Choosing Residency Virtually

[DocBubbles]

Now that the interview season is coming to a close, how is the class of 2022 supposed to rank the best choices for themselves?

I had a lot of interviews, and for most of them I felt great about the program and how I got along with everyone, but when I went to visit for a second look, I was less than impressed. I feel like all the interviews present us the rainbows and positives, and even when I ask the negatives no one gives me anything tangible. I feel like I'm working with incomplete at best and invalid at worst information, and don't know how to rank.

I'm applying for FM personally, but I feel like this is a problem that affects us all. Current applicants and now interns, what are some things you're doing/have done to rank your programs?

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[calivianya]

I feel like I know enough to make an informed decision, personally. Here's a few things I consider:

• First time board pass rate?
• Relationship between residents/attendings? Preferably confirmed with multiple people and/or pictures
• Same for the relationships between residents
• Call schedule?
• Moonlighting opportunities/pay?
• In house fellowships, fellowship match history? What percent of people who wanted fellowship got it?
• How much mandatory research do you have to do there, if any?
• How many people come back to the hospital/program/area? Did your interviewers do their residency there and love it so much they had to come back, or did the program have to find people from elsewhere? Do the residents you talked to plan on staying, or are they really excited to get out of there?
• And probably most importantly for me - what's my quality of life going to be outside of the hospital? Can I live in the type of environment/housing I like to live in and can I do the things I like to do there on a resident salary?

I feel like the second, third, and last bullet point place something on the list for me, and then the others move it around, if that makes sense.

 

[Mass Effect]

You're thinking about it too much. Here's what matters:

* Do the residents look happy? Do they hang out, tell jokes, enjoy each other's company or are they walking around like Stepford wives?
* Do the residents who start graduate? Are they terminated? Do they transfer out?
* Call schedule? Nightfloat? This only matters if it's a ton better or worse (example would be all programs on your list have q10 call and one program has q3 call or if all programs have one month of nightfloat and one program has 3 months of nightfloat)
* Cost to park/cost to eat. You likely don't want to go some place where it costs $500/month just to park your car for work. Eating is less important since you can bring your lunch, but programs that give meal cards are a win in my book
* Will you enjoy the city? Can you make due with the city? If you're a warm weather person and hate the cold with a passion, FFS, don't rank Anchorage, Alaska number 1. You'll be miserable there.
* Cost of living in city. If you want to be in NYC or San Fran, remember that you'll be paying an arm, a leg, and your first born for your apartment. If you're not good with that, don't rank it. There are plenty of affordable cities where you can get yourself a 3-bedroom luxury apartment for a 1/3 of the cost of a small and cramped studio in NYC or LA or Boston or San Francisco. Only thing worse than a long bad day at work is coming home to a dreary and cramped apartment that you hate.

Everything else is really unimportant. Residency is likely going to suck much of the time. There will be times where it's great and you'll grow as a person and remember why you went into medicine. But there will be times it will just plain suck. All residencies. All cities. Just make sure everything else is tolerable.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

The reality is there are no perfect programs and @Mass Effect is 100% right when she says that all residencies will have moments of absolute suck. I suggest trusting your gut about how you felt about programs and picking only 1-3 things you know you absolutely want in a program and ranking based off of those things. Those can be anything you think is most important: location, COL, case volume, variety, autonomy, close knit resident cohort, etc. There is always a give and take.

I’m honestly not sure virtual interviews change much in the grand scheme of things. Even with in person interviews programs can put on a good show and cover up their faults.