CT1 Interview Advice

Last updated on 23 Feb 2026

You've done very well to get to where you are.

You've smashed med school finals, survived the Foundation programme, blitzed your way through the MSRA, and here you are - interviewing for anaesthetics.

So how can you ace this next hurdle?

Here's all of our best advice in one place.

Good luck.

💡

Treat the interview as you would a spoken exam, and revise accordingly.

Know the format

Here at Anaestheasier we're always going on about how you need to know what you're training for.

In the same way a 400 m hurdler doesn't want to prepare by working on their shot-put technique, you should know what game you're playing when you start preparing, and specifically train for what's being tested.

A written exam requires writing practice, and a speaking test needs you to rehearse your talking.

Start by learning the set up of what to expect for your CT1 anaesthetics interview.

There are two stations:

General/portfolio station - 15 minutes
Clinical scenario - 15 minutes

There are two interviewers per station, each station contains multiple scoring domains, and marks are specifically awarded per domain, not just overall impression.

This matters when constructing your model answers, because you need to target these domains specifically in order to maximise your mark.

It's more like a fourth year OSCE with a mark scheme than a job interview for a company.

The scoring matrix

I cannot stress this enough - THIS IS THE MARK SCHEME FOR YOUR INTERVIEW.

Everything you say needs to be targeting these domains if you want to score any points.