UH Fertitta Family College of Medicine (MD) Medicine InterviewFormat, Questions & Prep Tips

Houston's Third Ward and Acres Homes have some of the highest poverty and chronic disease rates in the city. What does it mean to be a physician trained specifically to serve these communities?

Be specific about Houston's underserved neighborhoods. Show you understand the social determinants: food insecurity, housing instability, limited public transit, language barriers. Demonstrate genuine community awareness, not just abstract equity commitment.

A patient who is undocumented needs a procedure that your hospital cannot bill for. The administrator is pressuring you to discharge the patient. What do you do?

Address EMTALA, patient rights, hospital charity care obligations, your ethical duty as a physician independent of financial considerations, and appropriate escalation channels.

Role-play: A patient speaks limited English and needs to understand a complex treatment plan. You have a telephone interpreter available. How do you conduct this conversation?

Demonstrate professional interpreter use (speak to patient, not interpreter), plain language, checking for understanding, pacing the conversation, and cultural sensitivity.

Why UH Fertitta rather than Baylor or McGovern, which are already established Houston medical schools?

Reference the community-embedded model, UH's diversity (most diverse research university in the US), the urban underserved mission vs. the Texas Medical Center's more tertiary focus, and the small cohort mentoring environment.

You discover that a clinical protocol at your hospital is systematically undertreating pain in Black patients compared to white patients. What do you do?

Acknowledge implicit bias and structural racism in clinical practice. Discuss documentation, quality improvement processes, reporting to ethics committee or patient safety officer, and medical literature on racial disparities in pain management.

What is a social determinant of health and how does addressing it differ from treating a disease?

Define social determinants (housing, food, income, education, transportation). Distinguish individual clinical treatment from upstream intervention. Reference community health workers, FQHC models, and the limitations of the exam room as the only point of care.

You are a student working in a community health clinic and a patient tells you they stopped taking their medication because they couldn't afford it. How do you respond?

Show practical problem-solving: patient assistance programs (NeedyMeds, manufacturer PAPs), 340B drug pricing for FQHCs, generic alternatives, and referral to social work. Avoid blame or dismissal.

University of Houston is one of the most diverse universities in the United States. How does that institutional diversity shape the kind of physician you would become at UH Fertitta?

Reference concrete diversity dimensions: multilingual student body, first-generation students, veterans, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Connect to the cross-cultural communication skills, perspective-broadening, and peer learning that a diverse learning community generates — and how these skills translate directly to caring for Houston's diverse patient population.

MMI station: you are shown that a clinic in Houston's Third Ward has high rates of missed appointments. The clinic considers this a 'patient compliance' problem. What alternative explanations would you investigate first?

Reframe 'non-compliance' as access barriers: transport, work hours, childcare, appointment systems, and trust. UH Fertitta's social-determinants mission rewards applicants who interrogate structural causes before blaming patients.

MMI role-play: a patient at a community clinic in Sunnyside tells you, with some hostility, that doctors never stay and never really listen, so why should they trust you. Respond to them.

Acknowledge the legitimacy of distrust rooted in real history and experience, avoid defensiveness, and commit concretely to listening and continuity. Tests humane engagement with underserved patients who have been failed before.

MMI station: explain to a community member, without jargon, why training physicians inside underserved neighborhoods rather than only at the Texas Medical Center could change health outcomes.

Make the community-embedded model tangible: physicians who understand and stay in the communities they serve, continuity, trust, and addressing determinants on the ground. Connects directly to UH Fertitta's distinctive mission.

MMI reflection station: tell me about a time you were the outsider in a community and had to earn trust. What did that teach you?

Show genuine humility and learning rather than a saviour narrative. UH Fertitta, embedded in one of the most diverse universities in the US, values applicants who can build trust across difference authentically.

MMI station: what does the evidence suggest about whether placing clinics and training in underserved communities actually improves access and outcomes — and what are the limits of that approach alone?

Engage the rationale critically: proximity and community trust help, but clinics alone don't fix housing, food, or income. Show you understand both the promise and the limits of the place-based model the school is built on.

MMI station: you notice that patients who speak limited English at your clinic consistently get shorter visits and fewer questions answered than English-speaking patients. What do you do?

Name it as an equity and quality problem, address interpreter use and workflow, and raise it through QI or supervisory channels constructively. Reflects UH Fertitta's focus on equity in a multilingual, diverse patient population.

MMI role-play: a teammate in your small learning group makes a comment that stereotypes a low-income patient population. The group goes quiet. What do you say?

Address it directly but constructively in the moment, center patient dignity, and invite reflection rather than shaming. The school's equity mission and small-cohort model make peer professionalism a tested competency.