Cardiothoracic surgery fellowship welcome dinner

[Willwork4food]

Importance of pre-interview dinners

This may be a obvious question, but how important are the pre-interview dinners. I know they are a good place to "casually" bond with the program.
With juggling itineraries, it is becoming very stressful booking flights that make it to all of them.
Also some programs are having their dinner AFTER the interview, which is challenging because the interview goes until 9 pm and then have to worry about traveling to a new city. Is it reasonable to skip some of these?

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[ThoracicGuy]

Importance of pre-interview dinners

This may be a obvious question, but how important are the pre-interview dinners. I know they are a good place to "casually" bond with the program.
With juggling itineraries, it is becoming very stressful booking flights that make it to all of them.
Also some programs are having their dinner AFTER the interview, which is challenging because the interview goes until 9 pm and then have to worry about traveling to a new city. Is it reasonable to skip some of these?

Go to them if you can. They'll understand if you can't.

 

[deleted50541]

Agreed. It's often not possible to make every dinner, especially if you've got multiple interviews lined up in a short time and your time away from residency is limited. I probably missed half the dinners for programs I interviewed at.

We'd take folks out for lunch after morning interviews, but were completely understanding if someone had to leave or catch a flight.

 

[TypeADissection]

I found the pre-interview dinners to be the most helpful and enjoyable part of the whole process. It's a nice time to see many of the same people again and also pick the fellow's brains about the dynamics of the program. The reality is the fellows aren't going to lie to you. At this level the societies just get smaller and more intimate so there's nothing to be gained in lying about my program just to get you to rank it higher. I'm already gone by the time the interview class arrives. We had a ringleader during my year of application that organized a WhatsApp group and we still stay in contact today. We see each other at conferences and organize dinners, drinks or other social events. So do your best to make what you can but everyone understands if you can't or have to leave early the next day afterwards. The downside to all the traveling is that your call responsibilities don't change very much while you're away so you end up double tired. Good luck. Cheers.

 

[BovieToMe]

To be honest, at probably 75% of the dinners I went to, the attendings were also there along with the residents. Makes sense, a small program has 2 (or even 1) residents, a medium sized program has 4-6, and a large program has 8-12. Add into it that there is often someone on call, and sometimes the fellows can't make it out in time for the dinner, etc etc. It can be tough to talk to people sometimes when the number of applicants far outnumber the number of residents at these dinners. But its good to be there and around them in an environment that is less stressful than a formal interview. People will understand if you can't make it, but its often a good time for you to pick the brains of everyone, not just the residents.

Some of the residents will make themselves very accessible and it might not be a bad idea to reach out to them around the time of rank list submission. I did that at a few places and often got a slightly picture of the programs than I did during the interview day itself. Enough to move my rank list around.