Anyone else having an extremely difficult time with scheduling fellowship interviews or am I just at a bad program?

[sliceofbread136]

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Every single interviews day I’ve scheduled I’ve had to jump through hoops, expend a ton of energy begging and sending mass emails. This is even to interview for fellowship at my home program.

Is this the norm? I had no idea it would be this difficult

The sad thing is that this is in elective months...

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

What specialty are you in? I was lucky that my program was very understanding of my interview schedule, and really wanted me to match at the program of my choice. It reflects well on the residency if graduates make good fellowship matches... so my co-residents covered some calls for me while I was gone, and I reciprocated after my interview season ended. I will say some others I encountered on the interview trail had experiences more similar to yours, which is really a shame.

 

[Raryn]

My program only gave us 3-4 days, which is silly. Assuming you're doing reasonably well on track to learn your specialty, your next biggest job your final year of residency is getting a job for next year.

I scheduled some interviews while on electives and then called in sick.

Obviously don't do this on a day you're interviewing at your home program.

 

[rokshana]

Every single interviews day I’ve scheduled I’ve had to jump through hoops, expend a ton of energy begging and sending mass emails. This is even to interview for fellowship at my home program.

Is this the norm? I had no idea it would be this difficult

The sad thing is that this is in elective months...

Too late for you now, but for others, this is one of the reasons that you cover for others...then you can ask for pay back to handle interviews.

Do you have personal days that you can use? Are you allowed to take vacation days a couple of days at a time?

Can you do a radiology or ED elective during interview season? Rads rarely cares if you come and ED you can set up your shifts to be done so you can get free days that line up with your interview s.

 

[AMEHigh]

Yeah at my program we all scheduled during days that no one would have to cover for us and then called in sick.

We asked the residents from the previous 2 years and this is what they did so we just did the same thing.

I used all my vacation days for actual vacation, plus vacation days typically had to be scheduled 2-3 months in advance, so it was definitely a tricky situation.

I’m not sure what’s the norm at other places. You would think programs would make this more clear to residents and not make you jump through hoops.

 

[sliceofbread136]

Too late for you now, but for others, this is one of the reasons that you cover for others...then you can ask for pay back to handle interviews.

Do you have personal days that you can use? Are you allowed to take vacation days a couple of days at a time?

Can you do a radiology or ED elective during interview season? Rads rarely cares if you come and ED you can set up your shifts to be done so you can get free days that line up with your interview s.

I’m on rads actually, which is why I thought I was in the clear. The problem is I have every other day back up shifts or continuity clinic that get scheduled shortly before the rotation.

I’ve always accepted other residents requests for swapping back up shifts or clinics so I’m hoping I get lucky