Wake Forest University School of Medicine (MD) Medicine Interview — Format, Questions & Prep Tips

Wake Forest trains MD and PA students together. Describe a time you worked in a team where you were not the most senior person. How did you contribute while respecting others' expertise?

Interprofessional education is genuine here — show you understand that PA-level clinical expertise is substantive and that good teams are not strictly hierarchical.

Tell us about a time you disagreed with a teammate or supervisor. How did you raise it while keeping the working relationship intact?

AAMC interpersonal competency. Show respectful assertiveness, focus on the issue rather than the person, and a willingness to be wrong.

Why Wake Forest specifically? What about its interprofessional, team-based culture and its place in North Carolina fits how you want to train?

Connect genuine respect for collaborative practice to Wake Forest's embedded IPE, and reference the rural and Appalachian populations the school serves. Avoid generic praise.

Wake Forest serves rural and Appalachian North Carolina, a region with high rates of diabetes, hypertension, and opioid misuse. What draws you to serving medically underserved communities?

Show concrete awareness of the region's health challenges and a credible, personal source of motivation rather than a generic wish to help.

Tell us about a time you learned something important from someone in a non-physician role — a nurse, technician, social worker, or PA. How did it change your thinking?

This previews the IPE culture. Show you already value the expertise of the wider care team and can name what you learned.

What kind of physician do you hope to become, and why does team-based, whole-person care matter to that vision?

Tie your future-self vision to collaborative practice and to the kinds of communities Wake Forest serves. Specificity beats idealistic generalities.

Rural Appalachian North Carolina has among the highest opioid mortality rates in the US. What has driven the opioid crisis in this region, and what does an effective physician response look like?

Discuss economic despair, historic over-prescribing, pharmaceutical marketing, limited treatment access, and harm-reduction approaches such as medication for opioid use disorder and naloxone distribution.

A PA on your team makes a clinical recommendation you think is wrong. The attending is unavailable. How do you handle the disagreement in front of the patient?

Patient safety first, raising concerns respectfully and ideally away from the bedside, and recognizing that hierarchy should not silence valid concerns nor license disrespect of a colleague.

A patient with diabetes in a rural county cannot afford the medication and the nearest specialist is two hours away. How do you weigh ideal care against what is achievable for this patient?

Discuss generic and patient-assistance options, telehealth, sliding-scale clinics, and shared decision-making that meets the patient where they are rather than prescribing an unworkable ideal.

A colleague repeatedly cuts corners on documentation to save time. It has not harmed a patient yet. Do you say something, and to whom?

Professionalism and patient safety, the duty to address concerns directly first where appropriate, and escalation when behavior persists. Show proportionality.

Walk us through a research or scholarly project you have been part of. What did you learn about working in a team to answer a question?

AAMC thinking-and-reasoning and science competencies. Emphasize your specific contribution and any collaborative dynamics, which fit Wake Forest's team ethos.

Describe a subject you initially struggled with. What changed in how you approached it?

Show metacognition and resilience — how you diagnosed the difficulty and adjusted — rather than simply asserting eventual success.

You are a trainee. A patient's family member confronts you in the corridor, upset that 'too many different people' keep coming in and out of the room. How do you respond?

Acknowledge the frustration, explain the value of a coordinated team in plain language, and reassure them about continuity and communication. A chance to articulate IPE to a patient.

A classmate from the PA program tells you they feel talked down to by some of the MD students. As a peer, how do you respond?

Listen and validate, reflect on your own behavior, and model the collaborative respect Wake Forest expects. Avoid defensiveness on behalf of your cohort.

You are shown data showing that rural NC counties have far fewer physicians per capita than urban ones, alongside worse chronic-disease outcomes. How do you interpret the link?

Access barriers, workforce maldistribution, travel and economic obstacles, and the role of pipeline programs and team-based care in extending reach. Avoid implying the gap is about patient choices.