Inappropriate Interview Remark

[loonette]

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Had an interview on Monday (for a post bacc/bridge program at a medical school) where I talked about pain management in women’s health (my app is very much OBGYN dominated).

After I spoke, the older male interviewer (was a professor at the school) chuckled and his only response was , “men experience pain too, ya know. it’s a problem for everyone. ”

I was completely thrown off guard with this remark. I understand pain management is a universal problem in all populations, but it felt like a microaggression and misogynistic. At first, I was gonna move on from it but the physicians I work with said this was inappropriate, reportable, and could’ve led to an unfair interview assessment. Just not sure if I should take that route (especially before decisions are released).

Would appreciate advice from adcoms!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Had an interview on Monday (for a post bacc/bridge program at a medical school) where I talked about pain management in women’s health (my app is very much OBGYN dominated).

After I spoke, the older male interviewer (was a professor at the school) chuckled and his only response was , “men experience pain too, ya know. it’s a problem for everyone. ”

I was completely thrown off guard with this remark. I understand pain management is a universal problem in all populations, but it felt like a microaggression and misogynistic. At first, I was gonna move on from it but the physicians I work with said this was inappropriate, reportable, and could’ve led to an unfair interview assessment. Just not sure if I should take that route (especially before decisions are released).

Would appreciate advice from adcoms!

Did you tell the program director? (I hope the program director didn't say this.)

But that said, hello to the real world. I don't excuse microaggressions so quickly, but if this were a panel interview, I would hope that the older interviewer gets a sidebar to correct this thinking. It's also possible the interviewer was playing "devil's advocate" to see how you would react, knowing that there are people who think this way, even among your (future) medical school peers.

If there is anything that the current anti-DEI movement has disclosed, there are many more people who want the answer to "what about me," and this includes health professionals who might share this opinion.

Learn from the moment and determine how you would react, at the proper time and place, to this.

 

[polymerization]

It's not uncommon to get a curveball response on an interview sometimes.

I've come across interviewers (outside of the admissions process) who have flat-out told me that one of their favorite things to do in an interview is to simply refute anything the applicant says, often to the point of absurdity. Your immediate reaction is fair.

Where I think things get a little less fair is ascribing a pretty sophisticated motive on what was ultimately a pretty passerby comment. It threw you for a loop, yes, but it sounds like you were just processing and accepting perhaps not recovering as well as you would have liked in the moment... and then others, who were not in the interview with you, riled you up to the point where you feel you have a formal grievance.

Resist the urge to let others define your experiences for you. It was a challenging situation, but on the face of it, I don't really see a very straightforward case of misogyny or particularly improper conduct. Who knows. Maybe he wanted to talk about how men are idealized as paragons of stoicism and are expected to constantly demonstrate toughness despite the same neuroscientific predisposition to pain anyone else would have. There are important conversations by Judith Butler on the topic of gender performativity that would make a lot of sense to discuss academically.

I think a better way to stand up for yourself in the future is to simply learn to redirect the conversation. Important for doctoring, anyway.

 

[loonette]

Did you tell the program director? (I hope the program director didn't say this.)

But that said, hello to the real world. I don't excuse microaggressions so quickly, but if this were a panel interview, I would hope that the older interviewer gets a sidebar to correct this thinking. It's also possible the interviewer was playing "devil's advocate" to see how you would react, knowing that there are people who think this way, even among your (future) medical school peers.

If there is anything that the current anti-DEI movement has disclosed, there are many more people who want the answer to "what about me," and this includes health professionals who might share this opinion.

Learn from the moment and determine how you would react, at the proper time and place, to this.

I have not notified anyone of the comment. It was a 1:1 with one of the school’s professors. I agree, I’m not sure if he was playing devil’s advocate or if this was a “joke” as he laughed afterwards and just moved onto the next topic.