Your Interview Day

[ampaphb]

Good grief, who gives a rat's a$$? The idea is to determine whether the program is a good fit for you. Not how well the day is organized. Not how lush the lunch spread is. Not how pretty the power point presentations are.

Focus on the big picture, not the minutia. This may be a big day for you, but residents and attending have real patient care responsibilities. In fact, if you think about it, the harder they sell, the more you should wonder what they are hiding. Did they have to go deep into their match list last year? Did this current crop of residents not live up to expectations?

Where they take you to dinner doesn't matter. Who shows up doesn't matter. What matters is, will you get good training, good experience, and ultimately, will you get a good fellowship/job? Worrying about anything else reflects your over developed, overinflated ego, grandiosity, and narcissistic personality disorder.

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[RUOkie]

BRAVO!

 

[RangerBob]

I agree, but at the same time, when only one resident shows up to lunch it's a really bad sign. This happened to me when I interviewed at my home program and I knew most of the residents had enough time to come meet us. There was no social the night before, so the other applicants literally only met the one resident who showed up to lunch and the one who gave the tour.

Lets be honest--most PM&R residents aren't worked so hard that they can't make it to the social/dinner/lunch. I personally took it as a bad sign if I didn't meet many residents--to me it seemed like they were hiding something, which was supported by the fact that of the few residents I met at these programs, they really weren't all that happy. My experience is limited to just the ~11 programs I interviewed at, of course.

The other points I completely agree with. Patient care comes first. And you should go to the program that's the best fit for you and your goals--who cares if it's a shiny new rehab facility or a run-down VA. It's the patients and physicians inside the walls that will make you who you are.

 

[ampaphb]

Of the second, third, and fourth year residents currently in the program, the only ones who will still be there when u start are the second years. They are getting killed on inpatient, so u are unlikely to meet them.

The 4th years are all interviewing for jobs or fellowships. The 3rd years are around, but if they rotate to different locations, very few of them will be able to cut out for more than a few minutes to duck in and say hi. If the program has several interview days, the residents are less and less gung ho to take time out of their day as interview season drags on (and stay later into the afternoon or evening as a result). Oh, and if interviews are on the weekends? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Again, this is only the biggest thing in YOUR life. It is a PITA for residents and attendings.

 

[RangerBob]

It's not a pain for me (or my co-residents, or attendings). I (and my colleagues) really enjoy recruitment and meeting the new faces of PM&R! I went to every social the night before interviews last year except one (I was on call and couldn't make it, but usually the resident on call is still able to make it for at least a little bit). We all made it a priority because we care about our program and the future residents. Overall we averaged around a 90% attendance rate. Even our fellows showed up regularly.

I do agree it can be hard if your residents are spread out at a lot of different locations, but there aren't that many programs where being that spread out is really that insurmountable of a problem. UCLA is probably the most spread out of any program (plus with a lot of traffic), but almost all their residents came out for lunch when I interviewed. Their program director considers it important for the current residents to meet the applicants--this shows that they program director cares about what their residents think. Being valued by your program director and department is no small thing.

I still agree with most of your other points. But it was a huge red flag to me if I only met a few residents. They are the only ones who will be candid with you about what they think about the program. Unless you know someone in the program, you have no other way to accurately gauge what residents really think about their current training, attendings, co-resident camaraderie, etc. And while only the PGY2's will still be around when the applicants matriculate into the program, many programs have a certain "personality" to them (UC Davis, UNC, MCW, UCLA, Pitt, to name a few.), so you can get a very good feel for if the program would be a good fit for you.

 

[RM38]

I am a PGY-4 and I plan on going to all or most of our interview dinners. They are fun and we get to go socialize on the hospitals dime at what is usually a pretty good restaurant of our choosing within reason. Plus we get to bring our SO so often times they have the opportunity to get to know each better which is nice and it makes for a free food/drinks for all. Our residents do have somewhat of a say in how we rank people so if you don't go to the dinners, then your opinion on people is kind of marginalized. For the students applying out there yes it is important to try and meet the 2's as they are the only people you will actually work with, but remember to talk some to the 3's and 4's as the 2's have probably only been around for 4-5 months and don't know nearly as much about the program as do the others do. Especially when it pertains to the outpatient stuff because as noted above, most programs are very heavy on inpatient as a 2. Also they are much more informed about where past residents have gone and how difficult their job searches were. If nobody is there at the dinners I would be worried as either the residents are A) unhappy and don't care to be apart of the recruiting process or B) To busy to show up. We typically have around half of the residents show up and have had all but one two of our 15 residents not come on a few occasions. Plus by November when we start most people should be done with fellowship interviews for the most part, but the ones that aren't doing fellowship and applying to attending spots have made it to most of ours anyway. We interview Mondays and Fridays so our dinners are on Sunday and Thursday nights which may play a part in people usually being around. I do agree that the dinner shouldn't be the most important thing that someone should consider during the ranking process, but I do think that it is an important part of how applicants can assess a program.

 

[Gauss]

inevitably I expect to start seeing press ganey like surveys sent post interviews. we must have more metrics!

 

[RM38]

Funny you should mention that as our program does send out post interview feedback forms to applicants about how their interview experience was here. We get a form at the end of the interview cycle with all of the comments and our PD will talk to us about them.