Case presentation for residency interview?

[ferroportin]

I've heard that some residencies expect you to present a case when coming to interview. Is this expected to be a Powerpoint presentation? Or another format? Should it include an evidence-based discussion, or are expected to let the audience ask those questions?

And does it have to be particularly interesting, or is this just a test of our speaking / academic abilities?

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[duckie99]

I think the type of case and what you discuss will depend on the field you are applying to. Obviously the case for IM will be different than one for surgery and the goal of the interviewer may also be different. I can only comment on IM. Personally, I had a couple different ones I reviewed and tried to pick the one or discuss aspects of one I thought the interviewer would find most interesting just based on the feel I had for the person I was talking to. In my experience it was conversational and the question was "tell me about an interesting case" with the intent to discuss aspects you thought were interesting and why. It gives them a chance to see how much knowledge you have and how you can reflect and learn from a case (important aspects to have). Overall it was pretty laid back though.

 

[gutonc]

I've heard that some residencies expect you to present a case when coming to interview. Is this expected to be a Powerpoint presentation? Or another format? Should it include an evidence-based discussion, or are expected to let the audience ask those questions?

And does it have to be particularly interesting, or is this just a test of our speaking / academic abilities?

This generally comes in the form of one of your interviewers asking "tell me about an interesting case you saw as a med student." You're not going to have to give a talk and you're unlikely to have to "present" it to more than one person.

 

[Top Gun]

I had a few of those during fellowship interviews. It was very informal. Mostly a discussion of the interesting aspects of the case and what I learned from it. No Power Point, I promise you.

 

[JGimpel]

I had to do case presentations toward the end of a few audition rotations and if they liked how I had performed in the rest of the 2-3 weeks, I got an interview either while I was still there or in the near future.

Interview "case" questions were more about an interesting story from your clerkships and it's pretty open-ended after that, so use it to play up your strengths. You'll be expected to make presentations on a regular basis when in residency, so this will be something you'll have to master at some point in your training. Better sooner than later. The more 'creative' ways you can leverage PowerPoint, the more impact you'll have on getting an interview.

 

[Firewood]

I applied to psychiatry this year, and had one interviewer specifically ask me to present a medicine patient as if we were on rounds. I was a bit rusty, but did fine. I felt really sorry for the poor girl who'd been out of school for a few years and was on her first interview. She walked out of there sweating bullets.

The rest of my interviews I only got asked the "interesting patient" question.

 

[ferroportin]

This generally comes in the form of one of your interviewers asking "tell me about an interesting case you saw as a med student." You're not going to have to give a talk and you're unlikely to have to "present" it to more than one person.

I had a few of those during fellowship interviews. It was very informal. Mostly a discussion of the interesting aspects of the case and what I learned from it. No Power Point, I promise you.

Ah, good. Should be easy enough.

I had to do case presentations toward the end of a few audition rotations and if they liked how I had performed in the rest of the 2-3 weeks, I got an interview either while I was still there or in the near future.

Interview "case" questions were more about an interesting story from your clerkships and it's pretty open-ended after that, so use it to play up your strengths. You'll be expected to make presentations on a regular basis when in residency, so this will be something you'll have to master at some point in your training. Better sooner than later.

Oh, I actually like doing presentations, so no problem there.

The more 'creative' ways you can leverage PowerPoint, the more impact you'll have on getting an interview.

Are you talking about something specific, or are you just referring to doing a good presentation? Maybe I'm just slow today...

 

[JGimpel]

It may be as easy as having conservative amounts of humor and multimedia in your presentation to projecting confidence as an authority on that article and getting by while being grilled with questions at the end. Appearing and sounding professional the entire time is the most important, as always.

 

[survivordo]

Closest I got to this was having interviewers ask about an interesting case and then we kinda went through it step by step. Nothing formal. Interesting concept though.

Survivor DO