guys just a general Q for anyone who's done med interviews in the past, when u get a traditional question (eg tell us about yourself), approx how long do you talk for? or do you wait for them to shut you up?
A suggestion (I’m not involved in med interviews but have been in several work related interview panels) is to broadly cover the question as you consider appropriate in 2-3 minutes (longer if you really do have lots of appropriate & interesting points to make) and then ask the panel whether they’d like more details in any particular area. This way, you’re politely signalling that you consider that you’ve answered the question but giving the panel the opportunity to decide whether to explore any particular area further or move to the next question. Since you are handing back the mic (metaphorically) to them and they have the list of questions, it ought to avoid any awkward pauses.
To answer your question in another post, jokes aren’t really necessary to demonstrate personality. My daughter is a kind & considerate individual who jokes very infrequently. She gave honest answers in all her interviews and got offers from all her first choice med schools in each state, but I should also say that she has been involved in a lot of extracurricular & community activities so she could spontaneously chat about a broad range of topics. A lot of applicants who’ve mainly focused on studying for high ATAR marks probably couldn’t have matched her range of experiences.