Being a doctor is not easy. You have to go through a lot of stages first before finally becoming a medical student or landing a job as a doctor. One of these stages that you have to go through is the interview where you have to answers questions related to your chosen field. Although you have prepared yourself on the interview, it still makes sense to feel uneasy during the process. One of the questions you’ll certainly be asked is “Why do you want to be a doctor?” It may sound easy, but you really have to give it some thought. And you must answer this with much conviction to show how genuine your purpose is to becoming a doctor.
Answers to Why to Be a Doctor
Answering the question “why do you want to be a doctor?” appropriately is not enough to make your interviewer approve your motive. Sincerity, commitment, passion and love of humanity are the top characteristics one must possess to be admitted in a medical school. When you have all these characteristics combined with your life’s experience, you are in the right track of getting what you really want in life— to be a doctor.
1. I'm Inspired by My Parents
Wrong answer: My parents are doctors. This is the common and easy answer but it is also one of the answers that will really make you fail an interview. Just because your parents are doctors doesn’t mean you have to be a doctor too. Besides, your interviewer may think that you are force to be a doctor. This will make them doubt about your motivation and determination.
Right answer: Instead, if you are really inspired by your parents, explain exactly how they affect you and what is the most touching experience you have that make you determined to be a doctor.
2. I Was so Close to Death and Want to Help Others
Why do you want to be a doctor? Because I have fought with death and know the precious of life. But simply saying that you want to be a doctor because you were once a patient or one of your loved ones suffered a disease that made you want to be doctor is not likely to be considered.
- You must use your life story wisely, put genuine emotions into your narrative and give it a creative opening. But never manipulate others' emotions and try to make them feel sorry for you.
- In order to pass, you have to explain how your experience changed you and made you want to be a doctor, that you understand the great differences between being a patient or family of a patient and becoming a real doctor, that you know the life and responsibility of being a doctor, etc.
3. My Clinical Experiences Qualify me
Clinical experience is one thing that admission committees look for during the interview. Don't think that an hour of a volunteer job in an emergency room is useless. In a medical interview, every little clinical experience counts. If you have ever assisted patients, answered their medical concerns, or tried to do CPR, unsuccessful or not, these experiences should be mentioned because they play a significant role in the field of medicine and make you more qualified of being a doctor.
4. I Love to Help Others in Medical Field
Make sure you let the interviewers see your willingness and determination of helping other as a doctor. Your explanation of why you are qualified to be a doctor should include medically-relevant experiences that you took time to learn and do, such as offering community service, organizing health awareness events or saying something about your desire and mission driven spirit of helping the sick and educate the healthy.
5. I Am Fascinated in a Special Medical Field
Why do you want to be a doctor? You can say you are really interested in a certain medical field and determined to work in that field. You must show the interviewer your actions of pursuing your goal, like doing internships or getting involved in graduate research. This is a great answer but never say it is your only goal, which sounds like you'll quit if not working on that specific field and it can come off quite poorly in interview.
Besides, you should prepare yourself for questions like "what if you are not fit for the chosen field?" "What are your other options?" "Are you still going to pursue this career in another filed related to medicine?" etc. No matter how you answer these questions, always be genuine because in reality, there is no right or wrong when answering this question.
6. Interest Gives the Best Career Guidance
Interest offers proper guidance when deciding on a career and best stimulates one's enthusiasm. This principle can also be applied to becoming a doctor. Your curiosity as a child about human development, human organs and anything else similar to the nature of the human body develops into a much committed endeavor to look further as a doctor. Connecting it with your life’s experiences would certainly make you an exceptional doctor. But be sure to prepare answers for questions like "Then why don't you choose to be an anthropologist or a historian?"
7. Let Your Essay Help
Putting your experiences in an essay as part of the interview process is a great way to help your interviewer evaluate your motivations and help them understand your answers to their question "Why do you want to be a doctor?" However, overdoing it like listing all your experience one by one is not a good way. Learn how to choose and arrange experiences in you essay properly to help make the dream of becoming a doctor come true.
8. Love for Human Race
In a much broader sense, you can say that you want to become a doctor not only because the people close to you, not only because it is your passion to become one, but also because you love science and humanism. And when you become a doctor, you will be able to apply your knowledge and learning to the fascinating world of science and to the benefits of all.
Tips on Passing a Medical Interview
Tip 1- when answering a question, it would be best to pause for a few seconds to gather your thoughts in your mind. So you can give a fluent and logic answers, instead of stammering some random and stream-of-consciousness answers.
Tip 2- Show confidence not arrogance. While it is true that a future doctor must have all the confidence he needs in practicing his field of study, it is never good to act as if you know everything about science, technology and medicine per se.
Tip 3 – Qualifications are important but not decisive because there can be a lot of people or other students who are qualified. The question is: why choose YOU instead of them? To answer this, ask yourself what makes you exceptional and what makes your abilities different from the rest of the people, and most of all, what special characteristics will make you a great doctor in the future.