most bizarre interview moment?

BU Medical Sciences
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At University X, I had an interview with a psychiatrist (I think many weird interviews start out this way). I was waiting in his waiting room, and the guy next to me just starts repeating, "I want to kill you" quietly enough so that I'm the only one who hears it.

Somehow, I think mentioning this will break the ice with Dr. Y, so as we walk into his office, I tell him the guy next to me wants to kill me.

His response?

"And how does that make you feel?"
 
KAJ84 said:
At University X, I had an interview with a psychiatrist (I think many weird interviews start out this way). I was waiting in his waiting room, and the guy next to me just starts repeating, "I want to kill you" quietly enough so that I'm the only one who hears it.

Somehow, I think mentioning this will break the ice with Dr. Y, so as we walk into his office, I tell him the guy next to me wants to kill me.

His response?

"And how does that make you feel?"
Click to expand...

That sounds so set up to me. Hilarious though.
 
man, this thread took long to read. I can't wait to contribute to it (soon, I hope)!
 
Had an interview at Texas Tech where we got to talking about my recent travelling to Europe and more specifically about Italy. He then went on to tell me...for 30 minutes...the history of pizza. Its origins, formal uses, changes made the recipe in the US. If I dont get in to med school, I guess I now know enough about pizza that I could open up a franchise.
 
shawnzy said:
Had an interview at Texas Tech where we got to talking about my recent travelling to Europe and more specifically about Italy. He then went on to tell me...for 30 minutes...the history of pizza. Its origins, formal uses, changes made the recipe in the US. If I dont get in to med school, I guess I now know enough about pizza that I could open up a franchise.
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That's soo cool.
:laugh:
 
BigMDT said:
I dunno if this was bizarre......but definitely unprofessional, and DEFINITELY flattering 🙂

I, (a male) walk into the room to find an MS2 interviewer (female, and same ethnicity) waiting.


Her: "Hello! You must be..____!?"

Me: "Yes! Its great to meet you, thanks for taking the time to see me today!"

Her: "Hahaha. Ohhhh...I love to interview applicants....gee, you sure look HANDSOME TODAY dont you!?"

Me: "You gotta dress for the job you want, right? haha"

Her: " Wow....you could totally be in an asian boy band or something! I see you have musicianship skills in your application. Have you ever considered that?"

Me: (feeling weird) "Uh...no. never."

Her: "Hmmm. hehe, i see. Well, so,....... tell me about yourself! What are you doing nowadays? You are out of school? Any girlfriends?"

Me: "Well yeah, Im done with school, and ive been with my girlfriend for two years now. Shes wonderful. And very supportive of me pursuing medicine.....(continue, trying to steer the conversation to medicine and what i did in college)

Her: (after 20 minutes of me talking and answering why I wanted to go to the school) "I think this school would be a GREAT fit for you. We could use more really great guys like you! I like that you found what you wanted to do while in college! It seems like you did so much in those years.....how did you find time to socialize!? or even date? Does your girlfiend miss you a lot?!"

Me: "I had lots of time to enjoy college....lots of friends and everything. My girlfiend is premed too, so she understands."

Her: "WOW. You're lucky!...Lots of med students have significant others... Shes lucky. I wish i had someone like that."

Me: Smiling....and waiting for the next question)

Her: Ok...So...any questions for me? (I asked her a couple questions)

Her: "Ok then!!! Well, i think you are good to go, and I believe i have enough to say good things about you! Im gonna go ahead and give you my card here, it has my mailbox, email, and phone number there if you have any questions or want to contact me!....You know...its great that you live in the area so if you even wanna meet for coffee sometime or dinner, or hang out or do something together, you have my number! Dont be shy, im available almost every monday night, cause we have exams monday mornings hahaha."

Me: "yes, of course. thank you again for your time."

She then walks over, i put out my hand to shake, but instead she gives me a hug and escorts me out......😳.....

Note: i never contacted her afterwords, nor sent a thank you note. i was later accepted, and i have not told my gf about this 😱
Click to expand...


That has got to be the sickest interview I've read of thus far...I mean, what if she had been like pound me...hahahaah...But seriously, the interview sounds like a scene from a unreleased Harold and Kumar movie :laugh:
 
So I was just on the phone to confirm my interview date, and the coordinator asks me when my interview is scheduled for. And being a *******, I say "nine eleven" instead of "September 11th" :smack: Guess you wouldn't really say "nine twelve." I felt like Giuliani for a second there.
 
brickmanli said:
At one of my Pritzker interviews, I was asked about my favorite writers. I told her how I love to read contemporary Chinese literature but despise Amy Tan because she tends to write generic melodrama. Then I saw this open hardcover book on her desk and asked her what she was reading. She showed it to me.

It was the Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan.

I didn't cease my diatribe because otherwise she would've added hypocritical to the list of my attributes.
Click to expand...

Ouch.
 
Last cycle, a friend of mine got into an argument with his interviewer.

Interviewer: any family in medicine?

Friend: my dad was a doctor, but he retired

Interviewer: how old was he when he retired?

Friend: 55

Interviewer: why would he retire at 55?

Friend: he was tired of medicine/it wasn't for him

Interviewer: i don't believe that. he's probably just lazy.

Friend defends his dad....leads to a big argument...got rejected from a school he almost definitely would've been accepted to (or at LEAST waitlisted) with even a decent interview.
 
hmm... said:
It is unfortunate that there are so many brainwashed folks in Taiwan. To the people on mainland China, Taiwan is still part of China because a third-party USA intervened in the civil war. It's as if Britain helped the defeated Confederates establish a new border of Florida. Mao defeated the Nationalists who fled to Taiwan (basically commies vs. dictators). They both planned still planned to take each other over, but in 1950, Truman deployed the Seventh Fleet preventing either side from attacking. In 1955, Congress enacted the Formosa Resolution pledging American defense of Taiwan. This was in addition to the billions of dollars of US taxpayers dollars sent for economic aid and also military aid. America still continues to provide Taiwan with military tech, while the Taiwan lobby is still strong in America.

My dad did a teaching stint in Taiwan helped enlighten me further. In Taiwan, the entire culture seems to be anti-China. The kids are schooled from a young age about the horrors Communist China and how different they are. The Taiwanese language is Chinese. The written form is Chinese. The spoken form is pretty much Shanghai dialect mixed in with some Beijing Mandarin. Btw, when I went to visit the Forbidden City in Beijing, I noticed how empty it was. Guess what? A lot of that stuff are in museums in Taiwan mixed in with stuff about Chiang Kai-shek.

Back on topic.

I went to UBuff and to prepare, I read through the interview guide here on SDN. There was one guy you would quiz you on newspaper clippings and also ask about the state of medicine in America. One question on SDN that was posted was about the number of people uninsured in America. I did not know, so I looked it up before the interview. During the interview, I got the same question from that same guy. After my interview, I heard him grumbling something about that "dang student doctor network." 🙂
Click to expand...


Bwahahaha. That's too funny. that is why I love SDN. I think only UCF and FIU will be schools one is not able to prepare for this year with SDN.

The only thing is I think people should look to see what to expect but not over prepare to the point it sounds robotic cuz sometimes they take off points for that too. :laugh:
 
BigMDT said:
I dunno if this was bizarre......but definitely unprofessional, and DEFINITELY flattering 🙂

I, (a male) walk into the room to find an MS2 interviewer (female, and same ethnicity) waiting.


Her: "Hello! You must be..____!?"

Me: "Yes! Its great to meet you, thanks for taking the time to see me today!"

Her: "Hahaha. Ohhhh...I love to interview applicants....gee, you sure look HANDSOME TODAY dont you!?"

Me: "You gotta dress for the job you want, right? haha"

Her: " Wow....you could totally be in an asian boy band or something! I see you have musicianship skills in your application. Have you ever considered that?"

Me: (feeling weird) "Uh...no. never."

Her: "Hmmm. hehe, i see. Well, so,....... tell me about yourself! What are you doing nowadays? You are out of school? Any girlfriends?"

Me: "Well yeah, Im done with school, and ive been with my girlfriend for two years now. Shes wonderful. And very supportive of me pursuing medicine.....(continue, trying to steer the conversation to medicine and what i did in college)

Her: (after 20 minutes of me talking and answering why I wanted to go to the school) "I think this school would be a GREAT fit for you. We could use more really great guys like you! I like that you found what you wanted to do while in college! It seems like you did so much in those years.....how did you find time to socialize!? or even date? Does your girlfiend miss you a lot?!"

Me: "I had lots of time to enjoy college....lots of friends and everything. My girlfiend is premed too, so she understands."

Her: "WOW. You're lucky!...Lots of med students have significant others... Shes lucky. I wish i had someone like that."

Me: Smiling....and waiting for the next question)

Her: Ok...So...any questions for me? (I asked her a couple questions)

Her: "Ok then!!! Well, i think you are good to go, and I believe i have enough to say good things about you! Im gonna go ahead and give you my card here, it has my mailbox, email, and phone number there if you have any questions or want to contact me!....You know...its great that you live in the area so if you even wanna meet for coffee sometime or dinner, or hang out or do something together, you have my number! Dont be shy, im available almost every monday night, cause we have exams monday mornings hahaha."

Me: "yes, of course. thank you again for your time."

She then walks over, i put out my hand to shake, but instead she gives me a hug and escorts me out......😳.....

Note: i never contacted her afterwords, nor sent a thank you note. i was later accepted, and i have not told my gf about this 😱
Click to expand...

Props to you, SHE WANTS YOUR EGGROLL:laugh:
Was she cute?
 
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U Pitt the other day... The interviewer asked me why I wanted to go to Pitt. I responded with:
"I like the PBR... PBL... Problem Based Learning system..."
I hope he/she isn't a big fan of cheap beer...
 
I walk into my interviewer's office. There's a chair that I'm clearly supposed to sit in... except his little dog is sitting on it. I introduce myself and we exchange pleasantries... and I'm waiting for him to call his dog over. Finally, after what seems like 5 minutes, he calls to his dog, which jumps onto his desk. As the interview goes on, the interviewer is stroking his dog lovingly. At one point, the dog shakes itself vigorously - unfortunately, it is wet, so I become damp as well. Not sure how this got worked into conversation, but the interviewer mentioned that his dog gets lonely when it's home alone, so he brings it to work every few days.

This pales in comparison to many of the stories here, but honestly, this was the weirdest thing that happened to me - everything else was very normal!
 
Discussed Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle with a dean during an interview (it was one of her favorite movies).

One med school in TX didn't really have great AC, and I sat thru an interview drenched in my suit. My interviewer didn't seem to notice at all...

This wasn't during an interview, but during the interview day - they showed us all a video that graduating 4th yrs make (an annual traditional thing) and it was just weird.
 
BigMDT said:
I dunno if this was bizarre......but definitely unprofessional, and DEFINITELY flattering 🙂

I, (a male) walk into the room to find an MS2 interviewer (female, and same ethnicity) waiting.


Her: "Hello! You must be..____!?"

Me: "Yes! Its great to meet you, thanks for taking the time to see me today!"

Her: "Hahaha. Ohhhh...I love to interview applicants....gee, you sure look HANDSOME TODAY dont you!?"

Me: "You gotta dress for the job you want, right? haha"

Her: " Wow....you could totally be in an asian boy band or something! I see you have musicianship skills in your application. Have you ever considered that?"

Me: (feeling weird) "Uh...no. never."

Her: "Hmmm. hehe, i see. Well, so,....... tell me about yourself! What are you doing nowadays? You are out of school? Any girlfriends?"

Me: "Well yeah, Im done with school, and ive been with my girlfriend for two years now. Shes wonderful. And very supportive of me pursuing medicine.....(continue, trying to steer the conversation to medicine and what i did in college)

Her: (after 20 minutes of me talking and answering why I wanted to go to the school) "I think this school would be a GREAT fit for you. We could use more really great guys like you! I like that you found what you wanted to do while in college! It seems like you did so much in those years.....how did you find time to socialize!? or even date? Does your girlfiend miss you a lot?!"

Me: "I had lots of time to enjoy college....lots of friends and everything. My girlfiend is premed too, so she understands."

Her: "WOW. You're lucky!...Lots of med students have significant others... Shes lucky. I wish i had someone like that."

Me: Smiling....and waiting for the next question)

Her: Ok...So...any questions for me? (I asked her a couple questions)

Her: "Ok then!!! Well, i think you are good to go, and I believe i have enough to say good things about you! Im gonna go ahead and give you my card here, it has my mailbox, email, and phone number there if you have any questions or want to contact me!....You know...its great that you live in the area so if you even wanna meet for coffee sometime or dinner, or hang out or do something together, you have my number! Dont be shy, im available almost every monday night, cause we have exams monday mornings hahaha."

Me: "yes, of course. thank you again for your time."

She then walks over, i put out my hand to shake, but instead she gives me a hug and escorts me out......😳.....

Note: i never contacted her afterwords, nor sent a thank you note. i was later accepted, and i have not told my gf about this 😱
Click to expand...

Seriously dude.

YTMND.

Was she hot?
 
Meetchy said:
U Pitt the other day... The interviewer asked me why I wanted to go to Pitt. I responded with:
"I like the PBR... PBL... Problem Based Learning system..."
I hope he/she isn't a big fan of cheap beer...
Click to expand...

this probably would have made me give you a great review!
 
Apparently this one interviewer (whom I didn't have) was spouting out zany questions one after another, non-stop:

"If you were ice cream, what flavor would you be?"
"If you could invite any three people to dinner, who would they be and why?"
"If you could meet any famous literary character, who would you meet?"
"Tell me a joke."

Just bam-bam-bam, one after the other.

I imagine that this was an attempt to "lighten the mood" a little...however, this one girl was nearly crying afterwards because the word "medicine" apparently never once managed to penetrate the conversation. Sometimes the unexpected just kind of backfires...😕

Fortunately, my interviewer was just great 👍👍
 
"If you were ice cream, what flavor would you be?"
Click to expand...
Vanilla so everyone would enjoy eating me.

"If you could invite any three people to dinner, who would they be and why?"
Click to expand...
Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Albert Fish so everyone would enjoy eating me.

"If you could meet any famous literary character, who would you meet?"
Click to expand...
Hannibal Lecter. He seems like an interesting guy, and I've thought of going into psychiatry.

"Tell me a joke."
Click to expand...
What did one tampon say to the other tampon? Nothing; they were both stuck up b*tches.
 
pianola said:
"If you were ice cream, what flavor would you be?"
Click to expand...


I just got that question from a student interviewer! He did preface it with a warning that it was just a silly fun question though, so it didn't strike me as completely random.

My answer: rainbow sherbet because it's bright and cheery 🙂
 
^At least one of the girls in my group who got the question answered it in a rather interesting way:

"I wouldn't be ice cream; I'd be frozen yogurt so that people could enjoy me without feeling guilty."

How she pulled THAT off with a straight face is entirely beyond me.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Vanilla so everyone would enjoy eating me.

Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Albert Fish so everyone would enjoy eating me.

Hannibal Lecter. He seems like an interesting guy, and I've thought of going into psychiatry.

What did one tampon say to the other tampon? Nothing; they were both stuck up b*tches.
Click to expand...

Weird. what's with all the serial killers listed? Or is that yur theme.......the eat me theme. hahaha.
 
MEG@COOL said:
Interviewer has a stroke in the middle of the session. I take advantage of the situation by peeing all over the unconscious man because I know the paramedics will assume that he lost control of his bladder when he fell into a coma. Three weeks later I was interviewed again and accepted about a month thereafter.
Click to expand...

there were trolls back in 2004?
 
finally done reading.....i LOL'd so much....
way too much time wasted on this thread when i should've been doing other things...

how come ya'll don't mention the school? im dying to know how interviews go in canada...
 
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mushok103 said:
Last cycle, a friend of mine got into an argument with his interviewer.

Interviewer: any family in medicine?

Friend: my dad was a doctor, but he retired

Interviewer: how old was he when he retired?

Friend: 55

Interviewer: why would he retire at 55?

Friend: he was tired of medicine/it wasn't for him

Interviewer: i don't believe that. he's probably just lazy.

Friend defends his dad....leads to a big argument...got rejected from a school he almost definitely would've been accepted to (or at LEAST waitlisted) with even a decent interview.
Click to expand...

Some schools let you request a second interview if you feel like the interviewer was unprofessional/inappropriate.
 
I had an interviewer that asked me if I thought the current conflict in Israel was less based on suicide bombings than in the past....and then asked how being Israeli effects how I vote and who I'm going to vote for...which led into a conversation (probably about 10-15 minutes) about guerrilla warfare, pros and cons, and historical examples. It was definitely weird and unexpected, but I think it worked out OK in the end.
 
Not exactly awkward, but was sort of unexpected.

Interviewer: Which high school did you attend?
Me: I went to ZZZZZ high school, I really liked the education I received there.

Interviewer: Oh really? Which year did you graduate?
Me: I graduated in 2005.

Interviewer: Oh wow. Do you happen to know a guy called ZZZ? He's my son and he also graduated in your class.
Me: I don't remember that well, did he happen to wear glasses?

Interviewer: Yea! He wore glasses in high school.
Me: Oh my gosh! I remember him, we had lunch together a few times. I didn't know him that well though and it's been a long time, but I think if I saw him I'd recognize him.


What a coincidence 🙂 I totally did not expect to be interviewed by the parent of a high school classmate.


Now imagine if I was on bad terms with his son, I would be so screwed....... Thankfully we had no conflicts what so ever, and only had 1 class together and occasionally had lunch together.
 
At an interview I tried to make small talk during breakfast...

1=me, 2=him, 3=another him

1: This is my biggest fear, spilling breakfast all over myself.
2: I had a little mishap last night... I was steaming my suit in the bathroom and my pants fell in a puddle.
1. That stinks, I had a tie malfunction last night... I ended up doing an emergency sewing.
3. Why didn't you wear another tie?
1. I wanted to wear this one.
3. You don't have any other ties (snidely)?
1. I do, but I wanted to wear this one.

Sigh, it was interesting. So much for me trying to be nice.
 
Not bizarre, but coincidental.

I'll start by saying that I have "SURGERY" all over my application, and my most extensive shadowing experiences have been in surgical oncology.

At Baylor, my two interviewers were a faculty member and a 4th year medical student. The faculty member was in surgical oncology. The med student was applying for general surgery residency programs.

I asked the students who gave us the orientation session, and they said that it was completely random!

To top it off, the faculty interviewer had volunteered with the same organization as I had back when he was in medical school. It was an after school program for kids who had asthma through the American Lung Association. Had absolutely nothing to do with surgery, but it was still something to talk about. Go figure!
 
Does "Omg, you're SHEMARTY!" (by fellow interviewees, not interviewers!) count?
 
shemarty said:
Does "Omg, you're SHEMARTY!" (by fellow interviewees, not interviewers!) count?
Click to expand...
Everyone on SDN at my one interview recognized my username and I didn't even offer it up... I had communicated with another interviewer beforehand that we'd be there together so I got, "You're Bacchus, right?" NDB
 
At Vandy, I said that I was from CA, so it was a long flight.
And another applicant (turned out to be Myuuchan) said "long *series* of flights! SDN much?" :laugh:

At Wash U I was talking to one of the med students about surgery, and another applicant who was sitting at the same table said "wait a minute... you're Shemarty!"

Apparently I'm recognizable, so I changed my tag from "neurotic member" to "recognizable member" 🙄
 
I don't have an elaborate story about it or anything, but one of my interviewers came in with some of his shirt buttons undone and nothing underneath it, so I could see his chest and stomach. He was buttoning them as I answered his questions.

It was a little awkward.
 
a student in my interview group at mayo had the same exact name as my m.d. advisor (not a common name)! I thought it was a joke on the sign in sheet...
 
My faculty interviewer at Upstate was the professor of my current PI...
 
shemarty said:
Not bizarre, but coincidental.

I'll start by saying that I have "SURGERY" all over my application, and my most extensive shadowing experiences have been in surgical oncology.

At Baylor, my two interviewers were a faculty member and a 4th year medical student. The faculty member was in surgical oncology. The med student was applying for general surgery residency programs.

I asked the students who gave us the orientation session, and they said that it was completely random!

To top it off, the faculty interviewer had volunteered with the same organization as I had back when he was in medical school. It was an after school program for kids who had asthma through the American Lung Association. Had absolutely nothing to do with surgery, but it was still something to talk about. Go figure!
Click to expand...

And then, even more bizarre is the fact that I recognized shemarty JUST BECAUSE she was talking about being perfectly matched (interests-wise) with her Baylor interviewer. :laugh: And it was only when she said that that I recognized her...for some reason I didn't make any sort of connection between the profile pic and the actual person. I don't know what it is exactly but I think you look different in person, shemarty. Go figure.
 
pianola said:
And then, even more bizarre is the fact that I recognized shemarty JUST BECAUSE she was talking about being perfectly matched (interests-wise) with her Baylor interviewer. :laugh: And it was only when she said that that I recognized her...for some reason I didn't make any sort of connection between the profile pic and the actual person. I don't know what it is exactly but I think you look different in person, shemarty. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Oh, I'd like to meet Shemarty. That would be interesting...
 
At my first, it was very conversational. However, 5 minutes into the interview I heard a little squeak from his side of the table, specifically from his leather chair.

I pretended as if I didn't hear it. "Maybe it's from him shifting in his chair," I thought.

About 10 minutes later, the squeak became louder and slightly longer... and started to smell.

This happened over and over, and asked I talked, he would nod and subsequent "squeaks" would follow. I counted at least 6 of them. He looked agitated, and I tried so hard to keep myself together without losing it.
 
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