Honest Opinion about Indiana University

[corpsmanUP]

Well, I debated long and hard before authoring this post, but I think it will really potentially help a lot of people other than myself. I would really appreciate it if those who interviewed at Indianapolis would be willing to say what they felt about the program. Of the 14 places I interviewed, it was undoubtedly one of my favorites but also one of my most confusing interactions. The program was an incredibly "well oiled machine" as I have heard many others say. But unlike any other interview, it was the only one where I literally walked away with absolutely no idea how they felt about me. Most programs you know compliment you on one thing or another, or give you some sort of clue as to how they feel about you. That did not occur at Indy, at least for me. But I was warned the night before from the residents that this interview experience would be the most formal and bizarre of any on the trail. One flat out told me that he was shocked when he matched at Indy and thought similarly as I am now. I like to think I am rather good at reading people, but reading Indy is like trying to read brail with your finger tips duck taped. Do you guys think it is important to worry about how "wanted" a program makes you feel when making your ROL? This program is the only one on my list that I have simply have no idea where I am going to rank yet because I just can't get a read on them. Maybe it was just a regional difference in personalities...granted I had never been to Indiana before

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[DropkickMurphy]

The hospitals in Indy are great, and the EM docs at Wishard are wonderful, but Indiana itself is not a very exciting place.

 

[BKN]

C, here is your RX

Repeat after me "I don't care what the program thinks of me. . .I only care what I think of the program."

repeat as necessary

refills: as many as it takes.

BKN

 

[FoughtFyr]

C, here is your RX

Repeat after me "I don't care what the program thinks of me. . .I only care what I think of the program."

repeat as necessary

refills: as many as it takes.

BKN

And don't forget: "I'm good enough.. I'm smart enough.. and, doggonit, people like me!".

Seriously, no one can read anyone in this process. Remember that while this is the near singular focus of your life, those whom you are trying to "read" are going about the normal business of their lives. And in the end, since the match favors applicant preferences, rank who you want...

...and if the place you match didn't want you as much as they wanted others, well, they'll have to learn to live with it!

- H

 

[BKN]

...and if the place you match didn't want you as much as they wanted others, well, they'll have to learn to live with it!

- H

Precisely. The pool is so good that I'm almost never disappointed.

And, the programs are so good that you won't be either.

 

[corpsmanUP]

I could certainly have predicted that both you BKN and you FF would reply I can always count on you two to tell it like it is! Seriously though, I'm just trying to find out if anyone else felt the same strange ambience while roaming the halls in Wishard. Maybe it really was just a bad day on my part. I can accept that, but it would be nice to know.

Pharmacy said I am trying to refill the script too soon BKN!!

 

[BKN]

dup. oops.

 

[BKN]

I could certainly have predicted that both you BKN and you FF would reply I can always count on you two to tell it like it is! Seriously though, I'm just trying to find out if anyone else felt the same strange ambience while roaming the halls in Wishard. Maybe it really was just a bad day on my part. I can accept that, but it would be nice to know.

Pharmacy said I am trying to refill the script too soon BKN!!

Actually, I make it a point never to dis another program. but for Cary and Indiana I have nothing but

 

[mikecwru]

I could certainly have predicted that both you BKN and you FF would reply I can always count on you two to tell it like it is! Seriously though, I'm just trying to find out if anyone else felt the same strange ambience while roaming the halls in Wishard. Maybe it really was just a bad day on my part. I can accept that, but it would be nice to know.

Pharmacy said I am trying to refill the script too soon BKN!!

I can tell you from a faculty applicant perspective, their chair has been one of the most down to earth, honest guys to communicate with. He seems like a very nice guy.

mike

 

[DrQuinn]

Come on Corpsman... you've been on SDN for a long time... and BKN's line you should know by now...

PLACE YOUR ROL IN THE ORDER HOW YOU WANT THE PROGRAMS NOT HOW YOU PERCEIVE THEY WANT YOU.

Dude, when I interviewed at USF, it wasn't even on ERAS. When I interviewed, the Dept Chair never gave me any eye contact, and even told me one of my answers during hte interview was "wrong!" (Long story). The PD is definately old school military and extremely stoic, absolutely no feedback whatsoever.

I left the interview day thinking that there was no way in Hades they would even consider me as an applicant. I later find out (after many drinks) that I was ranked VERY high on my program's ROL. Even though I felt like a douche-bag during the interview.

Q

 

[emmd2b]

I agree that you should make your ROL based on where you want to be, but you have to figure out what makes you want to be there. For me, personally, the interview and the interpersonal skills of the faculty is really important. I want to be at a place where they care who I am as a person and what I can bring to the program. I have low tolerance for programs that ask generic questions to all the candidates looking for "the best" or the "most interesting" answers. I have definitely been rubbed the wrong way by several programs and it makes an impact.

I find it interesting that programs can have "strange" interviews but people still like the program. It's like reputation and patient base is all that matters. Somehow, I don't think that the applicants get that much wiggle-room....like "that applicant is horrible in person, but their application looks great!" Unlikely....

So, I may be touchy-feely, but how comfortable I felt during the interview definitely will affect my ROL.

 

[BKN]

I agree that you should make your ROL based on where you want to be, but you have to figure out what makes you want to be there. For me, personally, the interview and the interpersonal skills of the faculty is really important. I want to be at a place where they care who I am as a person and what I can bring to the program. I have low tolerance for programs that ask generic questions to all the candidates looking for "the best" or the "most interesting" answers. I have definitely been rubbed the wrong way by several programs and it makes an impact.

I find it interesting that programs can have "strange" interviews but people still like the program. It's like reputation and patient base is all that matters. Somehow, I don't think that the applicants get that much wiggle-room....like "that applicant is horrible in person, but their application looks great!" Unlikely....

So, I may be touchy-feely, but how comfortable I felt during the interview definitely will affect my ROL.

Great post and good thoughts.

What about strange interviews and interviewers? Let's suppose you have four interviews at a place and 2 of them felt wierd. You've seen perhaps 3 of 15 to 50 faculty and 1 of 18 to a bazillion residents. You've got a small smaple space and it may be unrepresentative. The program on the other hand has 4 samples of the whole population (n=1, you). Samples may still be unrepresentative, since we are seeing you in an artificial and stressful situation. that may be ok, since we are considering you for an artificial and stressful career!

I think that if people can have strange interviews, but still like the program, they must be experiencing cognitive dissonance. Interestingly, if you go ask people a year after they've started if they're happy with the program, most will say yes, regardless of their initial impression (cognitive dissonance or just the program's performance, you decide).

I wasn't saying that the nature of the interview is unimportant or that "touchy-feeley" impressions shouldn't be considered. In fact just the opposite, I think they are very important. You're right, at our place a good candidate on paper who comes across as horrible in person ain't getting ranked even though we might be wrong. You might use the same policy, also realizing that you may be wrong. I suspect we have less uncertainty, given that we have scores, dean's letters with composites or many supervisors opinions, SLORs and four interviews of the whole product. You have "reputation", statistics, accreditation status and a small sample of the whole program.

What I have been pushing all through this is to suggest that you can't know what your interviewers are thinking. Most of them have been doing this longer than you have, most are naturally polite and most are naturally friendly. Others may be less forthcoming, but as Quinn said that may just be then. I've known and admired his PD for years, I suspect he's very good at his job, he is quiet. Secondarily, the nature of the match makes their opinion of you, even if you could get it, irrelevant to your interests.

Anyway, got to go to work,

Cheers.

BTW Quinn, if you don't mind give us the 411. What did you answer to your chair that was "wrong"

edited for grammar and meaning 1/20/06 1751 mdt

 

[corpsmanUP]

Okay guys, I think I understand what you are saying (got that refill this AM after waiting in the Walgreen's drive-thru until 12:01 AM And Mike, you are undoubtedly in a different situation since you are already near the end of the tunnel, and coming from an incredible organization at Metrohealth. By the way, I think Dr. Queen was one of your biggest selling points.....get that guy to the morning session to wake everyone up. And his Cleveland Clinic tour was one of the most fun tours I had. He really seemed like the real deal, and you can tell him I said as much. That's awesome that you are looking at a faculty position at Indy after you are done. That says volumes about Case. Its sort of funny. On the trail, when I tell people what I liked about Case, people either agree, or they moan and whine about Cleveland. But they never say anything bad about your program. And if I did not say it before, Denise your program coordinator was as good or better than Southerndoc and Quinn recalled. So now that this thread has turned into an add for Case, I'll get back on topic.

Indy was simply impressive for several reasons. Their didactics seemed to be the most structured of any place I visited, and they were on 2 consecutive days for 2 hours each. KRodg and CChish require residents to do their presentation in person to them one month before they are scheduled for didactics. If it doesn't pass their scrutiny, you do it over!! They don't take for granted that you have to sit for hours in conference and they seem to ensure didactic quality to the hilt. Next, the combo of Wishard and Methodist is honestly likely to be the best training environment around. 100K at each place, and their ED was phenomenol in set up.

Anyway though, I guess I was hoping that 50 of you would speak up and say that you felt the same way about your experience at Indy so I would know it wasn't just me that felt the way I did. But since none of you have, I'll take that to mean that it probably was just my own insecurity of being a small DO in such a huge EM institution. I'll just have to suck it up and get past it. If you guys could see my rank list today, it would look nothing like it did yesterday, or the day before. If my rank list was a deck of cards, I swear it would have been shuffled more times than a Vegas triple-deck. Its a good problem to have though having frankly 14 bad a$$ programs to choose from. Its impossible to go wrong in the end, but impossible for an OCDer to make any real progress with a ROL.

Maybe I'll just let my kids do the list. They do better with the horses than I do just based on some name they like!!

 

[Hawkeye Kid]

Maybe they don't want to leave you with ANY impression of how they feel about you so that you don't use the WRONG impression when making your ROL. As others have said, if you like a program, rank it high; if you don't rank it low (or not at all). Your perception of their perception of you shouldn't matter. I know, I know...it's always nice to feel loved, but if you rank em #1 and you match there they wanted you.

 

[emmd2b]

Corpsman, if you just wanted reassurance I'll give you that. Indiana is KNOWN for having a "weird" interview and they are KNOWN for not giving any kind of feedback about where you stand. So, I'm pretty sure everyone is feeling the way you are, so don't worry about it, it's not personal. If you like the program as much as you say you do, go for it!

 

[Jeff698]

Maybe I'll just let my kids do the list.

Not all that bad of a plan, actually. My wife and kids played a huge role in how my ROL turned out.

My list certainly moved all over the place in the last few days with #1 & 2 flopping back and forth as often as a fish out of water. The rest of the list was just as volatile.

I finally asked my wife and kids where they wanted to live and that weighed very heavily on my decision. That and I eventually just ran out of time and my ROL couldn't be changed any more. Probably a good indication that I would have been pretty damn happy at any of my top 5. Actually, now that I think about it, I would have been happy at any of the programs I interviewed at. EM rocks.

Take care,
Jeff

 

[GiJoe]

corpsman,

I was reading your blurb about how much you loved Indy on another thread in the sticky. why don't you read it again b/c i think you forgot what you posted. I think you'll have your answer

 

[corpsmanUP]

corpsman,

I was reading your blurb about how much you loved Indy on another thread in the sticky. why don't you read it again b/c i think you forgot what you posted. I think you'll have your answer

No kidding. I still think about the "program" in the same way, but I am more confused than ever about everything else. Its been 2 months, and I have sent out my thank you notes, a few emails, and I have received what I would call a "brief but polite" reply from each program in some fashion. Either it be a resident, or a faculty that replied to me and it was enough to make me feel like they were at least acknowledging me. Not Indy. Hell, not even an autoreply, or anything. I sent their PD's a handwritten note and an email explaining in list format the reasons I thought they had a great program, so it wouldn't look like I was just basing my opinion on their reputation alone. To me it just seemed like all they would have to do would have been to hit reply, type in some incomplete sentence saying....great, glad you liked it here.....bye. But nothing! Then I emailed the chief resident to get his take on what the etiquette was around Indy regarding 2nd looks. Never heard back! So I finally emailed KRodg and asked him about the 2nd look since the chief didn't write back, and I asked if I could have a copy of the schedule (I've been snagging schedules everwhere but I forgot one in Indy). I then got a reply back from the chief, but nothing from KRodg himself.

An example of what I think is appropriate if you are honestly interested in a candidate....real example..

Email from myself to Dr. Pennington at Case....week or so after the interview thanking him for a nice day, and for some private stuff we discussed.

Email back from Dr. P a few days later.....saying he was very glad I enjoyed the day, and that he wished me the best of luck.


Now he never said anything misleading in that, but he replied. And that to me can be the difference between ranking someplace 3rd or 4th, 2nd or 1st, 10th or 11th. Every small interaction means something and like some little kid sport's fan, it means a lot to a kid when a star stops for an autograph. I remember idolizing Earl Campbell as a kid and still worshiping him when he was fat and washed up with the Saints. All because he once stopped at training camp and sat down next to me on a bench, and spent 10 seconds personalizing an autograph for me. Same held true for Hakeem Olajuwon, but the opposite was true for Kenny Stabler who walked right past me and got in his truck and left, as I begged him to just give me a glance.

My thinking is that a program knows we are like autograph hounds, so they can either throw a bone when the opportunity is there, or they can decide not to. I'm absolutely done with this thread though and I feel like I finally got some resolution. What that means for the ROL, who really knows!?

 

[Eidee]

dude, take a chill pill. I just came back from an interview where the PD told us that he doesnt send or expect thank yous and same goes for the interviewers. It's just to avoid being sucked into the "game". They did thank us heavily and treated us with great courtesy and respect that day.

as for indy, I like you haven't heard from them either but that's not gonna change the way I rank them.

 

[Mary Jane Watson]

Hey - don't stress. Indy is an awesome program. However - they SPECIFICALLY tell you during the opening presentation that the program DOES NOT contact applicants after the interview day. They do this by design. So don't expect it. They are very by-the-book. Dr. Chisholm is great and he and the other program directors care so much about resident education. You can't go wrong at Indy so if it's where you want to go, rank it man!

MJ

 

[Cam773]

Corpsman-
Exact same experience. Strangely its been affecting my mental ROL in the same way and I was eager to read this thread. I think it has less to do with "where I stand" and "whether I will match there" than will this place feel like "home" for three years. I think that is the value in a program expressing interest (albeit probably not the most reliable indicator- kind of like puppy love). On the contrary- IU may just be more honest by playing it straight- and who can fault them for that (granted, their interview invite system is a little frustrating to many folks that I've talked to).

 

[EctopicFetus]

Wash U came out and said they dont play the game. I think thats kinda nice.. I still sent thank yous of course but I did it because it is the right thing to do not because of the game. I like this policy!