Career4doctors support you in multiple ways. I have been coaching for Consultant Interveiw Courses for more than a decade. I have created a comprehensive list of consultant interview questions for your benefit.
Situational Questions
- 1. Your registrar start teaching IMT doctors when you are doing ward round? What would you do?
- 2. You come across a pile of abnormal pathology reports that are more than a month old. Some of the required urgent action. Your colleague responsible for them is not on leave but has not actioned them. What would you do?
- 3. Your fellow consultant is not following PPE policy and enters bays/side rooms without wearing a mask. What would you do?
- 4. You are doing your ward round and one patient informs you that her son is taking all the money from her and she can’t even leave house as she has no money for taxi. What do you do?
- 5. You were away for four weeks and requested your registrar to review one results that you were expecting to be grossly abnormal. You find that this has not happened and this is not the first time. What would you do?
- 6. What would you do when your matron informs you that one SHO is regularly in breach in infection control policy and does not wash hands after patient contact?
- 7. Your registrar come to the clinic and appears unkempt? Your clinic in-charge is unsure of what to do and approaches you. What would you do?
- 8. Your consultant colleague is very emotional these days and is reported to have been crying. What would you do?
- 9. You notice that one of your consultant colleague has started to leave early in a regular basis. He is also phoning patients booked after 4 pm to come at 1 pm so that he can leave early. What would you do?
- 10. Tell us about a time you managed well
- 11 Describe a time when you had to improve a team’s performance. What challenges did you meet and how did you address them?
- 12. Tell us about a time when you communicated well
- 13. Can you describe a scenario where you worked in a team and it went very well, what made it go well?
- 14. Tell us about a time where you had to delegate effectively.
- 15. Tell us about a time when you had to prioritise tasks effectively
- 16. What would you do if someone’s performance falls below the level you expect?
Teaching
- 1. Do you like teaching?
- How do you know you are a good teacher?
- 2. Tell us about a teaching session that did not go as planned?
- 3. How do you plan your lesson for class room-based teaching?
- 4. Junior doctors often complaint that they do not get teaching during ward rounds. How can you mitigate this?
- 5. How do you motivate someone to make a career in your specialty?
- 6. Are you aware of different teaching techniques?
- 7. Do you like small group teaching or class room-based teaching? Why?
- 8. Would you like to take on more research or teaching?
- 9. Why should consultant teach?
Ethical
- 1. 14-year girls would like to discusscontraception with you. Would you?
- 2. A 16-year girl would like to have a TOP but does not want her parents to know?
- 3. An18-year girl would like to have a TOP but does not want her parents to know?
- 4. You have a 28-year-old patient in clinic who is now HIV positive. She does not want her husband to know. What would you do?
- 5. You are asked to speak to a 24-year-old boy with diabetes who is refusing insulin. What approach would you take?
- 6. A 32 year male patient admitted with severe paracetamol overdose is refusing treatment. What would you do?
- 7. A 82 year old man with underlying stroke is refusing antibiotics for aspiration pneumonia. What would you do?
- 8. Daughter of a 76 year old patient is insisting on full CPR to her father. What would you do?
- 9. Why should patient have a choice in their treatment?
- 10. A 25 year old female is refusing to have the life saving surgery. What would you do?
- 11. How important is patient confidentiality to you?
- 12. you notice a colleague looking at the results of the investigations on another colleague who is on long term sixk leave. What would you do?
- 13. You 82 year old patients is refusing to take Covid-19 vaccine? What would you do?
- 14. You 15 year old patients is refusing to take Covid-19 vaccine? What would you do?
- 15. Your 22 year pregnant female patient admitetd under your care has just been diagnosed with HIV. She does not want anyone to know? What would you do?
- 16. Mother of 18 year old male who was on organ donor list, is refusing to to speak to the transplant coordinator and does not want any organ retrieval. What would you do?
Clinical Governance
- 1. Why do we talk so much about clinical governance?
- 2. How do you ensure that the care you provide is based on the best available evidence?”
- 3. How would you ensure that your department follows governance robust practice?
- 4. What is your understanding of clinical governance and why is it important in the NHS?
- 5. Give an example of clinical governance as you are doing your ward round as a consultant?
- 6. Would you like to lead the governance lead?
- 7. What is a risk register? How does it help in improving patient care?
- 8. How do you identify threat to the service?
- 9. Tell us about a QIP that you did? Why did you select specific topic?
- 10. Multisource feedbacks are becoming common these days. Do you think they influence individual practices?
- 11. How do you keep your team safe?
- 12. How do you determine that the team is following good medical practice and is safe?
- 13. Tell us about a datix that you were involved in?
- 14. Tell us about a serious adverse event that you were named in?
- 15. Should doctors be encouraged to do incident reporting?
- 16. Describe a situation where you had to manage a clinical risk. What steps did you take?”
- 17. How do you identify gaps in your knowledge? What do you do?
- 18. How do you incorporate patient feedback into your practice?
- 19. Can you provide an example of a quality improvement initiative you led
- 20. Tell us about when you identified a serious governance issue? What did you do?
- 21. How do you ensure that your team is engaged with clinical governance initiatives?”
- 22. Why QIP are so important?
Research & Academics
- 1. Are you a keen researcher? Why?
- 2. Are you a keen researcher? Why not?
- 3. Tell us about your research?
- 4. Why did you use this specific topic for research?
- 5. What kind of difficulties you came upon in getting ethical approval for your research?
- 6. Do you think research should be mandatory for every doctor?
- 7. Why doctors should spent time in research?
- 8. Why do pharmacological companies invest billions in research?
- 9. Would you like to continue to be involved in research?
- 10. We don’t have time scheduled in your job plan for research. Would you still be keen to continue undertaking research?
- 11. How does research contribute to patient care?
Teaching
- 1. Do you like teaching?
- 2. How do you know you are a good teacher?
- 3. Tell us about a teaching session that did not go as planned?
- 4. How do you plan your lesson for class room-based teaching?
- 5. Junior doctors often complaint that they do not get teaching during ward rounds. How can you mitigate this?
- 6. How do you motivate someone to make a career in your specialty?
- 7. Are you aware of different teaching techniques?
- 8. Do you like small group teaching or class room-based teaching? Why?
- 9. Would you like to take on more research or teaching?
- 10. Why should consultant teach?
Teamworking & leadership
- 1. Tell us about a time when you led your team?
- 2. Tell us about a time when you didn’t lead as well as you could have, what happened and what would you do differently? (can change this to an example of someone else)?
- 3. Tell us about a time when you felt undermined by a team member? What did you do?
- 4. Tell us about a time when you had to adapt your leadership style to a situation?
- 5. Tell us about a time when you had to influence or negotiate to get something done?
- 6. Tell us about a time when you had a conflict with a colleague?
- 7. Tell us about a time when you had a conflict within the team?
- 8. What did you do?
- 9. Tell us about a time you worked within a team to resolve a problem?
- 10. Give us an example of when you lead well
Personal Qualities
- 1. What is your greatest weakness?
- 2. What is your greatest strength?
- 3. What makes you a good doctor?
- 4. What makes you a good teacher?
- 5. What three words describe you?
- 6. How committed you can be?
- 7. How do you get over your weaknesses?
- 8. If time travel was possible, what year would you like to visit in past?
- 9. If time travel was possible, what year would you like to visit in future?
- 10. If you could change one event in history, what would you choose?
- 11. If you could change one event in history, whart would you choose?
- 12. Who would you like to meet if you could choose anyone?
- 13. Who would like to be stranded on desert island?
Management
- 1. How would you introduce a change
- 2. You have done about 10 years as consultant in previous post. Why are you changing your job now?
- 3. You only started in the previous job 1 year ago. What are the reasons you are changing job?
- 4. You are changing job so soon after accepting a full-time consultant post. Should we be worried that you may have a change of heart again?
- 5. Consultant post are usually long-term placement. Do you see yourself spending 20+ years in current post?
- 6. What do you think about the clinic waiting list validation
- 7. Are you a leader or follower?
- 8. What makes you agree? What do you do?
- 9. What has been your happiest moment as a doctor?
- 10. Tell us about a clinical mistake that you made
- 11. What would you do if your fellow consultant is constantly late in reporting tissue?
- 12. When your team member is not delivering in time causing a project to get sluggish or at risk of fail, what do you do?
- 13. Do you feel you are good enough and are the right candidate for this job?
- 14. How would your peer describe you?
- 15. You are a doctor for 14 years now. Tell us something that you are proud of?
- 16. Have you ever felt out of depth when dealing with a patient? What did you do?
- 17. What would you do if your fellow consultant is constantly late in reporting tissue biopsies?
- 18. Share with us a project that you found most difficult to complete? What was it so difficult to complete?
- 19. What has been your happiest moment as a doctor?
- 20. How do you deal with the conflict in personalities within a team?
- 21. How would you describe your leadership style?
- 22. What do you do when you come across a situation that is totally opposite of what you had in mind?
- 23. How can NHS prepare for next disaster after the recent pandemic?
- 24. Do you think telephone clinics are a way forward to reduce waiting lists?
- 25. What can NHS do to recover from the backlog created by Covid-19 pandemic?
- 26. What do you believe is the most effective NHS initiative so far?
- 27. If you could choose to do only clinical work instead of teaching medical students, would you agree?
- 28. Clinical excellence awards should be abolished. What is your take on it?
- 29. How do you assess impact of the changes introduced
- 30. What is the biggest challenge you faced and how did you deal with it?
- 31. What standards are important to you and how do you ensure these are maintained? How do you communicate these?
- 32. Can you think of a time when your workload was excessive/unmanageable and how did you address it?
- 33. What do you think of our trust values
- 34. What is risk management
- 35. What career progression are you hoping to get from this job?