Questions to ask Interviewer vs. Residents

[cognitus]

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I have a few interviews scheduled within the next few weeks and I'm concerned about their regional anesthesia training (St. Barnabas and SUNY-Downstate). How do I ask about the level of training without seeming negative? Also, what questions should I ask the attending who will interview me that will make me well informed? At the same time, what could I ask residents about the program to get the real info about the program. Thanks.

 

[Gern Blansten]

Start with this sentence:
"In hopes of getting you to reveal all of your dirty little secrets, I will now ask a series of questions that I have gathered from strangers on the interwebs, so buckle up..."

 

[Stellar Clouds]

If you want to ask nicely about negative aspects of a program, say something like, "what areas of your program do you think need improvement, and what are you doing to reach that goal?" If they tell you absolutely nothing needs improvement, it is highly likely they are lying. Or they don't actually know much about the program.

 

[xtina0]

I've been on two interviews so far and things seem to be going well until I get " Do you have any questions?"

I always seem to get stumped because at that point of interview day we've already received info on the program. And even if I manage to find a question I still have about the program the interviewer often responds "maybe the resident can better answer or I'm not sure maybe you can ask someone else."

What are good questions to ask the interviewer to sound intelligent?

 

[Jay K]

I have a few interviews scheduled within the next few weeks and I'm concerned about their regional anesthesia training (St. Barnabas and SUNY-Downstate). How do I ask about the level of training without seeming negative? Also, what questions should I ask the attending who will interview me that will make me well informed? At the same time, what could I ask residents about the program to get the real info about the program. Thanks.

Ask that interviewer if they perform regional anesthesia; If they do, ask them how the program handles the practice/education of regional anesthesia 1) If CA-1's do their own blocks 2) If blocks are done by more senior residents 3) If there's a block service rotation that does all the blocks

My experience is that the practice of anesthesia is severely broken down into niches in academics. The heart and/or thoracic attendings knew nothing about blocks and didn't supervise/teach them in the off chance they were assigned a non-cardiac/thoracic case. Neuro attendings same thing. Generalists +/-. Pain +/-. Most CV/thoracic/neuro/critical care/generalists feared children and OB. There were none who could do it all.

So, your experience will depend on whether they have an established program/routine for teaching regional anesthesia vs grab-bag depending on the person who is your attending for the day and the cases you're assigned, and to an extent the number of orthopedic procedures they do. Granted there are some advanced blocks which have nothing to do with orthopedic cases, but those are not what you'll be doing in a "regular" private practice gig.