The first Australian hospital interview for most overseas trained doctors is for a resident medical officer, senior RMO, career medical officer or unaccredited registrar post, and the questions are the same as for local graduates. The format is tight and the pattern is well reported: about twenty minutes, a panel of three or four, four to six questions answered briefly, and at least one clinical scenario about recognising a sick patient and asking for help early. This guide covers what comes up and what the panel is listening for.
The format
A panel of three or four: the director of training or a medical workforce lead, a consultant, often a nurse manager. About twenty minutes. The reported pattern is an opening question on your experience or your interest in the role, questions on conflict and errors, strengths and weaknesses, and a clinical scenario in two parts: the call from the nurse, then what you find. Some hospitals run it as timed rooms with a question in each.
The opening questions
Tell us about your experience and how it makes you a suitable candidate for this role. Two minutes aimed at the role, newest first, with the acute experience and the procedures that match the job.
What are your long term career goals, and why this hospital? A credible path (the training programme, the exams, two years from now) and something specific about this hospital and its community.
What strengths do you bring, and what is one weakness you are working on? A strength with an example, a real weakness with the step you are taking.
What qualities should a doctor at this level have? Which do you have, and which do you lack? Safe, organised, communicates well, asks for help early, works with nurses, keeps learning, looks after themselves. Honesty about the gap scores higher than claiming them all.
Why Australia, and how will you adjust to the Australian health system? Real reasons, then a plan: learning the systems and the vocabulary, asking colleagues, orientation, a mentor, and expecting to be slower at first.
The behavioural questions
Describe a conflict between you and another member of the team. A situation where you displayed leadership. A situation where you displayed teamwork. A situation where you displayed effective communication. A nurse complains that an intern is not attending calls and not doing their duties. STAR form, your own actions and the outcome clear, respect for nursing and allied health evident.
The error questions
Describe an error you made in your practice and what you did to fix it. Describe a situation where your consultant noticed you had made a mistake and how you reacted. Own the error, say what you did at the time including telling the patient and your senior, and what changed. The worst answer has no error in it.
The clinical scenario
A nurse calls you about a patient two days after surgery who now has chest pain and is short of breath. What do you do? Then: on arrival they are tachycardic and hypoxic. Go and see the patient, ABCDE, oxygen, access, ECG, bloods and a gas, chest imaging, think of the embolus, the pneumonia and the infarct, treat what you find, and call the registrar early with ISBAR. Say what you would start before help arrives and what would make you call a rapid response.
Variations: the patient who collapses in emergency; the clinical review call; the post operative patient who has not passed urine; the nurse who insists you give a medication you do not know; the wrong patient given antibiotics. Each has the same structure: see the patient, assess systematically, treat, escalate early, and know your scope.
The system questions
What do you know about the Australian health system and how public hospitals work? What is AHPRA and what does your registration require of you? What is the role of a resident, and who do you report to? What does cultural safety mean to you? What are this hospital's values? Learn the structures in plain words and the values accurately.
What the panel is listening for
Whether you will go and see the patient and escalate early. Whether you are honest about errors and about what you do not know. Whether you will work with experienced nurses rather than over them. Whether you have chosen this hospital deliberately and have a plan for registration and training.
Preparing
Write a one minute answer to each question above with a specific in it. Prepare the clinical scenario with its second part and the ISBAR handover. Learn AHPRA, the Medical Board, the National Standards and the hospital's values. Practise aloud with someone who probes once. Most candidates need a session a day for a week or two.