@adcoms - Do you ask this question in interviews?

[EverStriving]

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I was chatting with an older guy that is not in the medical field (he's in real estate) about how intensive medical school education and residency are, in terms of workload and hours spent. He asked me how I would answer this question in an interview: "What in your background makes you think you can hack it in a high pressure environment like residency?"

I couldn't really come up with a good answer, because I've never been through anything close to the degree of stress that medical school or residency will bring. I'm also a bit curious, because despite it seeming like a perfectly reasonable question for a field like medicine, I haven't been asked anything like this in any of my interviews.

So for the adcoms here, do you ask something along these lines in interviews? If not, why not?

 

[MCATISEZ]

Tough question. But I’m not sure it’s a relevant question. Replace medical school with residency and that question gets asked a lot, although in different words. Perhaps “what has prepared you to handle the stress of medical school?” Or even a question about how you deal with stress.


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[Goro]

I was chatting with an older guy that is not in the medical field (he's in real estate) about how intensive medical school education and residency are, in terms of workload and hours spent. He asked me how I would answer this question in an interview: "What in your background makes you think you can hack it in a high pressure environment like residency?"

I couldn't really come up with a good answer, because I've never been through anything close to the degree of stress that medical school or residency will bring. I'm also a bit curious, because despite it seeming like a perfectly reasonable question for a field like medicine, I haven't been asked anything like this in any of my interviews.

So for the adcoms here, do you ask something along these lines in interviews? If not, why not?

I ask that question at times in relation to med school. I'll bet our wise resident colleagues will agree that if you can handle med school, you can handle residency.

 

[EverStriving]

I have been asked about how I would handle the stress of medical school. But this question seemed to be more geared toward how I know I could handle the lifestyle of a physician, more than how I could make it through medical school. That's why it caught me a little off-guard.

 

[EverStriving]

After thinking about it for a little longer, I think the reason why the question is so difficult is the framing. It's the nuance between "how would you approach this kind of challenge," vs "show me a time in the past when you've already overcome this kind of challenge." They are getting at the same aspect of the medical career, but the latter framing seems to predestine the interviewee to failure if there is no particularly stressful work experience in their past that they can immediately point to.

 

[Siromas]

I was asked this in a recent interview. My response incorporated my strengths in time management, the pressure of the responsibilities I have working with the patients at my job, and a quick story of how I've come to discover the best ways I learn.

 

[mimelim]

I don't ask this question directly, but it is obviously an important one for all applicants to grapple with, for themselves more than anything.

I am 6 years into residency in vascular surgery, so I can comfortably say, been there, done that at this point, but if I tried to answer it 11 years ago when I was applying to medical school, I would have highlighted my adaptability and demonstrated ability to get results in a variety of environments.