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Is it common for a program to offer hotel accommodations?
Started by mspequestion
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A lot of the TX one did
Up north....not so much
Up north....not so much
Back when I interviewed, only about 10-20% of places either covered a hotel or offered a substantially discounted rate. I don't know if things have changed.
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Also seems very field dependent.
In the family medicine programs I applied to in Kentucky, Illinois, and indiana it was universal for the programs to offer a paid hotel room. Even my home program offered one.
Some of my buddies applying to IM got some discounted rooms sometimes. Field dependent.
Some of my buddies applying to IM got some discounted rooms sometimes. Field dependent.
Most FM programs seem to pay for hotels, roughly 2/3 of the peds programs I interviewed at did, and my surgery friends had to pay for accommodations out of pocket basically every time. It's hugely specialty-dependent, and partially location dependent.
most of the program i interviewed at in IM offered up hotel, the NE though universally did not…they usually didn't have dinners the night before either.
The only thing we ever got was a couple programs had hotels with a "special rate" - which was nearly always higher than what you could find on priceline or expedia 🙄
Definitely field dependent. Most anesthesia programs are offering - exception seems to be NYC area. But then, if you can't afford the hotel room, you probably can't afford to live in NYC during residency.
Agree with it being field and region dependent. None of my >15 IM interviews offered accommodations, but numerous of my friends peds and FM interviews did.
i applied for psych, about half of my programs that i interviewed at did (10/20) did. and yes very region dependent, I found that in big cities they didn't offer hotels, probably due to cost.
It's interesting that it's very "field dependent" in that I doubt the peds, FM or psych programs have more interviewing money in their departments than the IM or surgery programs. Wonder if it's more of a culture rather than money thing...
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Went on 16 Dermatology interviews. 2 paid for hotel rooms completely, and another half dozen or so had discounted rates.
Went on 5 or 6 TY interviews, and two paid for hotels completely. That was a nice surprise.
Went on 5 or 6 TY interviews, and two paid for hotels completely. That was a nice surprise.
It's probably also more of a culture thing, in that since Peds, FM, and psych are not very competitive, the programs that aren't the top in the field are really trying to convince you to rank them highly. It's much more of a job interview than med school interviews are, and the competitive programs are (in the latter case, they have their pick of applicants).
But, some programs just do have more money. Apparently my program used to do a whole bunch of things for the residents, but stopped because the other programs at our institution couldn't afford to do it for their residents. We still get a fair number of perks.
I think it reflects whether you're in a buyers or sellers market, so to speak.
Programs in psych and FM probably have to do more to actively try and recruit applicants, especially desirable applicants, than a lot of other fields. That's also why you more commonly hear of paying for accommodations in rural programs.
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This was my assumption as well.
