casper very very common uh mistake is jumping into conclusions for students jumping into conclusions and assuming things and sounding judgmental without them knowing they're sounding judgmental and then all of a sudden that's it that scenario is a zero and that's not the position you want to be in case you've never seen any of our past events my name is verus momenty i'm the ceon founder here at i'd like to introduce ronza who is our associate director of consulting and one of our lead admission experts uh i'd like to introduce you to meng who is our manager of consulting department and next uh it's ashley who is our lead coach actually it actually is involved in training a lot of our admission experts coaching them continuously improving our services your friend and classmate tyler approaches you and asks for your advice on how you and how to handle dispute he's having um with his family tyler informs you that two days ago his uncle had passed away due to an ongoing illness tyler tells you that his uncle requested his body be donated to scientific research and that his uncle was unable to notify any other family members about his dying wish however tyler's mother is insistent on hosting a funeral service for his uncle and does not seem willing to allow his body to be donated to scientific research this disagreement has contributed to increased tension between tyler and his mother and is causing him emotional distress for tyler so before we even look at the questions um you want to be able to identify the type of scenario and the pressing issue here so this seems to be problem solving potentially an ethical dilemma right you don't know the pressing issue here is you want to ensure the well-being of your friend you know his family while still maintaining the boundaries of your friendship right you're not really the decision making a decision maker here but you want to look at all three questions so personally i always tell everyone look at all three questions answer the one you feel most comfortable with accumulate so this allows you to accumulate uh you know the points number one is what advice would you give to tyler in this situation number two after talking with tyler you learned that tyler's uncle had no next of kin or has no next of kin besides tyler's mother does this change how you would advise tyler and number three some have suggested that organ donation should be mandatory for all adults if they wish to receive state-funded health care do you agree with such legislation legislation so um we can kind of see the first two questions can be easily tackled with the the structure and the strategies that ronza was talking about so i'll do that first as they relate directly to the scenario that was presented um so for question one and i'll probably go through one in a little bit more detail than two um i would again highlight the fact that i understand what the pressing issue is before i even dive into it and start gathering information as bronzer mentioned i would be concerned for tyler's well-being as well as the well-being of his mother the relationship between the two and maybe other family members who could be involved in this conflict and i would gather information by just having a private conversation with tyler and asking if if he potentially knows why his mom uh doesn't want his uncle's body to be donated to science uh and if not i think i would first advise him to try and have this conversation with her to try and understand her perspective i would also suggest he look into what kind of consent is needed for um the request to be valid whether it needs to be written in written form or whether it needs to be verbal or and if verbal what counts as sufficient witness so i would suggest an evidence-based approach and a research-based approach to the situation as well um and if he had sufficient evidence about his uncle's wishes i would suggest that he present those to his mother and hopefully in the presence of other family members who could help to mediate the situation and ensure that it doesn't um become more aggravated um so overall you know as his friend i can't really uh tell him what to do except to give him advice and to try to ensure that his relationship with his mother could be restored and that they're dealing with this situation in an ethical way right so that's how i would approach question one hopefully you can see the different components of the structure coming through i did identify who was involved i gathered information i identified what i was concerned about and i outlined some solutions or suggestions in this case that i would offer to tyler in those different situations now question number two uh zeroes in on a specific sub case of this scenario that was given you can again follow the same structure if you would like if there are different considerations that you have if i were to approach this question uh i would maybe present some knowledge about this kind of situation but still follow the roughly the structure that ronza outlined maybe i would say that you know usually next of kin would be notified about these kinds of wishes but then i would again suggest tyler to look into the policies and perhaps speak to a professional if he was not clear about the policies um related to the situation and um so that's part of gathering information not in not on my part but suggesting that tyler gathers this information uh and i would advise him to try to be understanding of his mother's perspective and communicate calmly and respectfully since they are family and will likely continue to interact very closely with one another um i wouldn't want a fallout to occur and that would obviously cause additional stress to tyler and his family so i would try to prevent that as much as possible so again it's it's very similar still keeping in mind what my pressing issue is what my concerns are and trying to suggest things that would uh really ameliorate the situation between tyler and his family one thing i always want to question if i can add in here that if you really wanted to be critical when i said to gather information at the beginning there was a lot of information presented and if you don't want to assume a lot of it like requesting um for uh you know the body to be donated how was that request made and when was it was the uncle in the right state of mind like you could really become very critical when you start getting good at gathering information sorry man no problem no problem yes and there's different like we give you a sample answer i give you a sample answer but um the thing you want to pay attention to is the structure and the points that you want to hit the actual content of each part of that structure could vary from person to person depending on what pieces of information you want to focus on gathering and what kinds of situations that you want to highlight and that you want to suggest a response to so for sure there's different things you can say question number three is a little bit different it's what we call kind of a policy type question and this type of question uh you for this type of question you might want to follow a slightly different kind of structure so i'll quickly outline what that is you want to show your awareness of the policy that's being brought up in the question you'll also want to go through pros and cons which means talking talking about the arguments on both sides the for and against uh and then you'll then want to present your own opinion and you don't have to hedge at this point because you've already objectively gone through the arguments on both sides um so at this point you can just simply present your opinion but also um maybe suggest some modifications or alternatives that would address both sides of this policy so here's potentially what you could talk about this is what i would say in this answer um i would say that this is this could be a contentious issue um uh especially in geographical locations where the government does contribute a significant amount of funding to health care now on the one hand it would provide resources to advance medical science which will actually in turn benefit the general population so it would benefit the person the people donating or the people related to the people donating the organs however it may not take into account uh the various cultural practices and individual world views that could be sidelined because of this policy and cause bias and potential division so my own opinion about this is that i think everyone should have access to health care regardless of whether they donate their organs but the government could potentially create some incentives or educational programs to encourage people to donate um and let them know why uh why that would be beneficial so hopefully that gives you an idea of the structure i just outlined and those would be my responses to these questions perfect can you elaborate more on how your response changes between question one and two um just to stress i would say it would not change uh that much the question is prompting you to make an assumption that there's some sort of like conflict of interest um anything of that nature you still want to be sensitive you still want to gather information and explore if and then and come up with a solution yeah i think this is a great question because you can see that we're still remaining objective non-judgmental gathering information that's why this is the approach we're recommending anytime you encounter a scenario question so now let's do a video based scenario rit let's see what we got going on for today okay so let's take a look at the new clients and upcoming projects hey this doesn't seem right when do we process our new clients oh the ones that were referred by your friend yes the clients from last week their paperwork is incomplete and they should have signed our contract guys this is unacceptable we're more than halfway through the project already okay i've got so much going on i just i can't deal with this right now okay so you and lisa need to take care of this by lunch right i gotta take this listen let's pretend that we didn't notice this mistake i know a way to copy their signatures with other documents to these trust me the director of mind what do you think um just to summarize you or lisa in this situation and there does seem to be some kind of incomplete paperwork that and it was your team's responsibility to obtain that paperwork um and you're on a very tight project deadline uh so there's like some high stress in the situation and the director is upset with you and your colleague given that this paperwork is missing and they she's essentially giving you just a couple of hours to obtain it and your colleague turns around to you and suggests that um the two of you forged the signatures and she asks you what you think all right so a bad judgmental way to answer this no you gotta go to jail this is fraud you didn't gather all the information you can't do that so what do you do in this situation if one of our quotes was um so certainly there is a potential ethical dilemma here but i want to gather all the information to understand what my colleague means by pretending we did not see this um is she saying this without really truly thinking this through does she actually mean this is she actually serious if she doesn't actually mean this one side further inquire great let's collaborate let's work to strategize and make sure that this gets done reach out to the client get that signature and let the director know if however i discover that my colleague is in fact serious and she is pressing to you know proceed uh with her solution i would let her know so this is where you can kind of educate if you're in a position to do so i'd let her know that this is unethical that not only does this compromise the partnership with the client and cause legal sanctions towards her and myself but also it compromises the integrity of the company which could impact discussing uh which could impact other team members of course and the security of their jobs and their families so you could see him considering the impact if after discussing this with her she is still reluctant and wants to proceed i would let her know that at that point i would need to report this incident due to the legal nature of it so just to break this down follow the structure by first gathering information i didn't make any assumptions although i could have made the assumption because it was very direct still said let's give the benefit of the doubt does she actually mean this on the other hand if she did not mean this um then great like let's proceed but if she did let me inform her of the impact of that decision right and considered everyone from the micro to the macro level and then at that point if we still could not come with a solution then i would be forced to uh report this incident because i've already highlighted at that point the nature of it very good i would even i would even say something else what if she's got this person's permission to sign for them i don't know that what if they do so that's great this goes back to that person's question that said how does this change from question one question two it honestly would not change right you still need to gather information if you have someone else's signature and they're going to allow you to copy it that doesn't mean you're bypassing any sort of legal process now if however like again you can keep going to these ifs if however it is legally allowed and there's a company company policy in which once you have a signature on file you could apply it to future projects again you could keep going with those ifs the point is still it's an ethical issue and the pressing issue is ensuring that you're adhering to ethical guidelines so depending on your investigation exactly your director becomes aware of this plan and immediately lets you go why would you say to the director it doesn't seem seems very judgmental the director hasn't alerted [Laughter] yeah so even though you're dealing with such a director it's still important to use the strategy so i would ask the director for a private meeting first off um and just have a conversation with her um and just ask her explicitly can i have the reasons for you know you letting me go i would also take that opportunity to let her know what i had done to prevent this from happening hopefully i had taken the right steps prior to being let go and and that it wasn't something i agreed to hopefully this is not something any of you would agree to uh and if she reverses the decision i would of course go back to work and continue to work hard to ensure that the project runs smoothly and that we get the client's signature if however she is adamant about letting me go and i do feel that it is an unethical decision i might take this to hr and see what my options are with that team but ultimately if it's not up to me i would still try to take this as a positive learning experience for how to avoid conflict in the workplace and how to always act ethically but under no circumstances would i then choose otherwise in this situation with the with the director so he didn't say i'm gonna you know if if i find out so you could do a bad if and then by the way this is a bad way if i find out the director was wrong i'm gonna retaliate do really weird stuff don't do that that's not what this is all about you want to be always the bigger person not just in casper hopefully in real life as an as a future doctor so just because somebody did you wrong you're not gonna be like i'm gonna you know get revenge at the maximum i can so no you're not gonna do that uh take the higher the last question describe a time when you had made a critical error how did you overcome it so this is a personal question um and especially one that appears to want to address some sort of challenge or some sort of setback for any personal question the structure we always advise is to briefly state it if it's a challenge state it in a brief concise manner how did you overcome it what did you learn from it and then of course lastly how is that important moving forward with that knowledge so a quick example for you would be uh something like this i was working as an admin assistant responsible for senior lawyers schedule i was given detailed instructions via email not to schedule the lawyer with a particular client due to the nature of the case during a busy monday afternoon i completely missed this email and i proceeded with requests and scheduling when the lawyer showed up to the office saw the client it was critical that she should not interact with them at all so i had to ask the client to leave of course this was upsetting i decided that from then on i would rearrange my calendar so that emails were done prior to scheduling and that i confirmed after receiving such a critical email in person that i would i can that i would confirm future emails um if they're critical in person in case other details are missing i and then and the takeaways i learn about attention to detail ensuring communication is always top priority which will be critical for my future profession in medicine so the breakdown goes state the challenge how you overcame it and what did you learn and why is it important moving forward perfect so let's go to a snapshot question ashley you want to take this over yeah so casper snapshot is a part of that alta suite that we were just talking about and this as a reminder is an online virtual interview where you're going to be asked to record a verbal response to a question and you only have two minutes to read and respond so you do need to be efficient with your time and have a nice concise response so we have a sample question for you today and this is what is a significant challenge you face and how did you overcome it so the first thing we want to do when we're reading a casper snapshot question is identify the question type just like we were doing for casper this allows you to frame your response appropriately and highlight certain skills that the admissions committee is going to be looking for so this is a personal question as far as the question type and it's asking you to identify how you approach a challenge so what is the approach here to formulate your response similar to what we were just talking about for the earlier casper question for any personal question especially those that are asking you to address something negative like a challenge or a failure you need to state the challenge concisely how you overcame it and you want to be specific not vague and what you learned from the experience why it's important for your future so an example uh casper snapshot response here could be the following after i was diagnosed with lupus i struggled to stay focused on my studies it did not seem to apply myself in any extracurriculars however i was able to learn about my condition join a support group my diet and gym routine and i adapted quickly to my new lifestyle fortunately my academics did not take a nosedive but i learned a great deal of perseverance communication for example i spoke with specialists and others who had similar experiences and i learned to communicate about my diagnosis to my friends and family and what lupus meant for my lifestyle i know these skills would be valuable moving forward in my medical career so you can see i was able to briefly highlight a challenge i identified that for the listener i took accountability so i didn't try to kind of skirt around the issue or put blame on someone else but i also specifically stated what i did to overcome the challenge and what i learned from it and how that's going to apply to my future perfect so let's do lastly duet and you know how do you prepare for this is actually pretty simple for duet because first of all up to now at the time of this conference it doesn't seem to be a critical component i mean again depends what school they're doing etc but the idea is how do they match your profile your desires with what the school offers so the best thing to do to prepare for is be very selective to what schools you apply to so essentially the duet work would be done before you actually have to do it some schools require it again you know it's not every school so if you do let me just tell you what i mean so when you're applying choose the schools this goes back to what we're talking about you know choosing the schools right from the beginning it's coming back again the mission statements match your interest your experiences it doesn't all make sense so that because uh you know there normally the mission statement says that this schools is a research school mostly it's a public service type of an institution it's a institution that's mostly concerned with advocating for diversity etc etc so you could see that when you're selecting the schools and then here's for example a sample question of the duet again it's not official thing this is our own samples and let's say for example it says read the definition of the following two program and choose the one that you value the most you as a person value the most and then one is altruism and patient-centered care the other one is scientific innovation you knowing what schools you have applied to you should know what their mission statements are by the time you're at the duet stage remember duet office stuff comes after you've applied to schools hopefully you're not going to take this before you've applied that's why it makes more sense to take out the suite casper snapshot blah blah blah whatever they're called after you've applied that way when you get to here like oh you know what i know myself i chose mostly the ones that were about scientific innovation because i have a lot of research experience that's what i want to do actually generally i have a lot of experience that loser so i'm going to choose that thing so that that's the schools you've applied to you're going to match everything's cool they're not going to have any excuses but we're a mismatch done so do the matching before you get to this stage that's another reason why you shouldn't carpet bomb every school under the sun uh as in applying to every school you see indiscriminately that's not a good strategy for so many reasons but also at this stage if you are required to do duet and you're like i don't even remember what it was i'm just gonna one two three four ah you're not a culture fit you're not a profile fit that you don't want that to be the sticking point you