meeting with current residents- will there be backstabbing?

[forex]

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At often, applicants are allowed to meet with current residents during interivew. At the same time, the program let applicants know that they get input from residents. Is it kinda weird? Then .....

Can I openly ask questions to them? Do they convery/forward our questions to the PD and others? How much PD will factor in their input?

On the other hand, who is going to say my program sucks. I think they also restrict themselves to reveal all because they are still in the program. Hate-love relationship 😡

 

[justwondering]

anytime u meet with anyone (secretary, resident, etc), u should consider urself as being "on interview". residents may help choose their next class, so keep that in mind.

 

[Winged Scapula]

You can openly ask questions but if they're inappropriate, strange or irrelevant yes, I probably will tell my PD. Last thing a resident wants is someone they don't like being in their program.

Residents will lie about their program.

Residents will tell the truth about their program.

Residents will tell you the bad things, but then tell you how they are improving.

I had no problem telling people what I thought sucked about my program but I also wanted them to know the good stuff. Unfortunately, you will have little way of knowing which group the residents you've interviewed with fall into.

 

[Doowai]

A friend of mine tells me he went to an interview recently in Maryland, the PD did not even show up, and one of the residents doing part of the interview said : you don't want to be here. My friend just got up and left.

 

[Top Gun]

A friend of mine tells me he went to an interview recently in Maryland, the PD did not even show up, and one of the residents doing part of the interview said : you don't want to be here. My friend just got up and left.

Your friend should not have done that. Even though the resident was negative about the program, for all we know, he/she could have decided to report your friend's behavior to the PD and the residency recruitment committee. Then the PD could have easily reported the fact that your friend left in the middle of the interview to PD's at other residency programs your friend might be interested in, effectively blackballing him or her. The medical community is pretty tight, and rumors of inappropriate behavior can spread between residency programs.

 

[ShambhalaRed]

I would try to talk to as many residents as possible at programs you're interested in. Sure there will be residents at every program who have a bad attitude, and if the PD (or some equivalent representative of the program) doesn't show up, that should be a flag, but the more people you talk to, the more you'll get a genuine sense of whether people are happy or not.

When I talk to applicants on interview day or at night-before dinners, I try to be as honest as possible about the pluses and minuses of our program. Sometimes I feel like a used-car salesman because most of the time I'm gushing about the things I love about my program, and I worry that applicants might think I'm faking it. But to be fair, I do talk openly about some of the problems that exist, and what we're doing to try to make them better. I don't feel particularly bad about this, because I know from talking to friends in other programs that no program is perfect. There will be problems everywhere you go, and you have to know that.

You should feel free to ask whatever questions you have. I don't generally report things to the PD unless they were flagrantly positive or negative, and I think it's important for us in evaluating whether an applicant would be a good fit for our program to hear what kinds of things they're considering or feel is important in a program, so I am always happy to answer questions.

 

[Doowai]

Your friend should not have done that. Even though the resident was negative about the program, for all we know, he/she could have decided to report your friend's behavior to the PD and the residency recruitment committee. Then the PD could have easily reported the fact that your friend left in the middle of the interview to PD's at other residency programs your friend might be interested in, effectively blackballing him or her. The medical community is pretty tight, and rumors of inappropriate behavior can spread between residency programs.

Dude, you are preaching to the choir here. That EXACTLY happened to me prior to this year. I knew I did not want to be there and left mid-day. I was in the middle of a cardiology rotation that was really busting my hump, and once I realized I did not want to be there I decided I would rather spend the day with my kids. But in this case, a PD that does not even show for interviews, and residents saying the place sucked is probably not going to be much of a problem.

 

[ekydrd]

I would try to talk to as many residents as possible at programs you're interested in...

You should feel free to ask whatever questions you have. I don't generally report things to the PD unless they were flagrantly positive or negative, and I think it's important for us in evaluating whether an applicant would be a good fit for our program to hear what kinds of things they're considering or feel is important in a program, so I am always happy to answer questions.

This is very true. Our program, as well as the two "parent" programs (I'm Med/Peds) values input from the residents about interactions with candidates. If we feel someone would rather be off playing golf or some such (had a candidate that talked ad nauseum about golf and did we have any good courses and how much time did we have off every month... and yes, almost all in one breath) he or she won't have their head in the work at hand. This will be percieved as someone else having to carry that persons load, and no one wants to do extra work.

But this does not mean not talking about something you are very interested in, such as playing golf occasionally, trail walking in a park, going to movies, etc. Just keep it more as a personal interest, not as an obscession. We like to hear about other peoples stress relieving tactics, and may have similar interests. Also don't think you have to "talk shop" either. You'll get plenty of that later, and we aren't judging your medical knowlege anyway.

In our program we tend to report on such things as was the english understandable, is he/she easy to talk to, will she/he be too overbearing, could we work with this person, etc. Do keep in mind that anyone you meet during your interview time could be reporting back to the PD... including the van driver (hey, it's possible!).