Gastroenterology Fellowship Mock Interview
Practice 35 Gastroenterology Fellowship interview questions covering clinical cases, procedural skills, and program fit.
Question 25 of 35
Talk about a time you had a conflict with a patient during your residency training. How was it resolved in a healthy manner?
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Ryan Brown created and launched MockQuestions in 2008.
Gastroenterologists need to be able to handle patients who are stressed, in pain, or angry respectfully and healthily. As you interview with GI Fellowship programs, your interviewers need to know that you can handle patient conflicts with ease, and asking about a time you had to do this during residency training gives them a great indication of how you will handle conflict in training.
Ryan Brown created and launched MockQuestions in 2008.
"During my time rotating in a busy outpatient IM clinic during my second year, I had a patient that was very irritable about the waiting time. As I was examining the patient, he became very vulgar with this language about our staff and nobody caring about the wait time he had experienced. First and foremost, I didn't take his foul language personally and decided to let him air his thoughts out. Once he was done and I was still performing my examination, I apologized for the wait time and assured him that all staff was doing their best to handle a busy clinic schedule. I reiterated that all of our providers were committed to providing focused care to each and every patient, including him. This comment alone really settled him down and I know that simply letting him talk out his grievances without getting defensive was important in this situation."
Ryan Brunner has over ten years of experience recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates in the healthcare, public service, and private manufacturing/distribution industries.
Describe a simple scenario briefly, focusing on your response to the challenge rather than describing the details of the conflict. When you discuss how you handled it fairly, emphasize that clear communication was instrumental. Describe what you took from that situation that you will put into practice as a Gastroenterology Fellow.
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I had a patient that was very irritable about the waiting time in the clinic. As I was examining the patient, he became angry toward our staff, and nobody cared about the wait time he had experienced. First and foremost, I didn't take his bad language personally and decided to let him air his thoughts out. Once he was done, I apologized for the wait time and assured him that all staff was doing their best to handle a busy clinic schedule. I reiterated that all of our providers were committed to providing focused care to each and every patient, including him. This comment alone really settled him down and I know that simply letting him talk out his grievances without getting defensive was important in this situation.
Marcie's Feedback
Nice! It sounds like you were very considerate toward the patient and understood the need for him to express his frustrations. What else did you do to calm him down? Were you an active listener? Did you stay calm and use a certain tone of voice? Assure the interviewer that you are fully capable of handling conflict. Great job!
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