The Beginnings of ProFitHR
From Med School to the Marketplace
In 2002, the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University began developing the Multiple Mini-Interview (MMI) system, to address two widely recognized problems. First, it has been shown that traditional interview formats or simulations of educational situations do not accurately predict performance in medical school. Secondly, when a licensing or regulatory body reviews the performance of a physician subsequent to patient complaints, the most frequent issues of concern are those of the non-cognitive skills, such as interpersonal skills, professionalism and ethical/moral judgment.
The MMI is based on the Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation (OSCE) tool that was successfully used for over a decade to assess the clinical skills in the McMaster Medical Education program. The applicant must deal with questions, issues, scenarios etc., at a series of stations, each of which has a different interviewer, who will rate the candidate’s performance at that station. Unlike the OSCE, the MMI scenarios do not relate to clinical practice but rather to issues about which an applicant should have reasonably sophisticated knowledge. The interviewer receives background information on the question or scenario, which assists them in challenging the applicant’s ideas or positions. A successful applicant will therefore be one who has a wide body of knowledge with which to address the presented scenario and can deal with the challenges from the interviewer or situation as it develops (see the Sample Interview).
Published research and on-going studies clearly demonstrate the superior psychometrics and cost efficiency of the MMI when compared to other techniques used in the assessment of applicants for admission to medical school.
In 2007, collaborators of the MMI along with McMaster’s Industry Liaison Office combined their efforts to form a spin-off company to bring the MMI to professional schools and corporations around to world. To capture the MMI’s ability to assess candidates in any industry the product was branded as a Professional Fit Assessment Tool for Human Resources experts or ProFitHR. The company is located at McMaster’s Innovation Park in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.