At 11am EST today (8am here on the West Coast) applicant Match statuses becomes available and SOAP starts. If you’re looking for a way to distract yourself with interesting material, take a listen to last week’s wonderful Planet Money podcast on matching algorithms called “The Marriage Pact.” The episode starts with a reference to my alma mater Stanford (go cardinal), reviews an innovative dating algorithm, and touches on the NRMP Match system.
Monday, March 15 starts Match Week 2021. For a comprehensive review of events, see the calendar here. Of note, SOAP starts at 11am EST and ends on March 18 at 3pm EST. On Friday, March 19 at noon EST, applicant Match results are available.
SOAP is somewhat complicated, so if you have questions about the process, make sure you read about it.
I’m wishing everyone good luck in the Match. If you are a current residency client, please email me with your results!
I participated in a great Harvard Medical School webinar on implicit bias in medicine with cardiologist Dr. Quinn Capers IV, who is a dean at UT Southwestern Medical School. Dr. Capers has published work documenting racial and gender bias in medical school admissions, among other realms. He has also published recommendations on how clinicians and medical educators can mitigate implicit bias in patient care and candidate selection.
In the webinar, Dr. Capers covered strategies to reduce or neutralize implicit bias, including
1. Common identify formation – Ask interviewee questions about interests and activities that you share in common.
2. Perspective taking – Take the perspective of a member of the group against which you have unconscious bias.
3. Consider the opposite – When data seem to point to one conclusion, briefly look for information supporting the opposite conclusion before making a final decision.
4. Counter stereotypical exemplars – Spend time with or focus on individuals you admire from groups against which you have a bias.
Dr. Capers described providing an implicit bias “cheat sheet” that included these strategies to medical school interviewers at The Ohio State College of Medicine, where he previously worked. If you have a chance to hear a lecture by Dr. Capers, make sure to grab the opportunity.
As of this writing, I’ve administered 214 COVID vaccines. I’ve had the opportunity to vaccinate through a hospital in my area where health care workers and volunteers are eligible. The latter group includes some senior citizens who have been volunteering for decades at the hospital.
I’ve vaccinated several people over 90; two people on supplemental oxygen – one who had just come from chemotherapy; one person who shared my birthday; multiple who are immigrants from Vietnam, Iran, and Mexico; one who had recently lost both her mother-in-law and mother to COVID; and someone who told me her only past allergic response had been to her husband.
If you have the opportunity and skill set, I highly recommend vaccinating. It is the most satisfying volunteer experience I’ve had. People are so grateful, and the mood is so celebratory. I’ve had my photo taken several times, and the hospital has music playing in the background. It feels like I’m at a bar mitzvah (without the food).
Here’s a piece on medical students who have joined the vaccination effort.
I’ve recently received some email asking about how Match rank order lists should be affected by positive feedback applicants receive from interviewers and/or program directors. The answer is not at all. Because of the way the Match algorithm works, what programs think of you should have zero bearing on how you make your rank order list. See this recent blog that covers mistakes to avoid when making your list.
It’s really impossible to know about the program’s interest in you anyway. Even if a program tells you straight up that you will be ranked to Match, that isn’t a promise. I’ve known applicants who were “promised” a ranking to Match that never happened.
Bottom line: It doesn’t matter what the programs think of you; it’s all about what you want. Here’s a good video about the Match algorithm if you’d like to understand the process more granularly.
Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital. She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more
