For 2025, the interview comprises two components, each lasting 10 minutes each, and the overall interview will be approximately 45 minutes. This was new for 2024, and our question bank reflects this newer format.
Ophthalmology ST1 gets more competitive each year, and with the removal of ST3 level recruitment, we expect this to continue. In 2024, there were more than 14 applicants for every single post. This is another increase on 2023, when the competition ratio was more than 9.
The highest-scoring 300 candidates from the MSRA will be invited to upload their evidence folder, and those who score 40% and above will be invited for interview.
To score well and get your first choice job, you need to prepare for the interview like you would your exams.
Effective preparation focuses on two areas: Knowledge and Delivery.
The Ophthalmology ST1 interview is knowledge-intensive. If you don’t have the knowledge, it doesn’t matter how slick your delivery is, you won’t get the marks.
Equally, you might have consultant level knowledge, but if you don’t deliver it well, all those hours preparing will be for nothing!
This is your opportunity to demonstrate why you would make a good Ophthalmology trainee.
This is where we come in…
We are proud to have developed 35 carefully crafted scenarios that mirror the interview, to help you prepare and maximise your chances of scoring your dream job. We’ve been doing this for a while now and know how important it is for the question bank to be up-to-date. Each year, our high-scoring editors make changes to the question bank to ensure it reflects the most recent interviews. Our team has secured some of the most competitive training jobs in previous rounds, and we want to help you do the same!
Best of all, we’ve presented it in an easy to understand format, on a platform that you can access anywhere.
The 2025 interview is broken down into two parts, each lasting 10 minutes. Both parts of the interview involve an actor, two consultant ophthalmologists who will be watching and listening, and a member of the recruitment team administrating.
For your interview, you should ensure you have a strong understanding of the fundamentals of clinical ophthalmology, in order to do well in this station. We provide example scenarios laid out exactly how they are in the interview, to help you maximise your score.
Several different types of communication skills will be required in these scenarios, such as breaking bad news etc. We provide an overview of potential scenarios, including how to approach them. This ensures that no matter what they give you, you’re fully prepared.
When we were preparing for our specialty interviews, getting accurate and helpful advice felt near impossible. The recruitment websites only provide you with so much information, and whilst asking those who have done the interview is useful, sometimes all it did was make us more nervous, instead of actually helping us to prepare.
Since then, we have been filtering through all the good and bad resources, so you don’t have to, and our high-scoring core trainees have put it all together in one place, the Medibuddy Online Ophthalmology ST1 Training Interview Question Bank.
Sign up now to start preparing!Our mobile app allows you to access your interview and exam question banks wherever you are.