MSU College of Human Medicine (MD) Medicine InterviewFormat, Questions & Prep Tips

MSU Human Medicine trains physicians across seven Michigan campuses — many in smaller, underserved communities. Why is that model appealing to you?

Show awareness of the specific campuses and the populations they serve. Reference any personal ties to Michigan regions or community health experience.

A low-income patient is non-adherent to their diabetes medications because of cost. You know a more expensive but more effective medication would better control their disease. How do you approach their care?

Social determinants framework: address cost barriers, pharmaceutical assistance programmes, community health workers, and shared decision-making. Avoid blaming patient non-adherence without exploring structural context.

Should Medicaid cover gender-affirming surgery? Defend your position.

Evidence-based mental health outcomes for gender-affirming care vs. cost concerns. Address the Affordable Care Act Section 1557 anti-discrimination protections and Medicaid coverage evolution.

Role play: A patient's family member is angry that their elderly relative's care is being "given up on" by the palliative care team. You are the medical student. How do you respond?

Empathy first, clarification second. Do not defend the care team until you understand the family's specific concern. Use open-ended questions. Offer to connect them with the physician.

Flint, Michigan experienced a public health crisis when the water supply was contaminated with lead. What are the long-term health consequences, and how should the healthcare system have responded?

Demonstrates Michigan-specific health systems knowledge. Address lead neurotoxicity, systemic racism in environmental health policy, and the physician's role in public health advocacy.

Which of MSU's seven clinical campuses would you prefer and why?

Answer specifically. Show that you have researched the campus (Grand Rapids, Flint, Traverse City, Upper Peninsula, etc.) and the health challenges of that community.

A colleague asks you to cover for them during a shift they missed because of a personal crisis. You barely know the patients. How do you handle this?

Patient safety vs. colleague support. Address handoff protocols, documentation, informing the attending, and the limits of competency when unfamiliar with the patient.

You are presenting in a student case conference and you realise mid-presentation that you made a factual error in your assessment. What do you do?

Intellectual honesty, error correction in real time, and professional composure. Do not minimise — acknowledge, correct, and continue.

What does health equity mean to you, and can you describe a time when you personally worked to reduce a health disparity?

Be specific — name the disparity, the intervention, and the outcome. MSU strongly values candidates who have moved beyond awareness to action on health equity.

A 17-year-old patient discloses to you that they are sexually active and requests STI testing and contraception without parental notification. What do you do?

Address Michigan minor consent laws for sexual health services, Title X confidentiality, and the physician's ethical duty to protect both patient autonomy and wellbeing.

Station: you are shown blood-lead-level data for Flint children before, during, and after the water crisis, alongside data on follow-up developmental screening rates. In your station time, interpret what the data does and does not establish about long-term harm.

Be concise for the 8-minute station: distinguish exposure data from causal claims about individual outcomes, note the importance of long-term follow-up, and avoid overstating certainty. Connect to MSU's health-equity and Michigan-specific focus.

Station role play: a patient from a Flint family is angry and distrustful, telling you 'the system poisoned us and then moved on.' You are the medical student. How do you engage with them?

Demonstrate the encounter live. Validate the legitimate anger, do not defend institutions reflexively, and focus on what you can concretely offer now. Tests communication and humility under emotional pressure in MMI format.

Station: MSU emphasises social determinants of health as an analytical framework, not a slogan. Walk me through how you would use it to explain why two patients with identical diagnoses might have very different outcomes.

Thinking & Reasoning. Apply the framework structurally — housing, food security, transportation, insurance, health literacy, discrimination — to show you can reason with SDOH rather than merely name it, which MSU explicitly screens for.

Station role play: you are explaining a new asthma action plan to a parent who is overwhelmed, juggling three children, and has told you they 'don't have time for all this.' How do you proceed?

Demonstrate prioritisation and teach-back live. Identify the one or two most critical points, check understanding, and adapt to the parent's constraints rather than delivering the full plan verbatim.

Station: MSU trains across seven Michigan campuses serving very different communities. Tell me which campus and community you would choose, and what specific health challenge there you would want to address.

Be specific and decisive given the station format. Name the campus (Grand Rapids, Flint, Traverse City, Upper Peninsula, etc.) and a real regional challenge, showing you understand the distributed model rather than treating campuses as interchangeable.