Member Benefits / Education / Career Development
 

Career Development

Elevate your medical career with Career Planning and Interview Preparation webinar series

At MDA National, we recognise that planning your medical career and preparing for interviews can be a daunting task. To support you on your medical career journey, we're excited to offer two comprehensive and practical webinar series' on Career Planning and Interview Preparation.

This series is a Member-only benefit. We have limited spots available for non-members who wish to attend each event.

 

Not a Member?

To gain access to the Interview Preparation and Career Planning series, as well as our entire educational resources and Member-only benefits, apply for Membership & Professional Indemnity Insurance online.

If you're interested in attending as a non-member, please register your interest to be placed on a waitlist. Should a place become available, we will contact you closer to the event with access details.

 

 

Need help with your medical officer interviews? (Join live session)

Preparing for interviews can be an uncertain and anxiety-provoking time for many junior doctors. These high-stakes interviews often mark pivotal moments in a doctor’s career and require both forethought and planning.

In order to support our junior doctor Members in rising to the challenge of this exciting time in their careers, MDA National is hosting an interview preparation webinar series. This complimentary five-part series provides everything you need to ace your medical interviews, including education on interview techniques, practical advice on common interview pitfalls, and training on how to tackle standard - and unexpected - interview questions.

Presented live by Dr Brooke Bullock, each session centres around a key interview question often asked during medical officer interviews. Providing the opportunity to ask questions, practice interview techniques, and receive personalised feedback, these sessions will hone your interview skills – leaving you interview ready for the next stage of your career.

 

Date and Time Topic  Register 
17 Apr 7:30 -8:30pm AEST Overhaul your CV and written application Register
24 Apr 7:30 -8:30pm AEST What are your best cards? Register
1 May 7:30 -8:30pm AEST Tell me about a time when? Register
8 May 7:30 -8:30pm AEST How would you respond to the following Coming soon
15 May 7:30 -8:30pm AEST What are your thoughts on? Coming soon

Interview Preparation Q&A

Here are some questions asked by junior doctors in previous interview preparation sessions.


Yes, it’s a good idea to include this work (unless the application information has specified otherwise).

Be clear with how you represent it. Eg. Include the title, co-investigators, make your role clear and a disclaimer such as “Submitted to Peer review journal Feb 2023 and pending outcome.”

Read the application information clearly as it often states whether the response to selection criteria should, or should not be included.

This means read the information in the job ad as well as reading through any attachments such as “application package information” so that you don’t miss information.

If they have not said it must be included, definitely maximise your space by having a 1 page cover letter followed by the 2 additional pages as the response to the cover letter.

And don’t be too cheeky – size 11 as the smallest font and be careful of not overdoing the “narrow margins.”

You are only ever expected to have clinical experience based on your current level. As a medical student, pull on your clinical placements and be clear to discuss how long they were, what specialty they were in, what was your role etc. Be keen on your placements so that you experience more. You’ll then have more experience to talk about on interview day.

If you are a medical student with an undergraduate degree in another field (eg. Pharmacy), you can also refer to this clinical experience and make it clear what transferable skills that has equipped you with for this role.

Many of your prepared examples will be suitable answers to various questions. For example, an example of your involvement in a great team might also be a great example for a question around leadership. Importantly, you must tweak it to fit their specific question otherwise it’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Avoid using the same example twice in front of the same interview panel members. This isn’t good use of the interview time and you’ve missed the opportunity to tell them other things about you. If however you are in numerous stations, you may be able to use elements of one example in numerous interview “stations” – they certainly aren’t texting each other comparing your answers between stations. This shouldn’t happen often as it would mean the interview questions haven’t been written well if two questions are quite similar (eg. It would be a bit of a waste for a panel to ask you both a teamwork and a leadership example).

MDA National would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Bullock for responding to questions from the Interview Preparation webinar series and note that this work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under applicable copyright law, you may not reproduce the questions and answers without the permission of MDA National. These questions and answers, including associated information and resource links, contains generic information only, and is intended to stimulate thought and discussion, and doesn’t account for requirements of any particular individual.  The content may contain opinions which are not necessarily those of MDA National. MDA National Members need to contact us for specific medico-legal advice on freecall 1800 011 255 or email advice@mdanational.com.au. We may also refer you to other professional services.

 

Unsure about your career path? (Join live session)

 

What medical specialty should I choose if I like everything? Or what should I do if I don't like anything in medicine! What should I do if I'm interested in non-clinical medicine or even considering leaving medicine completely? To assist our junior doctor Members achieve career-path clarity, MDA National is hosting a complimentary career planning webinar series. Presented live by Dr Ashe Coxon, the first session in this series provides practical guidance and personality-based insights to help junior doctors identify which areas of medicine they enjoy. Enhancing these learnings is a follow-on interactive career planning session - aimed at assisting participants in identifying the medical specialty that suits them best.

The final session in this series is for those junior doctors who know which medical specialty interests them. Presented by Dr Coxon this stand-alone session will assist participants in preparing outstanding employment applications – facilitating the next step in your medical career path.

 

Limited seats available - register now.

 

Date and Time Topic  Register 
22 May 7:30-8:30pm AEST Your medical career: What to do when you don’t know what to do! Coming soon
27 May 7:30-8:30pm AEST Understanding individual personality traits and how these impact work satisfaction and career choices Coming soon
30 May 7:30-8:30pm AEST Skills and Strengths: The importance of identifying yours in your career planning, and for applying for your desired role Coming soon
31 Jul 7:30-8:30pm AEST Your medical career: What to do when you don’t know what to do! (Repeat) Coming soon
7 Aug 7:30-8:30pm AEST Understanding individual personality traits and how these impact work satisfaction and career choices(Repeat) Coming soon
14 Aug 7:30-8:30pm AEST Skills and Strengths: The importance of identifying yours in your career planning, and for applying for your desired role (Repeat) Coming soon

Meet our Presenters

Dr Brooke Bullock is a Medical Interview Coach with over six years’ experience working with doctors as they prepare for resident, specialty program, and fellowship interviews. Brooke has a long-standing interest in medical officer recruitment which stems from a belief that preparing for an interview should be like preparing for one of the biggest exams of your career.

Brooke works as an Advanced Pharmacist at Gold Coast Health and has experience practicing across numerous diverse environments as a Medical Education Officer, a Researcher - having completed her PhD in 2020 - and as an Accredited Pharmacist with the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacists.

Dr Ashe Coxon, (MBBS, FRACGP, DCH, MClinEd, Grad Cert Career Development, AFANZAHPE), is a General Practitioner and career counsellor and is the founder of Medical Career Planning.

Dr Coxon has been working with doctors and medical students for over 5 years to assist them to find happiness in work, whether that is medical, non-medical, clinical, or non-clinical. Dr Ashe provides individual appointments, group workshops, consults to organisations and provides online courses.

What attendees said

“Amazing course!! Well presented and interactive. Gives a really good structure for preparing for interviews and building up confidence.”

“Brooke is a dynamic, knowledgeable interview coach who absolutely gave me the edge in my interview. She coached me through my preparation and allowed me to put my best foot forward on the day.”

“This is extremely helpful. I feel thrilled. This is the last missing piece of the puzzle.”

“Thank you for your help. I have been telling everyone to consider doing this - it is so good to feel confident in what I am doing and why."

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