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Your Residency Interview: What Do Program Directors Really Want?

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Imagine you’re a program director (PD) going through scores of ERASes and interviews. What questions would you ask yourself as you assess each residency candidate to avoid big headaches?

1) Can this person do the job? Is s/he competent?

2) Will this person “play well with others” and not create complaints from patients, faculty, or other services.

3) Will this person stick with the program and not leave prematurely? (A PD does not want to scurry around to fill an open call schedule/ residency slot.)

As you approach your interviews, consider how you can demonstrate your competence and collegiality, as well as your commitment to the field and the residency program. For the former, ensure you showcase academic successes, extracurricular activities that demonstrate teamwork, and – if asked – hobbies and reading materials that demonstrate your agreeable personality. For the latter, highlight research projects in the specialty, sub-internships, and knowledge about the program and city.

Simply making sure the PD knows you’re not going to cause him/her trouble is at least half the battle.

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Responses from Program Directors are as Valuable as the Email They’re Written On

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A strong residency candidate asked me to review an email a program director (PD) had sent him after interview day. The candidate wanted to know if I had any insights to the intent of the PD: Was the PD sending a generic note or was he really interested in the applicant?

I told the applicant honestly, who knows and who cares?

I wasn’t trying to be dismissive. The point is that it is impossible to know what a PD is thinking. Unfortunately, I’ve seen applicants heartbroken by false hope they read into a PD’s comments. More importantly, what a PD says should not affect your rank list anyway. The algorithm requires you to put your first choice first and your second second, etc. (More on that in a future blog post.)

As they say, kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises. Ignore those PD notes because they don’t guarantee a thing and don’t change management. 

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Where’s the Face-to-Face Time?

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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.

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Dine But Don’t Whine

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Many residency programs and medical schools are now offering applicants an opportunity to get to know their institutions through social events before the interview day – dinners or optional happy hours, for example. While I would recommend attending these events to score social points and familiarize yourself with the programs, please do remember that what you say can be repeated. Be discrete about your plans and preferences.
Take a look at this quick Guru on the Go® video for more information.

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Call me anytime

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medical school application and residency applicationI recommend that if you have not heard from medical school, residency or fellowship programs to which you’ve applied, that you contact the institutions to inquire about your status.

After offering that advice to a client recently, she emailed me this week to say she obtained an interview in a competitive specialty with a call. Another said she received two preliminary interviews with simple emails. (I recommend calls over emails, however, because it’s hard to ignore someone on the other end of a phone line.

Still, if you simply can’t bring yourself to call, an email can be effective.) In years’ past I’ve seen this phone call strategy work for fellowship and medical school interviews as well.

Of course, if the school or program explicitly asks in written materials that you don’t contact them about your status, then calling is not a good idea.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

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

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