Medical secretary interview

[MonicaGellerBing]

I have an interview next week for a medical secretary in the NHS. I am highly experienced having been one for years before I left to raise a family, but I am rubbish at interviews. The last time I was interviewed I didn't get it as a failed on the question 'tell me about a time you witnessed a near miss in patient care and what you did about it' I could not for the life of me think of a time I had witnessed anything like that and had to tell them I didn't have an answer for them, this lost me the job.

So, if they ask me this question again can anyone help me think of an answer... doesn't have to be true!

In my case a man fell down some steps , flat on his face and somehow up side down.
I was straight out the office , grabbing a colleague abs we got him off his frint and sat on the status till more help came (he was absolutely fine )
Another time a lady started to collapse behind him, and I managed to turn and catch her.
My dh caught somebody who was behind him falling off a kerb They were going down and he stuck his arm out backwards and they grabbed it and staggered back up.
Is that the sort of thing you mean?

I interview people in my current role within the NHS, if you are asked a question like that and can't think of any real life examples I would advise you to be honest, state that you don't have direct experience of that scenario however in theory this is how you would deal with it. This shows you can think quickly, react to the situation and still answer the question without needing experience of the situation.
Good luck!

Could you watch a few back episodes of Casualty?? Maybe you could be honest and say this never happened to me but this is what I would do in this sitch? Otherwise keep rehearsing an imaginary scenario until you believe it yourself?? I came up with a marvellous story of how I went above and beyond to provide a good customer service. I sort of embellished on a situation that might have happened! Dropping off a replacement to customer’s house, taking H and S into account etc.

A near miss can almost be anything. Can you think of a time when you noticed a discrepancy in a patients care record and brought it to the attention of the right person? Or something that had been missed? They want to know you have an eye for detail and get involved.

Just a few things that might help if the question does come up again!

• Stress the importance of remaining calm. Assess the situation, don't go lifting patients/moving limbs if you don't have the correct medical training as you may do more harm. Seek urgent help from relevant people e.g. medical professionals, senior managers etc.

• Clear, succinct and effective communication to ensure that the incident is relayed to others correctly and avoids any unnecessary delay.

• After the near miss (remember the question was near miss!) make sure the incident is thoroughly documented and reported to senior staff and potentially information governance. At my Trust we use a system called Datix to report any incident, near miss or similar. This helps to create a record of the incident and find a suitable solution to prevent it from reoccurring.

Thank you everyone some great ideas and advice there, lots to go on

I would keep to a more admin-focussed example eg something like I spotted that it looked like a letter was being addressed to the wrong member of a household (both members were patients under the same clinician), queried with the clinician in question, mistake was rectified and therefore a potentially serious breach of patient confidentiality avoided.

Ooh that's a good one @rubbishatballet thank you!

No worries, and you can really expand on that example to talk about the importance/your knowledge of patient confidentiality, data protection etc protocols generally. Brush up on and reference the Caldicott Principles (Principle 5 being particularly pertinent for this example) and they'll be eating out of your hand!

Good luck

I also agree that this is an admin focussed question rather than an emergency one and would use the examples listed in the last few replies. If asked about an actual physical near-miss, I would say that I'm not medically qualified to evaluate this, however if there was a medical emergency in front of my eyes whilst at work, I would immediately call either a doctor or nurse in the clinic and relay to them clearly and calmly what I had witnessed, then ring an ambulance, move other patients if possible and generally be helpful until the situation was resolved.