A program with history of not having filled

[ericali]

Dear SDN community,

I'm thinking about ranking a pediatric program highly. My only concern is that last year they had multiple unfilled positions. Would you have any concerns about why a program did not fill their quota during the match? They seem like a great program to me when I interviewed.

E.

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[Buzz Me]

Did you ask them about this during the interview?

I would bring up red flags such as this one (another common one is asking why [x] number of residents were fired in the past [y] years).

 

[Law2Doc]

Did you ask them about this during the interview?

I would bring up red flags such as this one (another common one is asking why [x] number of residents were fired in the past [y] years).

This is the kind of thing you ask alumni from your school who are residents there or otherwise investigate through less direct, more discrete, channels. It's too easy to sound accusatory if you ask a PD what's wrong with his program that they never fill (or that they fire so many people). Absolutely don't bring this kind of stuff up at the interview IMHO. The interview should be a love fest. You dig up the dirt outside of that context.

 

[turkeyjerky]

This is the kind of thing you ask alumni from your school who are residents there or otherwise investigate through less direct, more discrete, channels. It's too easy to sound accusatory if you ask a PD what's wrong with his program that they never fill (or that they fire so many people). Absolutely don't bring this kind of stuff up at the interview IMHO. The interview should be a love fest. You dig up the dirt outside of that context.

Although the PD's response to this type of question could be quite telling.

I would pay good money to see how the Yale EM PD would respond to a query about the recent threads about that program.

 

[umz]

That would be quite ballsy. Quite ballsy indeed.

 

[Buzz Me]

When I interviewed for fellowship I flat-out asked the PDs about problem areas - not filling, fellows getting fired, coming off probation, complaints, etc. But then I knew I was a competitive applicant.

BTW, almost all the PDs willingly volunteered this info before I even had a chance to bring it up...since they know everyone wants to know about it. It's the proverbial elephant in the room.

 

[Saluki]

In less competitive specialties like peds and psych there are sometimes fluke years where good programs fail to fill. I would look back to see whether the program had issues filling in the past.

Either way, you could try searching the peds forum to see whether anyone has brought up concerns about this program in the past.

Asking the PD might have been OK at the interview depending on how you put the question, but it's too late now....