Questions to Ask a Doctor in an Interview
Questions for sitting down with a physician to learn what the work actually involves: the shape of a day, training and cost, difficult cases, and what they would tell someone considering medicine. Written for students, career changers and anyone writing a profile.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did yesterday look like, start to finish?
Why ask it
Asking about one specific day gets you clinic blocks, rounds, on-call and the charting done after everyone else has gone home. If the answer is that every day is different, ask again about yesterday in particular.
How did you land on your specialty rather than the others you considered?
Why ask it
The interesting part is what they ruled out. Doctors usually remember the rotation that put them off surgery or psychiatry, and that comparison says more about the work than a list of what they enjoy.
What part of the job would surprise someone who only knows medicine from television?
Why ask it
Most doctors have a stock answer here about paperwork or how rarely anyone shouts. Ask a follow-up and you usually get the real gap between the job's image and its texture.
How much of your week is time with patients, and how much is everything else?
Why ask it
Numbers make the complaint concrete. If they say two hours of notes every evening, you have learned something a student choosing a specialty can actually use.
What does the training take, in years and in money?
Why ask it
Timeline and debt are the facts career conversations skip. Ask for both, because one without the other gives a misleading picture of what the path costs.
How do you tell someone something they do not want to hear?
Why ask it
Listen for a method: sitting down, saying it plainly, then waiting. Doctors who only talk about being compassionate often have not thought about the mechanics, and the mechanics are what can be taught.
What do you do when a patient does not follow the plan you agreed on?
Why ask it
Answers split between blaming the patient and asking why the plan did not fit their life. That split tells you how they see their own share of the relationship.
How do you keep up with new research when there is so much of it?
Why ask it
Specifics beat sentiment: which journals, which summaries, how many hours a month, who they ask. A doctor who says only that they read a lot does not have a system.
What happens when you genuinely do not know what is wrong?
Why ask it
Good answers involve naming the uncertainty to the patient and describing the next step. Be wary of anyone who implies this rarely happens to them.
What happens on your end after an outcome goes badly?
Why ask it
This is where you learn about case review, disclosure and what support exists for the clinician. It is also the question most likely to draw a guarded reply, so leave it until they are talking freely.
Who else is in the room, and who has the final call?
Why ask it
Asking who decides gets you the working hierarchy: nurses, pharmacists, consultants and where the friction sits. A list of job titles will not show you that.
Is there an ethical decision you are willing to talk about?
Why ask it
Letting them choose the case avoids a rehearsed answer about principles. What matters is whether they can describe a decision they still feel unsettled about.
What do you do when a patient refuses the treatment you recommend?
Why ask it
The answer shows whether autonomy is something they hold or something they tolerate. Ask for a case where the refusal turned out to be reasonable.
What have the hours cost you outside work?
Why ask it
Ask about the effect rather than the schedule. Missed events, broken sleep and whether they would take the same rota again say more than a number of hours ever does.
What has changed most in your field since you trained?
Why ask it
Someone twenty years in can describe the same condition treated three different ways. That history is not in any textbook a student would be handed.
Which new tool in your field actually changed your practice, and which one was oversold?
Why ask it
Naming the oversold one takes more candor than praising the useful one. If everything has been an improvement, you are getting the brochure version.
What do you teach students and residents that is not in the curriculum?
Why ask it
What they add tends to be judgment: when to call for help, how to hand over, how to admit you are lost. That is the part worth writing down.
How does a patient's money or insurance change the care you can give them?
Why ask it
Asked plainly, this separates what is available from what is affordable where they work. Answers that retreat into policy in the abstract are avoiding the question.
What part of this still gets to you, after all these years?
Why ask it
Late in a conversation this gets past the polished material. Anyone who says nothing is difficult anymore is either performing or exhausted.
If someone in your family were set on medicine, what would you tell them?
Why ask it
Making the advice personal produces a straighter answer than asking about people in general. Listen for whether they would encourage it at all.
Interviewing a physician
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you sit down
Find out what they actually do
A hospitalist, a surgeon and a family physician have almost nothing in common day to day. Ten minutes of reading beforehand lets you ask about their work rather than about medicine in general.
Ask how long you have, and plan for half of it
Clinical schedules collapse. Pick your five most important questions and put them first, so a twenty minute conversation that becomes ten is still worth having.
Ask before recording
Recording is usually fine if you ask, but do it at the start. Doctors are careful about anything that could touch a patient's confidentiality, and consent given up front avoids a guarded conversation.
During the conversation
Ask for one case, not a category
A request for a specific patient encounter, with details changed, gets a real answer. A question about how they handle difficult cases in general gets a policy statement.
Follow the number
When they say a shift is long or the notes take forever, ask how long and how many. Quantities are easy for clinicians to give and are the details a reader remembers.
Let silence sit
The questions about bad outcomes and uncertainty often produce a pause. Filling it with a softer question is how interviews stay shallow.
What to avoid
Do not bring your own symptoms
Turning the conversation into a free consultation ends it. If you have a medical question, say so plainly at the end and accept a redirection to your own doctor.
Do not push for identifiable detail
Asking which patient, when, or at which hospital puts them in a difficult position. Let them keep the story general enough to tell.
Do not treat the job as heroism
Praise tends to shut down candid answers about hours, pay and frustration. Ask about the work and let the difficulty show up on its own.