MMI role-play stations: how to start, how they push back

A role-play station is not a conversation about a patient. It is a conversation with someone who will not follow your script.

You walk in (or the Zoom camera comes on) and the person in front of you is a parent, a peer, a junior, a patient, or a colleague. They have instructions. Your job is to stay in the scene, find out what they need, and do the next right thing under a clock.

Not every Australian MMI uses actors. UQ's current briefing pack says they do not currently use acting or role-play stations. UNSW is a structured panel. Auckland's 2026 general MMI is a Kira recording, nobody pushes back live. Adelaide's public degree page describes scenarios and questions, not simulated patients. Melbourne's GEMSAS entry says stations could include practical tasks, short films, or explaining your thinking, that is not the same as an actor. Read the invite. Then practise this anyway if any school on your list might use it.

What an MMI is still holds: this station has its own mark. A beautiful "why medicine" in the previous room is irrelevant.

How to start (the first thirty seconds)

Reading time is for the task, not a speech. Thirty seconds is a common window, not a national rule. Monash currently gives two minutes. Auckland currently gives thirty seconds and then you are on camera alone.

Extract:

• Who they are (patient, parent, classmate, colleague).
• What they want (information, an apology, a result you may not be able to give, for you to hide something).
• What your role is (student, volunteer, friend, not a consultant unless the stem says so).
• The constraint (confidentiality, safety, time, a policy).

Then go in and greet them as that person, not as an examiner. Sit. Introduce your name and role. Check you have the right person. Ask how they would like to be addressed. One ordinary human opening beats a polished paragraph.

Do not start with "I can see this is a really difficult time for you" as a reflex. You have not seen anything yet. Ask what is going on. Let them talk. Silence is allowed.

If you are a medical student in the stem, you are not their treating consultant. Do not invent a diagnosis. Do not promise a test you cannot order. AHPRA's Good medical practice still frames the values, honesty, respect, confidentiality, working within competence, not exploiting the power imbalance in a doctor-patient relationship, but you are not quoting it at an actor. You are not quoting the UK GMC either.

How they push back

The actor's job is to make the first plan fail. Typical pushes, as practice vehicles, not as leaked stems:

• "Don't tell anyone." Confidentiality versus safety. You do not panic-dump the secret, and you do not collude. You name the limit, who you would need to involve, and why.
• "You're just a student." True. Agree. Then do the student-shaped next step: listen, check understanding, fetch the right person, do not bluff.
• Anger. Volume is not a cue to match. Slow down. Name the issue. Do not explain their feelings to them.
• A demand you cannot meet (a scan today, a guaranteed offer, a lie to a parent). Repeat the request so they know you heard it. Explain the limit without hiding behind "policy" as a shield. Offer what you can do.
• They cry, or they shut down. Stop adding information. Ask if they want a pause, a support person, or to continue.
• "What would you do in my position?" Do not grab the decision. Give the information, the options, and space.

The follow-up from an examiner, if there is one after the actor, is often "why did you do that?" Have a reason, not a vibe. On an asynchronous recording there is no actor and no follow-up. Do not practise only one mode.

Ethics in the scene, not as a lecture

Ethical stations and role-plays overlap when the conflict is live: a friend cheated, a parent wants results, a classmate is unsafe to see patients. In a discussion station you reason about the people. In a role-play you reason with one of them.

Still take a position. Still name who is affected. Still leave a next step. Do not recite autonomy-beneficence-nonmaleficence-justice at a crying parent.

Australian context can walk into the room: a rural patient who cannot get back, a billing confusion, a culturally unsafe comment from a peer. Closing the Gap is not a line to drop. It is whether you listen without making the person a teaching case. In New Zealand the same rule applies with different documents: MCNZ, Te Tiriti, Māori as tangata whenua.

JMP's personal-qualities page says you may undertake activities, not only talk. That is still not permission to invent a physical exam. Stay inside the stem.

What not to do

• Talk over them to finish your structure.
• Touch them unless the stem and the school make that appropriate, default is do not.
• Break the scene to wink at the examiner.
• Invent clinical facts.
• Apologise fifteen times and never act.
• Dump your why medicine origin story.
• Use the person's distress as a prop for your empathy performance.
• Perform warmth, the over-nod, the scripted "that must be really hard", instead of finding out what is actually happening.

If you finish early, sit in the role. UQ tells discussion-station applicants to stay silent rather than chat; an actor station is different, check whether they still have something unsaid.

How to practise

You need a person who will not be kind. Give them a stem and three push-backs on a card. Eight minutes, or whatever clock your invite actually uses. You may not restart. Swap. Do this more than once.

Practise the opening twice as often as the middle. Most marks are lost in the first minute by explaining the exam instead of meeting the person.

On Zoom you cannot hand someone a tissue you do not have. Name the limit ("I cannot pass you a glass of water from here") and keep going. Do not mime hospital theatre. What to wear is interview clothes, not scrubs you have not earned.

After UCAT, Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Situational Judgement, the Sep to Dec timeline is the calendar. One actor session with a stranger is worth twenty written "model role-plays."

MasterMed's first speaking station is free on /interview. No card. The trial never auto-converts. Use it to hear a timed start, then add a human who is allowed to get angry, which a recording cannot fully replace.

If your only remaining interview is a panel or a Kira recording, spend the hour on that format instead of hiring an actor for a station you will not sit.