Hi. In interviews and written applications, for questions like 'what is your greatest accomplishment' or 'why are you an excellant candidate for medicine' how can I answer without sounding arrogant or boasting?
This question has sort of been touched on by
whoartthou (who may have more to add) here:
Medical Interviewer FAQ!.
Note that I’m not an interviewer so the following is simply my viewpoint.
For the first question, if you’re able to qualify
why it’s your greatest achievement without sounding like you’re boasting then you should be ok. E.g. if your greatest achievement was winning a national competition, you could focus on how you’d worked very hard for months on preparing for it and how you were very proud that it all payed off. In contrast if you simply said “I won a competition and beat everyone else in the country” then that would come across as boasting. Focus on yourself, rather than the performance of others, and it should be ok. Naturally this is very much dependent on the achievement you choose (obviously not all achievements involve doing better than other people!).
For the second question: what is your answer to this and why do you think you’re boasting? If you focus on individual traits that you think would make you a good doctor then I think you can definitely do this in a non-arrogant manner. If your answer is that you think you’re very smart and that would make you better than others then naturally this will come across the wrong way. However, if you’re outlining personal qualities e.g. altruism, then tactfully qualify this by explaining why you believe you have this trait / ways in which you have demonstrated this trait in your life and how this links to making you a good doctor.
Remember that you
are there to sell yourself, so while you don’t want to boast or be arrogant, you shouldn’t hide achievements or characteristics that you want the interviewers to know about. Have a practice answering these questions aloud with other people and ask them if they think it sounds like you’re boasting or being arrogant - if they say yes then there’s an indication you need to change something up. If not, then you should be ok.