Duke University School of Medicine (MD) Medicine InterviewFormat, Questions & Prep Tips

Duke compresses the basic sciences into Year 1 and clerkships into Year 2, then frees Year 3 for scholarship. Why does that structure appeal to you specifically?

Show you understand Duke's accelerated 'Year 1 science, Year 2 clinical, Year 3 research, Year 4 advanced' model and why a protected scholarly year fits your goals. Do not describe it as merely an early start to clinical work.

Even if you intend to be primarily a clinician, the DCRI is the world's largest academic clinical research organisation. How does clinical research fit into your vision of practice?

Frame research literacy as part of being an excellent clinician: reading and critiquing trials, contributing to evidence, and the translational pipeline. Duke wants physicians who can interrogate evidence, not only apply it.

Tell us about a problem you couldn't stop thinking about. What did you do about your curiosity?

Use this to reveal the intellectual drive Year 3 demands. A genuine, sustained question — academic, clinical, or community — matters more than a polished result.

What would you want your Duke classmates and faculty to say about you by graduation?

Reveal values and self-awareness. Tie character traits (reliability, intellectual honesty, generosity to peers) to concrete behaviours rather than listing adjectives.

Rural eastern North Carolina has severe primary-care shortages and high poverty, while the Research Triangle prospers nearby. What obligation does a Duke-trained physician have toward those communities?

Engage rural health policy, HPSA designations, workforce pipelines, and the limits of individual obligation versus systemic solutions. Acknowledge the genuine tension between elite training hubs and rural need.

A patient in a clinical trial you are helping run wants to keep receiving the study drug after the trial ends because she believes it is helping. How should the team respond?

Cover post-trial access, the therapeutic misconception, equipoise, and the duty owed to research participants. Duke's trial-heavy environment makes research ethics concrete, so reason carefully rather than reflexively.

Genomic testing reveals an incidental finding unrelated to why the patient sought care. Do you disclose it, and how do you decide?

Weigh the right to know, the right not to know, actionability, and the duty to recontact. Precision-medicine and genomics are central in the Research Triangle, so show structured ethical reasoning.

Is it acceptable to enrol patients in a placebo-controlled trial when an existing treatment is available? When is placebo justified?

Discuss clinical equipoise, the standard-of-care comparison, informed consent, and patient protection. A nuanced answer distinguishes settings where placebo is and is not ethically defensible.

Explain to a patient with no science background what a clinical trial is and why you cannot promise the treatment arm will help them.

Avoid jargon, manage hope honestly, and convey randomisation and uncertainty plainly. The goal is informed trust, not reassurance that overstates benefit.

Describe a time you had to deliver feedback or difficult news to someone. How did you approach it?

Show empathy, clarity, and follow-through. Reflect on what you would keep or change, demonstrating the relational skill Duke expects alongside intellectual rigour.

Year 3 is a dedicated research or scholarship year. What question are you drawn to, and what might your project look like?

You do not need a finalised plan, but a real driving question signals readiness for the Year 3 model. Any rigorous area is welcome — basic science, clinical, health services, policy, or global health.

Walk me through a research experience. What was genuinely yours, and what did the result actually show?

Separate your independent contribution from supervised tasks and be precise about findings and limitations. Methodological honesty is prized at a research-intensive school.

How do you decide whether a published trial should change your practice?

Address internal validity, generalisability, effect size, confidence intervals, and conflicts of interest. Show you can move from a paper to a clinical decision deliberately.

A research participant tells you she no longer wants to continue in the study but worries she will 'let the team down'. Speak with her.

Reaffirm her right to withdraw without penalty, relieve the guilt, and ensure she leaves understanding her care is unaffected. Protecting autonomy comes before protecting the study.

A classmate on your Year 3 project is not pulling their weight and a deadline is approaching. Have the conversation with them.

Address the behaviour, not the person, with curiosity about what is going on. Aim for a constructive plan rather than blame, while being clear about shared accountability.

A trial reports a statistically significant 2% absolute reduction in a surrogate endpoint. How would you interpret that for a patient, and what would you still want to know?

Separate statistical from clinical significance, question the surrogate's link to outcomes that matter, and ask about number needed to treat, harms, and cost. Duke rewards numerate, sceptical reading.