Interviewer taking a phone call during interview

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ServiceFirst said:
What are your thoughts about a faculty member taking a phone call during an interview without leaving the room?
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It's unprofessional but you can't do anything about it...

... which is unfortunate because if an applicant's phone rings during the interview, the interviewers may be appalled by unprofessionalism and ding them, according to posts by @Goro @HomeSkool
 
Unfortunately, some professionals conduct themselves in unprofessional ways. Those people are not invited to conduct interviews in future cycles. However, their lack of professionalism doesn't excuse unprofessional behavior in applicants. When our interviewers screw up, they don't get to do interviews anymore. When our applicants screw up, they don't get to attend our medical school.

Here's where risk management comes in (because you just knew I was going to go there): we get plenty of data points on our interviewers but only a couple on our applicants. If I do twenty interviews and my phone rings during one of them, the dean of admissions may shake his/her finger at me and say, "Don't let it happen again." If an applicant attends twenty interviews and their phone rings during one of them, well, that's the only interview that particular school sees. So protect yourselves and make sure those phones are off before you go into your interviews!
 
Sometimes it happens. When I teach fellows, I sometimes have this happen during a class session. One student told me she took the call because she was expecting a path report on a kid's brain tumor.... You don't know what kind of call someone might be expecting.
 
ServiceFirst said:
What are your thoughts about a faculty member taking a phone call during an interview without leaving the room?
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EDIT: It's unprofessional, but busy clinicians have more important priorities, like, patient's lives. So, thanks to the wise mimelim's posts below, I have tempered my thoughts on this.

But on occasions when this happens, please mention this to the Admissions dean. They can talk to the interviewers and suss out what really is going on.
 
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HomeSkool said:
Unfortunately, some professionals conduct themselves in unprofessional ways. Those people are not invited to conduct interviews in future cycles. However, their lack of professionalism doesn't excuse unprofessional behavior in applicants. When our interviewers screw up, they don't get to do interviews anymore. When our applicants screw up, they don't get to attend our medical school.

Here's where risk management comes in (because you just knew I was going to go there): we get plenty of data points on our interviewers but only a couple on our applicants. If I do twenty interviews and my phone rings during one of them, the dean of admissions may shake his/her finger at me and say, "Don't let it happen again." If an applicant attends twenty interviews and their phone rings during one of them, well, that's the only interview that particular school sees. So protect yourselves and make sure those phones are off before you go into your interviews!
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Moderators, please sticky!!!
 
This happens in professional settings. Our lecturers will sometimes get calls as well. They're practicing physicians and might have a call for a consult or one of their patients might have something emergent. In my view, patient situation >>> lecturing or interviewing in terms of importance. This is something that will happen for the rest of your career. I have been sitting at dinner with family friends who are physicians and they either have to take a call from a fellow or resident or they have to leave (if they're taking call from home). It's just the nature of the job. They probably should have left the room in your case but I think the interruption is perfectly understandable.
 
I have had two different interviewers answer the phone during the interview. Neither of them were clinicians.

They both answered the phone to talk to their daughters. Neither conversation was urgent. I thought it was rude, but there's not much I could do.

Got accepted to one, wait listed at the other.
 
givemecoffee said:
A surgeon was interviewing me and was to be performing a procedure following my interview. They're doctors, they're busy, it happens. Just roll with it
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We’re busy too. Some of us have jobs, families, and other things going on. Doctors have people that can take their calls. No excuses. This is maybe the most important interview of our lives. This is appalling. Can’t create a double standard.
 
On_The_Way_Up said:
We’re busy too. Some of us have jobs, families, and other things going on. Doctors have people that can take their calls. No excuses. This is maybe the most important interview of our lives. This is appalling. Can’t create a double standard.
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Are you serious? You have nothing scheduled or going on during that interview except your interview. If you have a personal situation going on at home that might require you to leave emergently, you are certainly allowed to tell them that up front. But FYI, even something like your wife going into labor isn’t something you can’t wait 45 mins to find out.

The clinicians who are interviewing you have patients they are actively responsible for. Their office staff isn’t managing the care of those patients, and residents and fellows often have to check with the attending before doing certain things.

Your sense of entitlement is appalling.
 
Totally understandable considering they have patients to care of

However can't lie that it might make me subconsciously dislike that school a bit
 
ServiceFirst said:
What are your thoughts about a faculty member taking a phone call during an interview without leaving the room?
Click to expand...

Goro said:
It's unprofessional, even for busy clinicians. If this happened, please mention this to the Admissions dean. It's the only way to get rid of bad interviewers.
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On_The_Way_Up said:
We’re busy too. Some of us have jobs, families, and other things going on. Doctors have people that can take their calls. No excuses. This is maybe the most important interview of our lives. This is appalling. Can’t create a double standard.
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It has been a while since I was an interviewer for medical school. But, I have been interviewing MS4s for residency for 4 years now and obviously keep up with medical school admissions quite a bit. I really dislike the all or none, "no excuses" perspective. This presumes that you know the nuances of the circumstances of all physicians who are helping interview candidates, which no one does. While physicians that spend 90%+ of their time at university hospitals may have a reasonable amount of protected time for non-clinical things, the vast majority of physicians (even if affiliated with a medical school) do not. Now, you can tell me that you don't think that those physicians should be involved with interviewing and selecting medical students, but I would consider that to be incredibly short sighted and borderline idiotic. But, otherwise, not taking into consideration the limitations and constraints that modern physicians face is just plain silly.

There are certainly unprofessional physicians. It is certainly unprofessional to take certain calls. But, to globally say that it is unprofessional to take ALL phone calls is just wrong. To deal in those kind of absolutes is very naive.
 
ServiceFirst said:
What are your thoughts about a faculty member taking a phone call during an interview without leaving the room?
Click to expand...

This has happened to me twice. In both cases it was a direct call from another physician who asked about a rather important, time-sensitive matter. In both cases there was no other person who could reasonably answer the query. Given that my professional responsibility to patients supersedes my responsibility to interviewees, it was not exactly a difficult choice.

People don't typically come out of the woodwork to volunteer applicants to medical school. It's necessary, and can be very enjoyable and enlightening, but it's also burdensome on one's time. And of course the outside world doesn't stop just because I'm having a conversational assessment of someone's fitness for our program.
 
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mimelim said:
It has been a while since I was an interviewer for medical school. But, I have been interviewing MS4s for residency for 4 years now and obviously keep up with medical school admissions quite a bit. I really dislike the all or none, "no excuses" perspective. This presumes that you know the nuances of the circumstances of all physicians who are helping interview candidates, which no one does. While physicians that spend 90%+ of their time at university hospitals may have a reasonable amount of protected time for non-clinical things, the vast majority of physicians (even if affiliated with a medical school) do not. Now, you can tell me that you don't think that those physicians should be involved with interviewing and selecting medical students, but I would consider that to be incredibly short sighted and borderline idiotic. But, otherwise, not taking into consideration the limitations and constraints that modern physicians face is just plain silly.

There are certainly unprofessional physicians. It is certainly unprofessional to take certain calls. But, to globally say that it is unprofessional to take ALL phone calls is just wrong. To deal in those kind of absolutes is very naive.
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If you can’t interview people without picking up your phone then you need to step away from this and have someone else do it. It’s not idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Are you serious? You have nothing scheduled or going on during that interview except your interview. If you have a personal situation going on at home that might require you to leave emergently, you are certainly allowed to tell them that up front. But FYI, even something like your wife going into labor isn’t something you can’t wait 45 mins to find out.

The clinicians who are interviewing you have patients they are actively responsible for. Their office staff isn’t managing the care of those patients, and residents and fellows often have to check with the attending before doing certain things.

Your sense of entitlement is appalling.
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Same for the person giving the interview. Is their time not supposed to be there? Asking people to respect other people’s time isn’t being entitled. Picking up a phone call in an interview is. You realize people have families? Jobs? Potential emergencies of their own? Applicants are told to turn off their phones. Why the double standard?
 
On_The_Way_Up said:
Same for the person giving the interview. Is their time not supposed to be there? Asking people to respect other people’s time isn’t being entitled. Picking up a phone call in an interview is. You realize people have families? Jobs? Potential emergencies of their own? Applicants are told to turn off their phones. Why the double standard?
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Wow the ego on you is huge. I hope you manage to shrink that before you interview if you haven’t already. Try to think about someone other than yourself for a second, and I will explain this very slowly.

Sometimes the interviewer is a physician. Those physicians often have patients. Those patients are sometimes very sick. If the attending is unreachable for an hour, there are cases where a patient could decompensate and crash during that hour. Therefore, they sometimes have to answer calls to make sure their patients stay alive.

You are a premed. You are not probably not directly responsible for the lives of anyone. If you have a family that is going through some sort of situation where you might need to leave quickly, your interviewer will most likely understand.

That said, the most commonly named emergency is a pregnant spouse. The average first labor is 14 hours. The average for second time mothers is 8 hours. Having your phone off for 45-60 minutes is very unlikely to cause you to miss the delivery.

By the way, I have a family. That does not make my time somehow more important than a patient’s.

Edit: because I have to be super clear apparently, this does not apply to non-urgent calls. If the interviewer is taking a call from his daughter or wife or something that is not time sensitive, that’s not acceptable.
 
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This happened during my residency interview... the PD answered 2 phone calls from his daughter. It was in no way urgent/emergent - he talked on speaker.


I smiled and said "yeah, no problem".

Despite its unprofessional but there is a power difference even at a resident applicant vs PD level. So for a pre med vs med school applicant, I'd imagine the power difference to be greater.
-----

Now if the interviewer is a physician, he should preface it at the beginning of the session "I just want you to know, I've stepped away from the hospital Bc should an emergency arrives, I might still be picking up a few calls. Sorry for the disturbance".
 
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On_The_Way_Up said:
If you can’t interview people without picking up your phone then you need to step away from this and have someone else do it. It’s not idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
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Do me a favor. Go ahead and link me to where anyone in this thread stated that it was "idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people's time." While you may completely misconstrue other people's posting to further your own argument, it is blatantly obvious and frankly diminishes any possible credibility.

Your sense of entitlement is ridiculous, even for a pre-med. You have zero respect for the interviewer's job or the sacrifices they make to be at these interviews. I suspect that this is born out of pure ignorance rather than malicious intent, but it is a little perplexing how someone can be aspiring to be a physician and so woefully uninformed about the daily lives of the profession.
 
mimelim said:
Do me a favor. Go ahead and link me to where anyone in this thread stated that it was "idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people's time." While you may completely misconstrue other people's posting to further your own argument, it is blatantly obvious and frankly diminishes any possible credibility.

Your sense of entitlement is ridiculous, even for a pre-med. You have zero respect for the interviewer's job or the sacrifices they make to be at these interviews. I suspect that this is born out of pure ignorance rather than malicious intent, but it is a little perplexing how someone can be aspiring to be a physician and so woefully uninformed about the daily lives of the profession.
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mimelim said:
It has been a while since I was an interviewer for medical school. But, I have been interviewing MS4s for residency for 4 years now and obviously keep up with medical school admissions quite a bit. I really dislike the all or none, "no excuses" perspective. This presumes that you know the nuances of the circumstances of all physicians who are helping interview candidates, which no one does. While physicians that spend 90%+ of their time at university hospitals may have a reasonable amount of protected time for non-clinical things, the vast majority of physicians (even if affiliated with a medical school) do not. Now, you can tell me that you don't think that those physicians should be involved with interviewing and selecting medical students, but I would consider that to be incredibly short sighted and borderline idiotic. But, otherwise, not taking into consideration the limitations and constraints that modern physicians face is just plain silly.

There are certainly unprofessional physicians. It is certainly unprofessional to take certain calls. But, to globally say that it is unprofessional to take ALL phone calls is just wrong. To deal in those kind of absolutes is very naive.
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Lmao seriously pal? Too easy. You said it’s idiotic to say this then I said it’s not idiotic because all you’re doing is asking someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
 
On_The_Way_Up said:
Lmao seriously pal? Too easy. You said it’s idiotic to say this then I said it’s not idiotic because all you’re doing is asking someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
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To be really fair, an applicant's time is of the lowest value compared to a physician's, especially if a patient's life is at stake. If you don't like this particular school and its interviewer you always have the option to withdraw your application.
 
On_The_Way_Up said:
Lmao seriously pal? Too easy. You said it’s idiotic to say this then I said it’s not idiotic because all you’re doing is asking someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
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Your time? You are there trying to sell yourself to the school, and that's it. The physician interviewer is there on top of his clinical, administrative, and possibly research duties. If you're too busy and important to interview on that day, you should have picked a different slot or cancelled.

You're probably not that busy and important.
 
On_The_Way_Up said:
Lmao seriously pal? Too easy. You said it’s idiotic to say this then I said it’s not idiotic because all you’re doing is asking someone to be respectful of other people’s time.
Click to expand...

Again, pure and simple. Link to any post where someone says, "idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people's time." I know exactly what I wrote. While you can try to misconstrue what I wrote, it is there for anyone to see. You have zero idea about what being a physician is like, the time demands or really the interview process at all. I strongly recommend you do some shadowing and maybe some basic investigation into the interview process. It would be nice if we lived in a world/system where you could make simple associations like 'using phone' = 'bad', but guess what? The world isn't that simple.

Interviewing is generally a thankless job. It is also lost time for many physicians. Contrary to popular belief, most people after becoming physicians run away from academia, not toward it. I am all for getting rid of bad interviewers and certainly that includes physicians that take social calls during an interview. But, I'm sorry, if you can't appreciate that some physicians simply can not turn off their pager/phone during an interview for clinical reasons, you are incredibly naive. Pure and simple.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Your time? You are there trying to sell yourself to the school, and that's it. The physician interviewer is there on top of his clinical, administrative, and possibly research duties. If you're too busy and important to interview on that day, you should have picked a different slot or cancelled.

You're probably not that busy and important.
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I don't like getting into the argument of who's time is more valuable. It is impossible to win and generally counter productive. This isn't about physicians being important and pre-meds not being important. I am certainly cognizant and protective of people shadowing me and doing research with me, even if they aren't as busy as I am. Everyone's time is valuable, best to avoid wasting anyone's time whenever possible. But.... that isn't what this is about. This is about understanding the most very basics of the interview process and the realities of being a physician.
 
mimelim said:
I don't like getting into the argument of who's time is more valuable. It is impossible to win and generally counter productive. This isn't about physicians being important and pre-meds not being important. I am certainly cognizant and protective of people shadowing me and doing research with me, even if they aren't as busy as I am. Everyone's time is valuable, best to avoid wasting anyone's time whenever possible. But.... that isn't what this is about. This is about understanding the most very basics of the interview process and the realities of being a physician.
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While I generally agree, he is creating an equivalence between the physician's time and the interviewee's time. Since he brought it up, I feel fine addressing it. While everyone's time is valuable to a degree, the interviewee is specifically there to interview for a seat at that medical school. Does he deserve a good and respectful interviewer? Yes. But the physician, as I said (and as you pointed out as well), is there on top of myriad other duties, adding to an already busy schedule. Since there can be only one of her, that means her time must necessarily be split, and it is important that she not be cut off from the rest of her duties. That's all I'm saying.
 
mimelim said:
Again, pure and simple. Link to any post where someone says, "idiotic to expect someone to be respectful of other people's time." I know exactly what I wrote. While you can try to misconstrue what I wrote, it is there for anyone to see. You have zero idea about what being a physician is like, the time demands or really the interview process at all. I strongly recommend you do some shadowing and maybe some basic investigation into the interview process. It would be nice if we lived in a world/system where you could make simple associations like 'using phone' = 'bad', but guess what? The world isn't that simple.

Interviewing is generally a thankless job. It is also lost time for many physicians. Contrary to popular belief, most people after becoming physicians run away from academia, not toward it. I am all for getting rid of bad interviewers and certainly that includes physicians that take social calls during an interview. But, I'm sorry, if you can't appreciate that some physicians simply can not turn off their pager/phone during an interview for clinical reasons, you are incredibly naive. Pure and simple.
Click to expand...

He’s right. That’s what you said. Why is it idiotic to expect someone interviewing you to have their phones turned off like everyone else is expected to? If you can’t do that then don’t volunteer to interview people. You’re pretty much saying whatever this interview isn’t that important. Hence not valuing someone’s time. If an applicant did that it would surely be a rejection or at the least hard to overcome.
 
Dwight K Schrute said:
He’s right. That’s what you said. Why is it idiotic to expect someone interviewing you to have their phones turned off like everyone else is expected to? If you can’t do that then don’t volunteer to interview people. You’re pretty much saying whatever this interview isn’t that important. Hence not valuing someone’s time. If an applicant did that it would surely be a rejection or at the least hard to overcome.
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Because the interviewer is in a position of power and the applicant isn’t? Is this really rocket science? Also why would a ringing phone bother you anyway? Are you really that dense?
 
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Dwight K Schrute said:
He’s right. That’s what you said. Why is it idiotic to expect someone interviewing you to have their phones turned off like everyone else is expected to? If you can’t do that then don’t volunteer to interview people. You’re pretty much saying whatever this interview isn’t that important. Hence not valuing someone’s time. If an applicant did that it would surely be a rejection or at the least hard to overcome.
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Reading comprehension. It is important....
 
doctorcocter said:
Because the interviewer is in a position of power and the applicant isn’t? Is this really rocket science? Also why would a ringing phone bother you anyway? Are you really that dense?
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Why wouldn’t it bother you? It’s distracting during the interview. And besides that it didn’t just ring. According to the OP they answered the phone during the interview. Are YOU that dense? How about some more reading next time before you enter in a thread. I love me some irony though. Thanks for the laugh.
 
mimelim said:
Reading comprehension. It is important....
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Hilarious. Nothing some people have said in here is idiotic. But whatever we get it. You’re a big shot doctor and the rules only apply to the common folk. That’s what people are getting at who don’t appreciate someone answering their phone during an interview. An interview that may be their only shot at Med school and can change their life. An interview someone might have flown across the country for. An interview they have been waiting for a long time. It’s not professional or respectful. And you can’t even give them 20-30 minutes of your time? Peachy
 
Op can you solve all these hypotheticals and tell us what they talked about on the phone? Was it an emergency or just a nice chit chat with their friend?

Personally I think it's fine for emergencies but rude if not. Seems simple enough to me. It's not like they can predict everything that'll happen with their patients so they need to be reachable.
 
Dwight K Schrute said:
He’s right. That’s what you said. Why is it idiotic to expect someone interviewing you to have their phones turned off like everyone else is expected to?
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Do you really not understand that some of these folks HAVE to be reacheable at certain times and just may HAVE to take certain calls. It’s unrealistic to expect that every single interviewer be devoid of any clinical duties during that time.

It’s not about being disrespectful if someone else’s time but about both people in that room having different responsibilities during that time. You the interviewee don’t have those sort of responsibilities at that moment, they do.

If you were interviewing for a job with say a CEO and their secretary came in with an urgent matter that only that person could handle would you call that disrespectful?

We made an appointment with a local fire station to take our kids there to tour the station and fire trucks and during the tour they got a call and had to leave emergently. How rude of them.....
 
Dwight K Schrute said:
Hilarious. Nothing some people have said in here is idiotic. But whatever we get it. You’re a big shot doctor and the rules only apply to the common folk. That’s what people are getting at who don’t appreciate someone answering their phone during an interview. An interview that may be their only shot at Med school and can change their life. An interview someone might have flown across the country for. An interview they have been waiting for a long time. It’s not professional or respectful. And you can’t even give them 20-30 minutes of your time? Peachy
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It wasn't supposed to be funny. It was a statement of fact.

Some other facts. You clearly know nothing about medical school admissions. You clearly know nothing about being a physician. We get it you are so self absorbed and egocentric that your precious interview is more important to you than people's lives and health.

You also clearly lack the ability to read forum posts and comprehend them, so further discussion is pointless and I'll just exit this thread now.
 
Interviewers may breach etiquette, and interviewees have to sit there and take it. The end.
 
Dwight K Schrute said:
Why wouldn’t it bother you? It’s distracting during the interview. And besides that it didn’t just ring. According to the OP they answered the phone during the interview. Are YOU that dense? How about some more reading next time before you enter in a thread. I love me some irony though. Thanks for the laugh.
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Wow you are an angry and angsty little boy. I did read it, so he answered the call, boohoo. It won't bother me because I'm not petty. There will be distractions in life and you'll have to deal with it. Ignore him and you have more time to think about what you want to say? Was your mom mean to you when you were little?
 
Unfortunately ones clinical responsibilities don’t go away even when your administrative assistant blocks out your calendar for a couple of hours. Physicians responsible for patients currently in the hospital need to be able to take those calls, maybe it’s important, maybe it could have waited, but the nurse on 9 South doesn’t know they’re doing an interview, she just knows that it says to call the attending if the free flap looks dusky. I’m an anesthesiologist, for the most part a replaceable cog in the wheel, but even we have sub sub specialty skills that my other partners do not. It would be possible that someone would call to ask an urgent question about a fetal surgery case, complex craniotomy, etc.
In order to be considered for our “special teams” you have to accept that other attendings may call you for advice, etc. about those cases. They’re uncommon, but sometimes those calls come in at night, when you’re driving to the airport, at dinner, etc. If they’re calling you it’s important to some child about to have surgery or in the OR now, so you take the call.
It may have briefly distracted the interviewer, but unless you have some pathologic inflexibility you should be able to roll with the punches and keep your focus. If you are so easily derailable or entitled causing you to rage about a brief distraction that shouldn’t affect you in any real way, perhaps the reality of modern medicine isn’t a good fit. Maybe consider your own derm clinic or shift work in the ED?


--
Il Destriero
 
This is why people need to play more golf, so they can understand how to maintain focus and concentration despite distractions. Plus its fun and relieves stress so you won't be a dick.
 
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