The Ohio State University College of Medicine (MD) Medicine Interview — Format, Questions & Prep Tips

A patient in the ICU is deteriorating. The family insists on full resuscitation, but the medical team believes continued intervention is futile. How do you navigate this conflict?

Autonomy vs. beneficence/non-maleficence. Reference palliative care consultation, ethics committee, cultural competence in end-of-life discussions, and POLST/MOLST frameworks.

[Role-play] The person across from you is a first-year medical student who just failed their anatomy practical. They are visibly distressed. You have 8 minutes.

Active listening first — do not problem-solve immediately. Validate feelings, ask open questions, explore what support they need. Offer resources (counseling, academic support) without imposing them.

Ohio has among the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths nationally. Should physicians who overprescribed opioids be held criminally liable?

Distinguish civil negligence from criminal intent; discuss DEA enforcement, systemic prescribing culture, pharmaceutical company culpability, and the chilling effect on pain management.

Why Ohio State specifically — what in the Wexner Medical Center environment or Bridges curriculum aligns with your goals?

Name specific research centers (James Comprehensive Cancer Center, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute), the Buckeye Health Initiative, or MSTP if applicable. Avoid prestige-only answers.

A pharmaceutical company offers to fund a free clinic in an underserved Columbus neighborhood in exchange for branding and the right to distribute promotional materials. Should the clinic accept?

Community benefit vs. commercial influence on patient care; conflict of interest, FTC guidelines on health claims in promotional materials, and patient trust.

You are on a hospital quality committee. A senior surgeon resists a new evidence-based protocol for post-operative infection control. How do you approach the situation?

Interprofessional teamwork, hierarchy navigation, evidence-based medicine advocacy, and change management. Avoid antagonising the senior colleague in your framing.

AI diagnostic tools are now FDA-cleared for reading chest X-rays with sensitivity exceeding many radiologists. How should medical schools respond in curriculum design?

AI augmentation vs. replacement debate; clinical decision-making with AI, accountability for AI errors, the human physician's role in edge cases and communication.

Tell me about a time you witnessed a systemic healthcare problem — not a clinical one, but a structural or policy problem. What did you do?

AAMC Social Skills competency. Be specific: show you identified a pattern, not just a single incident, and that you took or advocated for a concrete action.

A colleague confides that they submitted a falsified lab value in a patient chart to avoid paperwork delay, arguing it did not affect care. What do you do?

Medical record integrity, duty to report, patient safety even for "harmless" errors, whistleblowing protections, and the culture of safety.

An assessor shows you a graph of Ohio opioid-overdose deaths over the last decade with a sharp inflection when fentanyl entered the supply. What does the figure tell you, and what would you want to know before interpreting the trend?

Read the inflection carefully; distinguish prescription-era trends from the illicit-fentanyl era. Discuss confounders (reporting changes, polysubstance deaths) and avoid over-reading a single chart. At least one OSU station often involves Ohio health context.

Tell me about a time you joined a team or organization and left it measurably better than you found it. What did you actually change?

OSU's blinded MMI means you cannot rely on your file — make the example vivid and concrete. Show initiative, follow-through, and measurable impact rather than mere participation, and reflect on what the experience taught you.

A patient with low health literacy has just been prescribed a complex post-discharge medication regimen and seems overwhelmed. You have a few minutes before you are pulled to the next patient. How do you make sure they leave able to manage it?

Teach-back, prioritizing the few must-know points, plain language, and written or visual aids. Surface barriers (cost, literacy, support at home) and arrange follow-up. Assessors score whether real understanding occurred, not how much you said.

Describe a scientific or clinical idea you find genuinely fascinating, and explain the part that is still unknown or contested. Why does the unanswered question interest you?

Shows intellectual curiosity and comfort with uncertainty — qualities OSU's research-intensive environment values. Be specific and avoid reciting facts; the point is how you reason about the edge of knowledge, not what you can recall.

A patient who is uninsured in Ohio needs a medication that is far cheaper as a brand they cannot afford than as the generic that is out of stock. They ask you to just 'pick whatever is free.' How do you approach the decision and the conversation?

Cost, access, and honest shared decision-making; patient-assistance programs, formulary alternatives, and avoiding paternalism. Show you take the financial reality seriously as a clinical factor rather than treating it as separate from the medicine.

[Role-play] A standardized patient is a worried family member who has just learned their relative's diagnosis is more serious than expected. They are angry that 'no one told them sooner.' You have 8 minutes.

Validate the anger before explaining; do not get defensive about the team. Listen, acknowledge the communication gap, give clear information at the family's pace, and outline next steps. OSU scores composure and empathy in interpersonal stations.