Scared to death of IM residency interviews - I don't know where I want to be in 10 years

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Imogen

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I am an applicant for IM residency this year. I now have >12 interviews scheduled and am terrified! I feel like programs are going to meet me and hate me because I don't really know what I want to do with my career yet. I like general IM for certain. I applied to regular categorical programs along with a few PC tracks (I liked those programs a lot and I liked that their PC tracks had extra outpatient time). Other than that, I don't really know much about PC tracks and I'm not one of those people who have been gunning from day 1 to be a rural outpatient IM doc (though I could totally see myself doing this).

Is it bad to be sort of undecided about these things? I've heard that a really common interview question is "where do you see yourself in 10 years" and I honestly can only say that I see myself as a general internist - maybe in outpatient medicine, but also maybe as a hospitalist. Complicating matters is that I'm slightly interested in heme-onc and I haven't completely ruled that out as a possible career. I wouldn't go into that at PC interviews... but I guess I'm just sort of nervous that I'm supposed to have all of this figured out already, and I'm wondering if it's bad that I applied to PC programs without knowing for absolute certain that I want to do primary care.

Do you guys have any advice about talking about career goals on interview day?
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LOL at "gunning to be a rural outpatient IM doc".

You should definitely have an answer for the "what do you want to be when you grow up" question. But the answer itself doesn't really matter all that much. In fact, a lot of IM PDs appreciate the "undifferentiated" applicant more than the one who knows s/he wants to be an interventional cardiologist from day 1.
 
Yeah, "what" you answer to this question is much much less important than "how" you answer this question.
90%+ of people don't end up doing what they said they were going to do, think about med school interviews.

Be thoughtful, coherent and engaging while offering some insight into what you like/are interested in and where you may be headed.

Most importantly though, try to figure out how to hide the neurosis that is evident from your post.
 
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nmfms said:
Most importantly though, try to figure out how to hide the neurosis that is evident from your post.
Click to expand...

There you go nmfms, I took the all caps off of "terrified". Does that make it better? 🙂

Thanks for the advice GutOnc. So many people going into IM at my school seem to have it all figured out that it made me feel a bit fradulent.
 
I have been to two IM interviews so far and this question came up both times. Also, at the beginning of both interview days, you can probably expect the entire group to be asked to introduce themselves. Both times it was some derivation of "who are you? where are you from? do you have a subspecialty in mind?" There are people with one answer, people with two answers (e.g. plum crit or cards), and people who are just plain undecided. It was totally ok to say any one of those.

I will say that overall these two interviews were very chill and relaxed. No one was trying to trick me or get under my skin. Just be yourself and be honest or you will sound sketchy. It's ok to be undecided but be able to explain yourself.
 
gutonc said:
In fact, a lot of IM PDs appreciate the "undifferentiated" applicant more than the one who knows s/he wants to be an interventional cardiologist from day 1.
Click to expand...

My answer to this question has basically been "I have very strong interest in subspecialty X for [brief] reasons Y, Z, but IM has so much to offer and I have a lot to learn before I commit to a particular field" and I have gotten good feedback on the answer. I would humbly suggest to my fellow applicants that if you don't know what you want to do, just say you don't know and then back it up with interest in something and a quick reason why.
 
QualityProcess said:
My answer to this question has basically been "I have very strong interest in subspecialty X for [brief] reasons Y, Z, but IM has so much to offer and I have a lot to learn before I commit to a particular field" and I have gotten good feedback on the answer. I would humbly suggest to my fellow applicants that if you don't know what you want to do, just say you don't know and then back it up with interest in something and a quick reason why.
Click to expand...
FWIW, I was applying to the Research Pathway in Oncology, so any PD that interviewed me knew what was up. But I made sure to include the fact that I wanted to be a well-rounded internist too in order to be the best oncologist possible.
 
This is a standard interview question for ANY field, not just medicine. For you, I suggest you write out your responses to standard interview questions and rehearse them. But, obviously, the danger will be that it sounds rehearsed! Just give yourself talking points and be able to fill in the blanks.
 
You all seem to think that the answer to your interview questions matter. Actually, it's how you answer the questions that matters. I've considered filling a hat full of questions and pulling random ones for interviews. "What's your favorite fortune you've seen in a fortune cookie?" is a good one. You probably haven't prepped for that.
 
aProgDirector said:
You all seem to think that the answer to your interview questions matter. Actually, it's how you answer the questions that matters. I've considered filling a hat full of questions and pulling random ones for interviews. "What's your favorite fortune you've seen in a fortune cookie?" is a good one. You probably haven't prepped for that.
Click to expand...

actually I have a favorite one..."you are not 10 pounds overweight, but 3 months pregnant"...opened by my dad... 🙂
 
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