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Okay, so now that the season is nearing the end and everyone's been through a handful, I thought it'd be fun to hash over the hot topics from the interview trail. Please offer your own!
On Program Size:
Small Programs
What the residents say: "You get to know each other really well, you'll never get lost in the shuffle"
What they mean: "Be prepared to have everyone in the entire hospital, including the program director, the department chair, the emeritus professors, the kitchen staff and the patients/parents who are frequent flyers know all the gaudy details of your most recent weekend"
Large Programs
What the residents say: "There are enough people to go around so that if someone gets sick or has a baby, you won't get screwed having to pick up their work."
What they mean: "It's pretty likely that someone in your intern class will have a baby and you won't even realize until your PL-3 year at the end of year banquet...at which point you'll finally understand that the reason that person always seemed mad at you was because you never got them a baby shower gift"
On the cost of living:
What they say: "It's really cheap to live here, most of the residents bought houses"
What they mean: "We're all just hedging our bets that in three years the housing market will have recovered"
What they say: "It's totally affordable to live here"
What they mean: "Have you ever lived in Chicago or NYC? Compared to those places, it's cheap...oh you lived in Pig's Knuckle, South Dakota most recently, that might a little bit different"
On the role of fellows at their institution:
What they say: "I've never had a fellow steal a procedure from me"
What they mean: "Well, usually, I never tell the fellow that there's a patient here that might need their attention, and more importantly, I get one of the other interns to page the fellow to some distant sub-basement, and once I started doing that, no stolen procedures."
OR
"This place is so busy that the fellow is off doing 4 or 5 other procedures while I struggle through mine with no assistance or backup."
On Program Size:
Small Programs
What the residents say: "You get to know each other really well, you'll never get lost in the shuffle"
What they mean: "Be prepared to have everyone in the entire hospital, including the program director, the department chair, the emeritus professors, the kitchen staff and the patients/parents who are frequent flyers know all the gaudy details of your most recent weekend"
Large Programs
What the residents say: "There are enough people to go around so that if someone gets sick or has a baby, you won't get screwed having to pick up their work."
What they mean: "It's pretty likely that someone in your intern class will have a baby and you won't even realize until your PL-3 year at the end of year banquet...at which point you'll finally understand that the reason that person always seemed mad at you was because you never got them a baby shower gift"
On the cost of living:
What they say: "It's really cheap to live here, most of the residents bought houses"
What they mean: "We're all just hedging our bets that in three years the housing market will have recovered"
What they say: "It's totally affordable to live here"
What they mean: "Have you ever lived in Chicago or NYC? Compared to those places, it's cheap...oh you lived in Pig's Knuckle, South Dakota most recently, that might a little bit different"
On the role of fellows at their institution:
What they say: "I've never had a fellow steal a procedure from me"
What they mean: "Well, usually, I never tell the fellow that there's a patient here that might need their attention, and more importantly, I get one of the other interns to page the fellow to some distant sub-basement, and once I started doing that, no stolen procedures."
OR
"This place is so busy that the fellow is off doing 4 or 5 other procedures while I struggle through mine with no assistance or backup."
