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

Why GWU — how does Washington, DC’s health policy and global health ecosystem specifically align with your career goals?

Reference specific federal agencies (NIH, CDC, HHS, FDA), international organisations (PAHO, WHO/AMRO, World Bank), congressional health policy, or specific GWU global health programmes. Generalities will not suffice.

The US spends more per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation but achieves worse outcomes by most metrics. What structural factors explain this and what would you prioritise changing?

Reference administrative overhead, lack of universal coverage, fee-for-service incentives, fragmentation, pharmaceutical pricing, social determinants. Argue a prioritised position — this is a policy literacy test.

Tell me about a global health experience — your own or one you studied. What did it teach you about health system design?

Be specific and analytical. GWU’s global health emphasis means interviewers probe whether you’ve genuinely engaged with health systems differences across countries, not just participated in a medical mission trip.

A country where you are on a global health rotation lacks the equipment to perform a procedure your patient needs. You have personal contacts who could arrange a private supply at high cost. What do you do?

Avoid importing inequity. Discuss the principle of resource equity, local capacity building, sustainability, and the problem with one-off individual interventions. Work within the system rather than around it.

You are presenting a research poster at a health policy conference. A senior senator approaches and asks you to summarise your findings and their policy implications in two minutes. How do you do it?

Practise a concise lay summary of a real or hypothetical project: the problem, what you found, and a specific actionable implication. Demonstrates GWU’s expectation that physicians engage with policy audiences.

Pharmaceutical companies fund a significant portion of continuing medical education (CME) in the US. What are the risks and how should they be managed?

Discuss conflict of interest, evidence that industry funding influences prescribing behaviour, ACCME requirements for disclosure, and the argument for publicly funded CME. Argue a position.

How has your non-clinical background (research, policy, advocacy, international work) prepared you to be a better physician than if you had gone straight to medical school?

Frame your unique background as an asset to patient care — systems thinking, policy awareness, cultural competency. Avoid implying the standard pathway is insufficient — show what you specifically add.

The US opioid epidemic has evolved from prescription opioids to illicit fentanyl. What does this shift mean for harm reduction and public health responses?

Reference naloxone distribution, fentanyl test strips, safe consumption sites (legal status varies by state), SAMHSA frameworks, the role of primary care in buprenorphine prescribing, and racial disparities in overdose deaths.

A patient who is a federal employee discloses to you that they are engaged in activities that may violate their agency’s ethics rules. This has no direct bearing on their health. What do you do?

Medical confidentiality applies — this is not a reportable condition. You are not a law enforcement mechanism. Maintain the therapeutic relationship. If the activity were to directly harm identifiable third parties, the analysis changes.

You are a student on a clinical team. A patient from a culture where family members traditionally make healthcare decisions asks that all communication go through her son, not her directly. How do you handle this?

Respect cultural values while maintaining the patient’s autonomous right to information. Check privately with the patient whether this is her preference. If she consents to this arrangement, honour it. Ensure she has access to information independently if she wishes.

A health-policy station shows you a chart: US health spending per capita far exceeds peer nations while life expectancy lags, and the gap has widened over two decades. What do you scrutinise before using this to argue for a specific reform?

Probe the comparison: what's counted as health spending, denominator and demographic differences, the role of social spending versus medical care, and within-US disparities the average hides. GWU rewards applicants who treat policy data rigorously rather than weaponising a single statistic.

Role play: You are a student at a DC free clinic. A patient who lost employer coverage doesn't understand the insurance options being described and is anxious about a bill. (The interviewer plays the patient.)

Translate policy into plain help: explain ACA marketplace and Medicaid options simply, connect her to an enrollment navigator and the clinic's financial counselling, and reassure her about emergency-care protections. GWU's policy emphasis is meaningful only if you can also meet an individual patient where she is.

GWU sits inside the federal health ecosystem and offers a concurrent MD/MPH through the Milken Institute SPH. How do you envision using policy or public-health training alongside clinical medicine, and what would you actually do with it?

Be specific and concrete — name agencies (NIH, CDC, HHS, FDA), an organisation, or a policy problem you'd work on, and how the MD/MPH structure serves it. Avoid treating policy as a credential; show a genuine, actionable vision that fits GWU's distinctive DC position.

A patient tells you he won't get the recommended vaccine because of something he read on social media. How do you respond in a way that builds rather than breaks trust?

Don't lecture or shame. Explore the specific concern, acknowledge his autonomy, share clear evidence and your honest recommendation, and keep the door open. GWU emphasises physicians as credible public communicators in a misinformation-heavy landscape — model that one-on-one.

You are on a global-health rotation and a well-funded short-term medical mission proposes a one-week surgical camp that local clinicians say undermines their continuity of care. How do you weigh the competing goods?

Apply the equity and sustainability lens GWU stresses: short-term missions can import inequity, distort local systems, and leave no follow-up. Privilege local leadership, capacity-building, and continuity over visible one-off interventions. Argue a position that resists 'helicopter' global health.