Resources

Three outside preparation documents, summarised in our own words. None of them is about the ACD interview. Each one says plainly what transfers and what does not - because two of them are Australian and neither is dermatology, and the one that matches the format almost exactly is British.

Before you take advice from any of these: take nothing in with you

The Westmead notes tell you to bring your documents, including the position description. ACD does not permit pre-prepared notes at any time. Your CV is not required. Pen and paper are provided. Follow the College’s rule, not the notes’.

Use a structure from any of these. Never name one in an answer.

A structure is invisible and does the work. A citation is visible and does the opposite: naming a UK regulator or a surgical college's policy in an ACD station advertises that you prepared from the wrong book, and invites a follow-up you cannot win. Say you would check whether the department has a protocol - not what some other jurisdiction's document says.

Which one is worth what

They rank in opposite orders on the two things that matter, and that is the whole point. Take structure from one and content from another - never both from the same document.

Source	Format match to an MMI	Content match to ACD
Picard - Medical Interviews (ISC Medical)	Best. Multi-station, timed, marked against competency indicators, includes a live role-play station.	Worst. UK institutions throughout - regulator, guidance documents, grades and escalation ladder all have different names here.
SE notes 1 & 2 - handwritten, RACS	Poor. RACS selection, a different structure and a different competency set.	Best of the three. Australian professionalism frameworks, the same regulator, the same hospital furniture.
Interview Techniques Notes 2019 - Westmead	Worst. A single panel, a written position description, and a closing questions-for-us slot the ACD MMI does not have.	Middle. NSW Health, right system - but junior-doctor job content, not College selection.

Interview Techniques Notes 2019

Australian (NSW) - hospital job interview, not an MMI

Right health system, wrong process: one panel, a written position description, and a job rather than a training program.

Author: Andrew Baker, Director of Prevocational Education and Training, Westmead Hospital
Year: 2019
Jurisdiction: NSW, Australia
Written for: Westmead junior medical officers applying for RMO, SRMO and registrar posts

Delivery mechanics from someone who has sat on the other side of the table for twenty years. The mechanics travel; the apparatus around them does not.

What it teaches

Its argument is that the interview can outweigh the CV, and that the commonest reason candidates do badly is simply that they have not prepared - which a panel can usually tell inside a minute. Preparation is then defined concretely rather than urged: know the criteria, know what the department is known for, talk to people before the day, and arrive with a stock of your own examples already matched to what will be asked.

The back half is a taxonomy. What panels across every specialty are really listening for underneath the stated criteria; the criteria that recur and the questions each one generates; and about ten common question types with the trap in each spelled out.

Its most transferable idea is the smallest: a set of scaffolds you can reach for when a question arrives and no structure suggests itself. Name the number of points before you give them. Give a global summary first, or if that fails you on the spot, at the end. Immediate, medium and long term. You, the other staff, the patient, the institution. None of it is specific to any specialty and all of it is usable in a station.

Techniques worth taking

Repeat the question back

Say the question back in your own words before answering, even when you heard it perfectly. It is closed-loop communication and it buys you three seconds.

In an ACD station: Pairs with the assumption line. Repeat it back, name the assumption you are making, then start - that is fifteen seconds of visible thinking that reads as method rather than delay.

Name the number before the content

Say how many points are coming, then give them. A candidate who says three and is cut off after one is credited with three.

In an ACD station: Stations end on a timer, not on your last sentence. This is the single cheapest insurance against being moved on mid-answer.

Two all-purpose scaffolds

Immediate, medium term, long term. Or: you, the other staff, the patient, the institution. Either turns a blank into a structure.

In an ACD station: For the stem that fits none of the frameworks. The multiple-perspective one also reliably surfaces the other patients affected, which is the issue candidates most often miss.

Extending an answer

When you have already blurted the first thing that came to mind, widen it deliberately with a scaffold instead of stopping.

In an ACD station: The recovery for a bad opening ten seconds. You are not starting again; you are adding a second axis to what you just said.

Answer the part you know first

In a multi-part question, take the part you are strongest on first. You may be moved on before the rest.

In an ACD station: ACD follow-ups arrive in order and time runs out. Order is yours to choose.

Calibrate to your level

Aim to convey that you are better than average for your stage, not the best they will see. Every claim of capability needs evidence attached, and the flourish that tips into arrogance discredits the true part of the sentence.

In an ACD station: Underselling is the more common failure, so decide beforehand the two or three things you will not leave the building without having said.

Policy awareness, not policy recall

Knowing that a policy exists and how you would find it scores. Guessing what is in it does not.

In an ACD station: Works in every governance or escalation station, and it is the honest answer, which matters more than it sounds.

Answer from the right role - and ask

Candidates default to answering as the resident. Panels usually want the registrar. If the stem does not say, ask.

In an ACD station: It is already line one of the reading ritual. This source is where that line comes from.

What transfers

- All of the delivery mechanics above. They are format-independent - they are about how a person sounds under time pressure.
- The recovery repertoire: pause at the start rather than mid-answer, ask for a repeat, admit a false start and restart, hand the panel the exit, never talk over an interruption.
- What panels want underneath the stated criteria, including the one almost nobody prepares for: whether you will make your supervisor's life easier.
- The warning about clinical scene-setting. Prove a point; do not tell a story for its own sake.

What does not

- The position description and formal selection criteria the whole document is organised around. There is no PD in ACD selection; the nearest equivalent is the eight competencies.
- Bringing documents with you, including the position description. ACD does not permit pre-prepared notes at any time - see the conflict below, which is the one item here that could get you into trouble on the day.
- The closing “any questions for us?” slot. Several pages of advice for something that does not exist in the MMI.
- NSW junior-doctor clinical furniture - Between the Flags, DETECT, PACE, the four-hour rule, the incident reporting system. Real, but it belongs to an inpatient job interview. (The NSW incident system has moved on from the name used in the notes.)
- Referee reports, CV validation, being known around the hospital, an independent panel member. None of it bears on a College MMI, and your CV is not required on the day.
- Sitting your less-wanted interviews first for practice. There is one interview.

Where it independently agrees with DermKata

Worth knowing: these are conclusions a separate source reached on its own.

- Structure before content, and say the structure out loud.
- Every assertion of capability needs evidence attached.
- Underselling is more common than overselling.
- Get to the point; clinical detail has to earn its place.

Where it contradicts DermKata - and which wins

Source Be organised - bring a copy of the relevant documents with you, including the position description.

DermKata Pre-prepared notes are not permitted at any time. Your CV is not required. Pen and paper are provided.

The College rules win, absolutely and without nuance. This is the one item in the whole reading pile that could cause you a problem in the building rather than in an answer. Take nothing in.

lib/data/reference.ts → LOGISTICS.rules

Parts of this source are already in the app rather than on this page - the delivery mechanics, the recovery repertoire and what panels want, on Reference. This entry adds what was left out of them.

Medical Interviews - Olivier Picard (ISC Medical)

UK NHS, all specialties - format transfers, institutions do not

The station format and the shape of a good answer carry over almost intact. Every regulator, policy and training structure named in it is British, and none of them does.

Author: Olivier Picard, with a consultant urological surgeon and a consultant paediatrician as editors
Publisher: ISC Medical (Interview Skills Consulting), United Kingdom
Year: online edition, 2009–2020
Jurisdiction: United Kingdom (NHS)
Written for: UK CT, ST and registrar selection - all specialties

The closest thing in the pile to an MMI manual - and the furthest from an Australian one. Take the marking model and the delivery chapters; leave every institution named in it behind.

What it teaches

Part one takes a modern multi-station selection process apart station by station: portfolio, motivation and interpersonal, academic, clinical governance, ethical dilemmas, plus the practical stations - role play, presentation, group discussion, clinical skills.

Its third chapter is the most valuable thing in any of these four documents and has no counterpart elsewhere: it explains how candidates are actually marked. Each question carries a list of positive and negative indicators, performance is scored against them, and - the part worth internalising - some negatives are decisive rather than merely costly. A single decisive negative can wipe out a station. The examples given are an approach that is unsafe for the patient, and failing to act on a colleague who is endangering patients.

The two chapters after that are delivery technique and frameworks. The remaining two thirds are worked answer banks by theme and a large section on UK health policy, which is where the book stops being usable here.

One coincidence is worth knowing about. Its dermatology role-play example - you reassured a patient that a mole was benign, they sought a second opinion, and a preliminary look suggests you confused two patients' biopsy results - is structurally almost the 2025 ACD missed-melanoma station. The station type is not new and it is not unique to this College.

Techniques worth taking

Reverse-engineer the indicators

Before rehearsing any answer, write down the four positive and four negative indicators you think a marker would be holding for that question. Then answer to them.

In an ACD station: The most portable idea in the book and the one that is directly implementable tonight. Do it for the eight competencies and you stop guessing what a station is for.

Decisive negatives

Some errors are not point losses, they are station enders. An approach that leaves someone unsafe, or a colleague endangering patients that you do not act on.

In an ACD station: Reframes the trap list. There is a difference between an answer that scores three and an answer that cannot score at all, and the second kind is a short, memorisable list.

Answer the question asked, not the topic named

Asked about your experience of governance, candidates recite a definition of governance. Asked to describe their own communication skills, they explain why communication matters. Both are avoidance wearing the costume of content.

In an ACD station: This is the sharpest thing in the book and it is nearly universal. Before you answer, check whether the first sentence is about you or about the topic.

What, how AND why

Its before-and-after rewrite of a difficult-patient answer keeps every single action the same and adds only the reasoning behind each one - and the second version is the one that scores.

In an ACD station: The best drill in the book. Take any answer you already give and add the why to each step without adding a step.

Three or four points, never ten

Listeners cannot hold more than about four. If you need more, the structure is wrong, not the listener.

In an ACD station: Pairs with naming the number first.

Vary where you signpost

Signposting at the start is easier to do. Signposting at the end - context first, then the message - sounds less military. Alternate, or stay at the start until you are confident.

In an ACD station: Six stations of identical scaffolding starts to sound rehearsed. This is the fix.

Objectivity as a modesty device

Rather than asserting you are an excellent listener, report the feedback you have been given. It lets you say the same thing without it landing as a boast.

In an ACD station: Useful for the attributes question, where an unevidenced adjective scores nothing and a self-assessment scores worse.

Role-play mechanics

Open posture, do not loom. Use eye contact to read distress, not only to build rapport. When the actor turns hostile, slow down and drop your volume - people tend to follow. When an unexpected disclosure lands, ask them to say more: it buys composure and scores listening. Finish with a summary, because marks are allocated to it.

In an ACD station: ACD runs a live actor consult - the 2025 isotretinoin station. The twist in these stations is designed, not bad luck, so treat it as the point rather than as a derailment.

The honest caveat about body language

Body language follows confidence, and confidence follows preparation. Working on posture early, at the expense of content and structure, is a net loss.

In an ACD station: Permission to spend the remaining weeks on answers rather than on presence.

What transfers

- The marking model, the indicator lists, and the idea of decisive negatives.
- All of the delivery technique, and STAR essentially as the app already teaches it.
- The role-play chapter, which is the only serious treatment of a live actor station in the pile.
- Answer length: 90 seconds to two minutes, up to three only for a genuinely open question. An independent source arriving at the same place as the app's own spoken target.

What does not

- Every UK institution in it: the regulator and its good practice guidance, the raising-concerns document, the national person specification, deaneries, Trusts, the long term plan, the public inquiries, statutory duty of candour, revalidation, the doctors' union. Australian analogues exist, under different names, saying different things.
- The UK escalation ladder by name. Same shape, different offices - substitute the local ones.
- The portfolio station and its marking of CVs, logbooks and publications. ACD does not ask for your CV on the day.
- Presentation stations, group discussions and clinical-skills stations. Not in the ACD format.
- UK grade and place vocabulary - the training grades, the mess, the bleep, A&E, the deanery. Using it marks you out immediately.

Where it independently agrees with DermKata

Worth knowing: these are conclusions a separate source reached on its own.

- Answers of roughly 90 seconds to two minutes.
- Three or four points, signposted.
- Never end on a cliffhanger; land the result and the reflection yourself.
- Speak in I, not we. Collective framing is a one-line preface, not an answer.
- Evidence behind every claim; report feedback rather than asserting qualities.
- Underselling is the common failure.

Where it contradicts DermKata - and which wins

Source SPIES - seek information first, patient safety second.

DermKata SPIES-D - make safe FIRST, then seek information; and two steps the acronym has no equivalent for, document and system fix.

The app's version wins, and this book supplies the reason: a station where somebody is unsafe right now and you spent the opening gathering information is its own textbook example of a decisive negative. Worth knowing the acronym has more than one published expansion, so you are not thrown if someone else uses it differently.

lib/data/reference.ts → SPIESD

Source CAMP - Clinical, Academic, Management, Personal.

DermKata CAAMP - five rows: Academic splits into Education and Research, and Management stands on its own.

Use the five-row version for ACD; it is what the College's own interview-prep material shows. Management is the row candidates drop, and it is precisely the one that makes an answer sound registrar-level.

lib/data/reference.ts → CAAMP

Source Escalation is rewarded, and failing to escalate can be decisive.

DermKata Escalating immediately, as your first move, reads as avoidance.

Not actually opposed. The app's caveat is “unless patient safety is live”, and this book's decisive negatives are all cases where it is. Make safe and escalate when someone is at risk; when nobody is, go to the source first and escalate with a reason.

lib/data/reference.ts → TRAPS

Source Avoid abbreviations entirely, including familiar ones, because lay members sit on panels.

DermKata A vocabulary list of exactly those terms, because the right term scores.

Use the term and gloss it in the same clause. That satisfies both: the marker hears the vocabulary, the consumer representative hears the meaning. ACD panels include Community Engagement and Advisory Committee members who are not clinicians.

lib/data/reference.ts → VOCAB

3 more sections behind a free account

Read all the source breakdowns

Free. What transfers from each document, what does not, and which version wins where they disagree.

These summaries are written from the documents, not taken from them. Nothing here reproduces a passage of any source, and where a source and DermKata teach different things the difference is stated rather than smoothed over.