I know there have been a lot of questions about prelim year/TY interviews, so I just wanted to share my own experience in case it offers insight to anyone out there. In September, I originally applied to 5 medicine prelim year spots because a resident told me that if I have about 10 PGY-1 spots between prelim year and categoricals for PM&R combined, I should be fine. Out of those 5, I got 3 interviews so far. The schools I heard from were all within the area I live, and one included my home school.
After talking to more people, I realized it is true that we are competing for these spots with other specialties like derm/anes/rads/etc, and decided to apply to more places. This past week, I added on about 10 more programs which were a mix between medicine prelim and TY. I'd rather do the medicine prelim year over TY even though it has a reputation for being more intense, only because I do enjoy internal medicine (had considered it in the past). I picked the programs based on which interview offers I'd gotten so far in certain cities.
Recently, I went on my first interview for a prelim spot (I will leave out the name of the place because I prefer anonymity). Some of the questions were unique, so I thought I'd share them.
- "Why did you choose medicine prelim, versus a surgery prelim or a transitional year?"
- "Why do you think a prelim year is important before going on to do your PM&R training?"
- "Tell me more about PM&R because I don't know as much about it as other specialties. Why did you choose PM&R?"
- "What are you looking for out of your prelim year?"
- "Why do you want to come here for your PGY-1 training?"
If anyone else goes on interviews for prelims, please share your experience as well. I'm not sure if what I did was right/wrong - maybe I should have applied to more places upfront, but it did help knowing where I got PM&R interview offers and using that as a guide for applying to more PGY-1 programs.
After talking to more people, I realized it is true that we are competing for these spots with other specialties like derm/anes/rads/etc, and decided to apply to more places. This past week, I added on about 10 more programs which were a mix between medicine prelim and TY. I'd rather do the medicine prelim year over TY even though it has a reputation for being more intense, only because I do enjoy internal medicine (had considered it in the past). I picked the programs based on which interview offers I'd gotten so far in certain cities.
Recently, I went on my first interview for a prelim spot (I will leave out the name of the place because I prefer anonymity). Some of the questions were unique, so I thought I'd share them.
- "Why did you choose medicine prelim, versus a surgery prelim or a transitional year?"
- "Why do you think a prelim year is important before going on to do your PM&R training?"
- "Tell me more about PM&R because I don't know as much about it as other specialties. Why did you choose PM&R?"
- "What are you looking for out of your prelim year?"
- "Why do you want to come here for your PGY-1 training?"
If anyone else goes on interviews for prelims, please share your experience as well. I'm not sure if what I did was right/wrong - maybe I should have applied to more places upfront, but it did help knowing where I got PM&R interview offers and using that as a guide for applying to more PGY-1 programs.
