Here’s a short piece written by Dr. Graham Walker, an emergency physician at Kaiser San Francisco, about how medicine’s technological uber-efficiency has adversely affected the collegiality – and even the patient care – in hospitals.
This issue has ramifications for residency programs: Trainees and their attendings need to interact across specialties in a face-to-face manner to improve resident education and patient well-being.
I found this article to be a sensitively-written piece by Dr. Thomas Cook, an emergency medicine program director. We spend so much effort trying to match into a good residency that we sometimes forget to consider the personal toll training takes.
Make sure you double and triple check that your application materials are complete. A residency applicant I know only realized that his USMLE scores were not “assigned” when he contacted a residency coordinator asking the program to consider him for an interview. Residencies and medical schools will, of course, not invite you to interview if they don’t have your completed application.
“Tell me about a good book you’ve read recently.”
There are a group of questions that interviewers use that are sometimes misconstrued by the applicant. The “good book” question is one of those. In a case like this the faculty member is trying to get a sense of your outside interests. It’s a chance for the interviewer to see you as an engaged and interesting person. Misguided responses might be, “I’m reading a neuroscience textbook” to prove your intellectualism or “I don’t have a chance to read for pleasure because I work so hard.” Remember that having a compelling and kind demeanor is a large part of being a good physician.
Looking for a way to get science writing experience with a mentor’s guidance? The Open Notebook/Burroughs Wellcome Fund Fellowship is a part-time, remote, paid experience that offers a great opportunity to write features and conduct interviews related to science. The deadline for applications is October 21. Here is the application information.
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
