Panels at every level ask for reflection: tell us about a mistake, a case that changed your practice, feedback you received, a time you were out of your depth. They score honesty, insight and the concrete change that followed, and candidates who have never reflected on purpose tend to describe the event and stop. Gibbs reflective cycle gives the structure, and compressed to two minutes it answers the question.
The six steps
Description: what happened, briefly and factually.
Feelings: what you felt at the time and afterwards. Panels want this because insight starts here, and because a candidate who felt nothing about a mistake is worrying.
Evaluation: what went well and what did not, honestly. Even in a mistake something usually went well, often the response to it.
Analysis: why it happened. The system factors, your own part, the knowledge or judgement that was missing. This is where the learning is.
Conclusion: what you learned, stated plainly.
Action plan: what you now do differently, with evidence that it stuck.
Compressing it
Two minutes allows a sentence or two per step, with the analysis and the action plan carrying the most weight. The panel is listening for the change, so do not run out of time before it.
For the mistake question
Describe the mistake plainly and own it. Say what you felt. Say what you did at the time, including telling the patient and your senior. Analyse why: tired, rushed, assumed, did not check, did not know. Say what you learned and what you changed, and give an example of the change in action since. Choose a mistake with consequences; a trivial one reads as evasion, and one where someone else was responsible reads as blame.
For the case that changed your practice
The case told briefly, then the analysis of why it changed you, then the specific change and how you know it held. Panels score the concreteness of the change over the drama of the case.
For feedback received
The feedback, how it felt, what you did with it, the change. The absence of defensiveness is scored, and so is the evidence that you now seek feedback rather than wait for it.
At different levels
Medical school applicants reflect on school, work and volunteering; the structure is identical. Juniors reflect on placements and first mistakes. Consultants are expected to reflect on complications, incidents and the way they led, with a maturity that acknowledges their own part in system failures.
Common mistakes
Description with no analysis. Feelings skipped. A conclusion with no action plan. An action plan with no evidence it stuck. And the mistake that was not really yours.
Practising
Pick one mistake, one case and one piece of feedback. Write each through the six steps, then say it aloud in two minutes with the analysis and the change given most of the time. Have someone ask "and what would you do differently now?" at the end.