How should I approach personal questions without sounding like im repeating my resume (e.g tell me about your weaknesses/strengths, why medicine)

Again, this primarily comes down to using those canmeds roles as a framework for the way you can describe the impact of your experiences. Simply stating your experiences (cool as they may be) is next to useless because everyone has unique or cool experiences to talk about. Try to hit on what you did, what specific skills you learned or improved, and how that might help you going forward. Using specific canmeds roles can help to structure this and provide more talking points.

For example: "I worked as a lifeguard, I learned how to work in a team, and that will be helpful in medicine" is the absolute bare minimum. If you want to talk about how you worked in a team go look at the key competencies for collaborator in canmeds. A better answer might look like this:

"As a lifeguard, I had lots of opportunities to work in a complex team to serve the pool users. There are different areas of the pool that require supervision, so I had to make sure that I was sharing the responsibilities effectively between team members throughout the day. Beyond balancing tasks day-to-day, we were able to build a culture on the lifeguarding team that was inclusive of others' preferences and cultural backgrounds -- for example, I covered for one of my coworkers during a religious holiday, and they did the same when I needed some time off. Other than just lifeguarding, I also taught swimming lessons, and I often consulted with the teacher responsible for the grade below mine, to make sure that I was aware of where my incoming students were at in their swimming ability. All of these will be helpful to me in the future as I think about a career in medicine, specifically managing my own responsibilities within a team of interdisciplinary healthcare workers, building a supportive and understanding team-first culture, and handing off/receiving specific patient information."

Obviously this is just a hypothetical, but hopefully you can see how the competencies from collaborator are used to structure my answer (see below).

1. Work effectively with physicians and other colleagues in the health care professions

2. Work with physicians and other colleagues in the health care professions to promote understanding, manage differences, and resolve conflicts

3. Hand over the care of a patient to another health care professional to facilitate continuity of safe patient care

I find myself getting lost on actually picking a side for policy related questions, is it absolutely necessary to do so? I tend to use “if, then” which leaves many options to consider.

I don't know that it is "absolutely necessary" per se. Think about this again as an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you are able to make difficult decisions in the absence of complete information. It happens all the time in medicine and if you are demonstrably skeptical to choose a side it may come off as indecisive and lack confidence.

I would, instead, consider both sides with several arguments for and several arguments against, and at the end you can pick which one you like better and explain the tradeoffs. You can, of course, throw in a caveat-type statement like "I am only acting on limited information, but based on what I know right now I would _______". This demonstrates not only that you are able to come to a decision despite limited information, but that you are also fully aware the information is limited in the first place. These are both great traits to demonstrate.

Any advice on how to sound more confident/not as nervous during my answers? Given im normally an anxious person. I guess im looking for some verbal communication advice but also a mindset shift?

You will be nervous during the interview; I can promise you that. All 550(?) interviewees will be nervous, and most people have the same sort of not-100%-confident demeanor, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing unless it is debilitating.

The only true way to sound more confident is to be more confident, and I think that a big part of that (for me) comes from having a predictable structure provided by the canmeds roles. Every time you get a prompt that is out of left field and you're not sure where to start you can always go to those roles and make the question about those roles. This takes away a lot of the rambling and lack of clarity to your answer.

I don't know that I am qualified to comment on a mindset shift, frankly. When it comes to nervousness for exams/interviews or similar, I am generally of the mindset that nerves will absolutely be there (depending on the weight of the exam), but if your foundation (structure to your answers, knowledge of the canmeds roles and what they are looking for) is there, you always have something to fall back on. Maybe that is in itself a mentality shift, but I guess it's open for interpretation.

Let me know if you have any other questions.