Building strong relationships with people from all walks of life is a vital skill for any medical student to possess. What are your strengths and areas for growth in this respect?

In posing a question like this, your interviewer at this MMI station will respect medical school candidates who are honest about the types of relationships they have grown and fostered. Come to your medical school MMI prepared to discuss one of the relationships you have built that was solidified on trust and respect.

With a question that asks you to highlight a strength and a weakness like this one, start with a positive, then go into a negative and finish on a positive note. Discuss your strengths in dealing with patients from any background and give an example of a time you have done this. When you move on to your shortcoming, discuss your plan of action to overcome that weakness. In your closing statement, reiterate that your strengths will far outweigh your projected weaknesses.

"As a kind, courteous, and respectful person, I'm looking forward to building trusting relationships with my fellow student colleagues, the faculty of this program, the precepting physicians I will rotate with, and the patients I will care for. Growing up in a small town, values like hard work, keeping your word, and helping your neighbor were instilled in me as a young man, and I will bring those values to my time in medical school and into my career. If my experience is lacking anywhere, it is working closely alongside people from different cultural backgrounds than me being from a small midwestern town where everyone looks the same. But I don't think this will impede my success in your program or wherever I land following my training. The last four years of my undergraduate program have exposed me to working alongside students from all over the globe, and I love learning from others. I will always work hard to learn the cultures and ways of life with my patients."