Campus Connection

Alumni, physician volunteers help UWL students prepare for medical school interviews

[caption id="attachment_5796" align="alignnone" width="685"] UWL Alumni Physician volunteers at the event were from left: Dr. David Rushlow, Dr. Heather Stefaniak, Dr. Stephanie Maves, Dr. Yvonne Datta and Dr. Martin Sievert.[/caption] UWL student Karissa Sime-Peschel walked into a small hospital room where a young woman was crying because of her father’s failing health. Sime-Peschel was the father’s doctor — according to the script. [caption id="attachment_5878" align="alignright" width="265"] Karissa Sime-Peschel[/caption] Although the situation was only a medical school mock interview organized with the help of UW-La Crosse alumni and other physicians, the practice round made Sime-Peschel consider the kind of empathy and patient and family advocacy that would be required of her in a future medical career. Increasingly medical schools across the country are trying to tap into applicants’ people skills — such as empathy, cultural sensitivity and ability to work effectively within a team — in their quest to find strong candidates to become future doctors. These skills are important for success in an increasingly team-based healthcare industry. This push for well-rounded doctors has led many medical schools to expand the format of medical school interviews, moving from a traditional long-form interview to including multiple mini interviews. M.M.I.s are brief interviews with multiple evaluators that include short scenarios with doctor-patient role playing. They tap into an applicant’s soft skills and help eliminate the bias of a single bad interview. The medical school interview style change is one of the reason’s Yvonne Datta, ’82, and her husband, Milt Datta, both physicians, decided to volunteer to help create and support an annual medical school mock interview event for UWL students planning to go to medical school. After meeting with the university’s pre-med committee, they developed the first on-campus medical school mock interviews in September 2015. The second event was Sept. 10. [caption id="attachment_5800" align="alignleft" width="300"] Yvonne Datta, ’82, and her husband, Milt, both physicians, volunteered to create the medical school mock interview event. Yvonne earned her UWL degree in chemistry and went on to earn her medical degree from the University of Minnesota.[/caption] “We thought this would be a good way to expose pre-med students to the Multiple Mini Interview and increase their chances of being admitted to medical school,” says Yvonne. “Being able to feel comfortable interviewing is a big deal.” During this year’s event, 13 students and one recent graduate of UWL gained hands-on experience interviewing with the help of nine volunteer physicians, staff members and other students as patient actors. Five of the volunteer physicians who participated in the all-day event were UWL alumni. UWL Biology Professor Peg Maher, who has been a pre-med advisor since the late 90s and helped recruit alumni physicians for the event, says interview practice with physicians is extremely valuable to students because they receive feedback that is based on real experiences in the profession. Since the mock interviews were a day-long event, they were similar to what an actual interview process would be like. This gave students the opportunity to engage in less formal parts of the interview process such as informal conversation and lunch, which can also factor into medical school acceptance and hiring decisions, notes Maher. Yvonne says volunteering in this way made sense because both she and Milt are members of medical school admissions interview committees, Yvonne at the University of Minnesota and Milt at the University of Michigan. The University of Minnesota is starting to use the M.M.I. this year, she adds. The University of Michigan has already been using it. [caption id="attachment_5804" align="alignright" width="288"] UWL student Karissa Sime-Peschel participates in a mock medical school interview at UW-La Crosse, an event organized with the help of UW-La Crosse alumni and other physicians. Sime-Peschel and other UWL student participants were exposed to some of the latest medical school interview styles during the event, including this task. Sime-Peschel had to build something with Tinkertoys while her partner — who was sitting behind her and facing the other direction — had a blueprint and gave her instructions on how to build it. They had to create a common language in order to effectively build what he saw.[/caption] Sime-Peschel, a biology major who plans to graduate in May 2017, says she enjoyed the chance to “warm up” for upcoming medical school interviews, thanks to all of the alumni and other volunteers. In addition to giving her practice with the traditional long-form interview process, it also exposed her to the new M.M.I. “My interviewers were helpful in giving me hints toward what topics I should focus on, and identified areas where I could improve,” she says. A minor in theatre has coincidentally played to her advantage for this new M.M.I. interview format, she adds. “In many acting classes, you are taught to say ‘yes’ to whatever happens and respond to it accordingly,” she says. “This helped during the M.M.I.s where we were stepping into a particular role, as it allowed me to focus only on the present interaction — instead of thinking inside ‘Oh my goodness, this is awkward.’" UWL senior Jack Komro, a biology major, plans to graduate this December and is awaiting interview offers from medical schools. He appreciated the immediate and constructive feedback from physicians during the mock interview. “The mock interviews and input from physicians helped me realize what I should consider adding to or removing from my application if I need to reapply next year,” he says. “The mock interviews also helped me realize what I should become more informed about in terms of healthcare.” UWL Director of Development Jeff Meyer says hearing the positive feedback from alumni and students about the event makes it a highlight of his year. “Not only do the students benefit, but the alumni share with me that they like being able to give back in this way,” he says. “This is connecting students to alumni in a meaningful way and it’s a fun event because of that.” Yvonne says she enjoyed working with the students and seeing their enthusiasm. “I think La Crosse is doing a good job of helping them to prepare. They are all very self-motivated and interested in helping people,” she says. “They will do well because of that.” Alumni physician volunteers included: Dr. Yvonne Datta, ’82 Dr. Stephanie Maves, ’00 Dr. David Rushlow, ’86 Dr. Martin Sievert, ’07 Dr. Heather Stefaniak, ’99 Non-Alumni Physician Volunteers Dr. Milt Datta Dr. Brian Manske Dr. Mary Rathgaber – UWL employee Dr. Ben Wedro – married to Kelly Shannon. ’87 View more photos from the event.