Preparing for interview?

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nope80

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What is everyone doing to prepare for their interviews? I know there are the usual questions - why cardiology? etc etc. What in particular do people usually get asked? I was told that often its just a conversation without any formal questions. Any advice would be appreciated on things to do to prepare would be helpful.
 
Good thread. A few things I would also like to ask...

What information should an applicant pay close attention to during interview day? What specific characteristics best help to differentiate programs - call systems? research time? procedural numbers? post fellowship job placement? other?

For those of you who have gone through this process, any hindsight advise would be helpful.
 
Good thread. A few things I would also like to ask...

What information should an applicant pay close attention to during interview day? What specific characteristics best help to differentiate programs - call systems? research time? procedural numbers? post fellowship job placement? other?

For those of you who have gone through this process, any hindsight advise would be helpful.

All good questions to ask but I think the #1 thing to pay attention to is your gut. How do you feel about the place, the people, the leadership, etc. I say this because A) a place that hits all the high notes in your categories but makes you want to pull out your fingernails everyday because of your colleagues/supervisors/allied health staff won't be a great option. B) All of the other stuff can change in a minute.

Call schedules can change if the hospital/GME office/PD/whoever decides it needs to. Research time can disappear if there's no money for it or if the program loses a fellow or two (for whatever reason) and clinical duties need to be covered. In my hospital, the year before I came in as a medicine resident, about 80% of the cards faculty left en masse leaving the procedure numbers in the toilet for a year or two while they recruited new faculty (fortunately for the fellows, the associated VA actually gained a few of those faculty so they got more experience there than usual).

So don't get as hung up on that stuff. Try to like where you go...cultures change more slowly than program rules.
 
What about preparing for the actual interview process. For those that went through it, was it similar to IM interviews? Similar questions throughout? Any particular thing we should focus on preparing?
 
I went on one interview so far. You WILL discuss your research and in great detail. In fact, they will have you interview with faculty doing similar research. You can't go in and bs. It's a good topic to discuss if you genuinely did research. You will be able to show a lot of passion and have something to discuss.
 
I heard some programs they question weird EKGs, ECHOs and CT during interview?
 
I found that they don't ask any real specific questions and that they just talk about their own program. Have others found this? How can they possibly evaluate us based on this?
 
I found that they don't ask any real specific questions and that they just talk about their own program. Have others found this? How can they possibly evaluate us based on this?

They smell you... and get an idea. It is all about how they feel with you.
 
You are hearing stuff!!!

I actually heard from a fellow at another program that she was asked to interpret an ECG at her interview at yet a third institution. So it's apparently being done by someone.
 
My expereince so far:
1. Regular research questions
2. Why this place
3. What other programs u r looking at? also they asked specifically were all i am interviewing, which i felt not a very professional question.
4. last found had very short time , pc kep tknocking for crossing the time.
 
Anybody can post his/her experience with Ochsner interview from yesterday?
 
My expereince so far:
1. Regular research questions
2. Why this place
3. What other programs u r looking at? also they asked specifically were all i am interviewing, which i felt not a very professional question.
4. last found had very short time , pc kep tknocking for crossing the time.

yeah i have also found that people ask where else you are looking and where you are interviewing, which is really annoying. They shouldnt ask that but they totally do, both indirectly and directly.
 
So is there any specifc questions that we can ask pd and faculty? I suppose the regular questions reg call schedule, procedure volumes etc are reserved for fellows..
 
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