3. What would you do if being honest meant admitting your own mistake to someone senior?
Follow-up: Would your answer change if your mistake had already caused harm to someone else? Explain why.
Resilience helps people cope with setbacks over a long career.
1. Describe a specific time you did not get the result you wanted despite working hard.
2. What did you do in the days afterwards?
3. What, if anything, did you change long term as a result?
Follow-up: How would you tell the difference, in yourself, between healthy resilience and pushing on when you actually need help?
Self-awareness is something interviewers often look for.
1. What is a piece of feedback that surprised you?
2. Why did it surprise you?
3. What have you changed because of it?
Follow-up: If you answered this question again in a year, what do you think would be different?
You are part of a group project with a tight deadline, and two members strongly disagree about the approach to take.
1. What role would you take in resolving the disagreement?
2. What would you say to each person?
3. What would you prioritise if it could not be fully resolved before the deadline?
Follow-up: One of them later tells you privately they feel you took the other side. How do you respond?
You are asked to coordinate a task where one team member has strong technical skills but communicates poorly, leaving others confused.
1. How would you use this person's strength while addressing the communication problem?
2. What specifically would you say to them?
3. Why does this resemble teamwork between doctors and other healthcare professionals?
Follow-up: The team member becomes defensive when you raise this. How do you keep the group working well?
You are leading a revision group, and with one week left you realise the plan is too ambitious.
1. What would you do first?
2. How would you communicate the change to the team?
3. How is admitting a plan is not working different from giving up on it?
Follow-up: One team member insists on sticking to the original plan. How do you manage the disagreement?
Reflect on a time you had to ask for help when you would have preferred to manage alone.
1. What made it difficult to ask?
2. What happened when you did?
3. What did you learn about the value of asking for help within a team?
Follow-up: Why might medical students or doctors be reluctant to ask for help, and what effect could that have on patient safety?
Imagine you are a medical student asked to explain to a worried patient, in plain language, why they need to start a daily tablet for high blood pressure for the rest of their life.
1. How would you explain why the tablet is needed?
2. How would you respond to their concern about lifelong dependence on medication?
3. How would you check they have understood?
Follow-up: How would your explanation change if the patient told you a relative had a bad reaction to medication in the past?
Imagine a friend tells you they have felt constantly tired and low for weeks but do not want to see a GP because they are "too busy".
1. How would you respond as a supportive friend rather than a medical expert?
2. How would you encourage them to seek help without being pushy?
3. What would you avoid saying?
Follow-up: How would your response change if your friend said they had already tried seeing a GP once and found it unhelpful?
Imagine you need to explain to someone with no scientific background why taking antibiotics exactly as prescribed matters, even once they feel better.
1. Give your explanation in plain language.
2. How would you respond to someone who says they always stop once they feel well?
3. Why does this matter beyond the individual patient?
Follow-up: How would you explain the same idea to a worried parent whose child refuses to finish a course of medicine because it tastes unpleasant?
Imagine a coursemate tells you they have fallen behind on an assignment because of personal problems and are considering dropping out.
1. How would you respond with empathy?
2. What practical suggestions might you offer?
3. How would you encourage them to access proper support rather than relying only on you?
Follow-up: How would your response change if they asked you not to tell anyone else, including university support staff?
A university student at a GP surgery you are observing asks for emergency contraception and does not want her partner, waiting outside, to know details of the consultation.
1. What ethical principle is most relevant here?
2. Why does confidentiality matter even when a partner is nearby?
3. What is the limit of your role as a student observer in this situation?
Follow-up: What would you do if the partner later asked you directly what the consultation was about?
The NHS has a limited budget and cannot fund every treatment that could help every patient.
1. What ethical principle should guide decisions about which treatments to fund?
2. Is it fair that some expensive but effective treatments are not routinely funded?
3. What would you say to a patient who asks why a treatment they want is not available on the NHS?
Follow-up: Should the cost of a treatment ever be weighed against how much it is likely to help a patient? Explain your reasoning.
A patient tells you, a student observer, something important about their health that they have not yet told the treating doctor.
1. What is your responsibility in this situation?
2. What ethical principle is in tension here?
3. What would you say to the patient?
Follow-up: The patient asks you specifically not to tell the doctor. How do you respond?
You discover a close friend on your course has copied parts of another student's coursework.
1. What ethical issues are at stake?
2. What would influence your decision about whether to report this?
3. What would you say to your friend directly?
Follow-up: Your friend says everyone does it and it is not a big deal. How do you respond?
Waiting times for routine hospital appointments remain a significant public concern.
1. What do you think are the main reasons for long waiting times in the NHS?
2. What impact can a long wait have on a patient's health and wellbeing?
3. What could you personally do as a future doctor to help manage this problem?
Follow-up: If you were given responsibility for reducing a waiting list in one department, where would you start and why?
Remote GP consultations by phone or video have become far more common and remain widely used.
1. What are the benefits of remote consultations for patients and for the NHS?
2. Which groups of patients might be disadvantaged by a shift towards more remote care?
3. What is your view on the right balance between remote and face-to-face appointments?
Follow-up: A patient tells you they feel 'fobbed off' by phone consultations and want to be seen in person. How would you respond?
The NHS workforce has faced widely reported shortages and high levels of staff burnout.
1. What do you think are the main causes of this problem?
2. How might staff shortages affect patient safety?
3. What can an individual doctor do to look after their own wellbeing in an understaffed system?
Follow-up: Does learning about this make you reconsider your choice of career? Explain your answer.
An ageing population means more people are living longer with multiple long-term health conditions.
1. What challenges does this create for how the NHS is organised?
2. What role might doctors play differently in future to manage this shift?
3. What do you think the public can reasonably expect from the NHS given these pressures?
Follow-up: Should more NHS resources shift from hospital care towards community and preventative care? Explain your view.
Medical knowledge changes constantly as new research is published.
1. How would you decide whether new health research is reliable enough to change how you think about treating patients?
2. What role does peer review play in this?
3. How will you keep your own knowledge up to date once qualified?
Follow-up: A patient shows you a health article from social media that contradicts current medical guidance. How do you respond?
A preliminary study, not yet peer reviewed, claims a common supplement reduces the risk of a serious illness, and this becomes a major news story.
1. What does 'not yet peer reviewed' mean, and why does it matter?
2. What are the risks of the public acting on this claim before it is properly checked?
3. What would you say if a family member asked whether they should start taking the supplement?
Follow-up: The study later turns out to have been funded by the company that makes the supplement. Does this change your view?
Evidence-based medicine means basing treatment decisions on the best available research, rather than personal experience alone.
1. Why might relying only on personal clinical experience be risky?
2. What are the limits of evidence-based medicine, for example when there is little research on a rare condition?
3. How should a doctor combine evidence, experience, and the individual patient's wishes?
Follow-up: A senior doctor tells you that 'in my experience' a certain approach works better than published guidelines suggest. How would you think this through?
Clinical trials often report results as averages across a group of patients.
1. Why might an average result not tell you everything you need to know for an individual patient?
2. What other information about a trial would you want to know before applying its findings?
3. How should a doctor explain the limits of trial evidence to a patient asking about their own chances?
Follow-up: A patient asks you to guarantee a treatment will work for them because 'the trial said it works'. How do you respond?
Illustrative figures. A university health clinic is deciding how to allocate 100 appointment slots next week between a general wellbeing drop-in and an exam-stress support clinic. Last term, the wellbeing drop-in used 40 out of 60 slots offered, and the exam-stress clinic used 55 out of 60 slots offered, with 20 people turned away.
1. Based on these figures, how would you suggest allocating the 100 slots?
2. What other information would help you make a better decision?
3. What are the risks of simply following last term's demand pattern?
Follow-up: Halfway through the week, the exam-stress clinic reaches full capacity again. What would you suggest the clinic does?
Illustrative figures. A screening test for a condition has a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 80%. In a population of 1,000 people, 100 actually have the condition.
1. Using these figures, roughly how many people with the condition will the test correctly identify?
2. Roughly how many people without the condition will be incorrectly told they have it?
3. What problems could this create for patients and for the health service?
Follow-up: Why might a test with these figures still be considered useful despite producing some incorrect results?
Illustrative figures. A hospital ward has four patients needing review this morning. Patient A had surgery yesterday and has increasing pain. Patient B is stable and waiting only for discharge paperwork. Patient C has a mild rash that started overnight. Patient D, three days after a hip operation, has become confused and short of breath in the last hour.
1. In what order would you prioritise seeing these patients, and why?
2. What is your reasoning for placing the lowest priority patient where you did?
3. What would you do if a fifth more urgent case arrived partway through?
Follow-up: After reviewing Patient D, you are asked to also help with an emergency elsewhere. How do you decide what to do?
Illustrative figures. A community clinic records that, of 200 patients booked over a month, 30 did not attend their appointment. Of those 30, illustrative figures show 18 lived more than five miles from the clinic and 22 were booked during standard working hours.
1. What possible explanations do these figures suggest for missed appointments?
2. What further information would help confirm which explanation is correct?
3. What practical change might the clinic consider based on this data?
Follow-up: A colleague suggests simply charging a fee for missed appointments. What are the problems with that approach?
Reflect on a time you had to change your mind about something important after new information came to light.
1. What was the original view you held?
2. What changed your mind?
3. How did it feel to admit you had been wrong?
Follow-up: How might this experience help you respond well when a senior colleague corrects your clinical reasoning in future?
Reflect on a time you made a mistake that affected someone else, even in a small way.
1. What was the mistake and how did you find out about it?
2. What did you do to put it right?
3. What would you do differently if faced with the same situation again?
Follow-up: How should a medical team create an environment where people feel able to admit mistakes quickly?
Reflect on a piece of feedback that was hard to hear.
1. What was the feedback and who gave it to you?
2. How did you feel in the moment you heard it?
3. What did you do with that feedback afterwards?
Follow-up: Why is it important for a doctor to be able to accept feedback from people more junior than themselves?
Reflect on a time you worked through significant uncertainty without knowing the outcome in advance.
1. Describe the situation.
2. What made the uncertainty difficult to manage?
3. What helped you cope with not knowing the outcome?
Follow-up: How do you think you will manage the high levels of uncertainty that are a normal part of clinical decision-making?
Reflect on an experience that changed an assumption you previously held about a group of people.
1. What was the assumption, and where do you think it came from?
2. What specifically changed your view?
3. How might this experience shape the way you treat patients from different backgrounds to your own?
Follow-up: How will you stay open to having your assumptions challenged again once you are a qualified doctor?
Think back to why you chose to apply to medicine this year rather than at another time.
1. What has changed in your life or thinking that made this the right time to apply?
2. What part of your application are you least confident about?
3. What have you done to strengthen that weaker area?
Follow-up: If you were not offered a place this year, what would you do next?
Reflect on how you have prepared for the academic demands of a medical degree.
1. What study habits do you currently rely on that you think will transfer well to medicine?
2. What study habits do you think you will need to change?
3. How do you plan to balance study with your own wellbeing during a demanding course?
Follow-up: Describe a time your usual way of studying did not work, and how you adapted.
Surrey uses this format for medicine: Virtual MMI. Interviews are held online.
Interview timing for Surrey: Dates are confirmed in your interview invitation. Always check the university's own admissions pages for this year's dates.
Surrey assesses: Communication, Values, Motivation, Ethical reasoning.
No. They are 50 original MedicHut practice questions, written to match Surrey's published interview format. Universities do not share their real questions, so your interview may differ.
Answer each question out loud with the timer on, then note what you would change. When you feel ready, a mock interview with a trained MedicHut interviewer gives you personal feedback.
Surrey medical school guide: entry requirements and interview advice
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