Residents at Pre-Interview Dinners

[mvenus929]

I just wanted to see what other people's experiences with this. I've only been on two interviews, and had very different experiences with the resident dinner the night before.

At my first interview, probably half or more of the residents in the program showed up, many of them coming straight from work, or stopping by for a very short time, but stopping by none-the-less.

The second interview has less than 5 residents show up (in a program with more than 40), and they didn't show up in high numbers for the interview day lunch either (I personally only spoke to 1-2 residents after lunch, one of whom came to the dinner the night before).

Someone told me the latter may be typical, but then a friend of mine interviewed somewhere else today and said that a lot of people showed up to the resident dinner and made an effort to get to know and talk to the applicants.

Thoughts?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[PTPoeny]

At my program only three of us are allowed to go to each dinner. But basically everyone is there for breakfast and lunch on the interview day.

Most places I interviewed last year set up the dinners to have a one resident for each 2-3 applicants. A few places had lots of residents, but that was the minority for me.

 

[Rutgers06]

Yeah, it really varies from program to program and I wouldn't read too much into the actual interview dinners because some programs limit the amount of residents who can go. However, there should be a decent amount of residents at the lunch and you should have enough resident contact that you get a feel for what their interactions with each other are and whether you would fit into the program.

 

[drkristy85]

At our residency program, we have two residents at each interview dinner and two residents at each interview lunch. We sign up for the dates ahead of time. They don't want all of us to go to the interview lunches every time, because then we'd all be missing noon conference. ACGME has requirements as far as structured learning at noon conferences, journal clubs, and AM reports. If everyone went to interview lunch instead of noon conference, that would like missing more than a month's worth of noon conferences.

 

[mvenus929]

At our residency program, we have two residents at each interview dinner and two residents at each interview lunch. We sign up for the dates ahead of time. They don't want all of us to go to the interview lunches every time, because then we'd all be missing noon conference.

How many are in your program, and how many people do you interview at a time?

(I see it as a ton different if there are less than 10 applicants and only 2 residents vs 20-30 applicants and only two residents).

 

[drkristy85]

We have a mid-sized program, I won't be too specific but it's between 30-50 residents. We interview 6-8 applicants at a time.

 

[helvetica]

I just wanted to see what other people's experiences with this. I've only been on two interviews, and had very different experiences with the resident dinner the night before.

At my first interview, probably half or more of the residents in the program showed up, many of them coming straight from work, or stopping by for a very short time, but stopping by none-the-less.

The second interview has less than 5 residents show up (in a program with more than 40), and they didn't show up in high numbers for the interview day lunch either (I personally only spoke to 1-2 residents after lunch, one of whom came to the dinner the night before).

Someone told me the latter may be typical, but then a friend of mine interviewed somewhere else today and said that a lot of people showed up to the resident dinner and made an effort to get to know and talk to the applicants.

Thoughts?

I've had the same experiences so far-- a slight majority with fewer residents present at the moment. I still have the majority of my interviews coming up though, so my sample size is small. The lunches though tend to have increased attendance from my experience-- seems like the programs are going out of their way to make sure residents can attend.