My residency advisor has been very helpful throughout the application and interview process, however he mentioned at our last meeting that we should go over my rank list together at the end of January; he is the program director.

I can't help but feel that this is rather unethical. He will see where I place my home program and I can't believe that this won't affect how they rank me.

Is this common at other institutions?

My home program PD and Chair have both been very supportive and both offered to give their opinion on other places, which I took to mean as help with the ROL like you describe. I figure it I take them up on it I'll just leave my home program out of the discussion as much as possible.

My advisor was one of the assistant PDs and I went over my interview experiences and rank list with my chair of medicine. Of course, I wanted to stay at my home program so I didn't care.

Here's how you deal with it: give him your list of programs, and the list of key things you're looking for in a program, and ask him how he would rank them.

Leave out the home program, as adcadet says. And DO NOT share your actual rank list, or give much indication of where you are ranking the various programs. Keep the discussion centered on the pros and cons of the individual programs, and away from any direct comparisons with your home program.

i met with my PD to talk about my ranklist, and by that time i have already made it and my home program wasn't my first choice. my PD though told me on many occasions that she would have no problems with that. i imagine most PDs care more about just how many spots they go down on the rank list, but of course individuals differ. i think in general though PD offer to do this to help the applicants, and are pretty open minded.