-from a list of the 100 most common medical school interview questions
As my daughter and I rehearse for the interview,
I assure her no one asked me the cookie question,
though I would have replied with a smile,
“I’d be my Nana Pearl’s butter cookie,”
a two-inch shortbread star baked golden brown,
chocolate kiss in the center.” Though my answer
implies love for my grandmother and reverence
for recipes passed down through generations,
a hungry interviewer might have wondered why
I would wish to be squeezed from a stainless steel
press, one standardized star in a baker’s dozen.
Maybe the question is a test to uncover applicants
who crumble under pressure, or a tactic to learn
how much dough the future doctor hopes to earn.
I guess the cookie query makes as much sense
as questions they cooked up for me—
“If you were a ship, where would you sail?”
“What is your favorite ice hockey team?” and
“What will you do if you don’t get into medical school?”
which became my favorite, because by the time
someone asked, I was already cooling on the rack.
Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.
