Residency Interview Questions Sample Answer #6

Residency Interview Question #6: Tell us about yourself.

Sample answer: I’m the middle child of two sisters; our parents owned a café and sandwich shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – a poor Italian neighborhood with strong family values and a penchant for southern-style Italian restaurants. Ours was parked right down the middle, facing the Williamsburg bridge. Our building had a black and white mural of a little girl with her fists pressed into her sullen cheeks, a perfect expression for the embodied pessimism of our poverty and struggle to make ends meet. When I was twenty-two, my grandfather passed away. He died from complications from diabetes, a condition he suffered from since he was a boy. The day we took him to the hospital, my life changed forever. Inside the hospital, the doctors did everything they could – they threw the kitchen sink at it. The loop diuretics didn’t work, nor the valve surgery, medication, or the bypass. There was a calm urgency in the swift chatter and movement of the doctors – it mesmerized me or for a moment, cauterized my grief.

His passing didn’t help with our finances, either. The shop wasn’t making profit, and our grandfather was he backbone of that establishment. I took a gap year in university so I could focus all my efforts on getting the restaurant back on its feet. I changed the menus; my sister, the head chef, found some old recipes in the book my grandfather left us. The response from our customers was brilliant. They loved the food and service. Our ratings increased and slowly, we became known as one of the best restaurants in Williamsburg, and even in all of Brooklyn. When I went back to medical school the next year, while I still worked part-time at the restaurant, I kept that determination and applied it to my studies. I’ve always dreamt of a better life for my family and for myself, and my interest in medicine and my craving for more stability are what motivated me throughout my journey.

Click here to go back to Residency Interview Questions.

Click here to get help with your medical residency interview prep!