Things that make you go hmmm...

I've had a number 3 and I'm not ranking it.

I've never dealt with a number 1, but if I did it would be hard to ignore, considering that person is in charge of the entire program and you will have to work with them in some form or fashion.

As far as #2 is concerned, it wouldn't matter to me too much as long as I liked the other residents. Sometimes there are years where no one really wants to be chief and deal with the administrative crap, so there's no competition and whoever signs up gets to be chief. (it's happened a few times at my home school, where residents are nominated to be chief, but decline the nomination) Besides if they are chief they won't be there next year (unless they become faculty at the program). If they do become faculty, then I'd have to figure out how much I liked (or disliked) that program and rank accordingly.

But #3 is easy. If I don't feel like I could fit in with the residents, I'm not going to rank the program and would be more than happy to take my chances in the scramble.

 

#1 is bad bad bad...unless your impression was totally wrong.
#3 is kind of bad, but I have to say that the folks in a residency/fellowship can change quite a bit even in a year or two.
#2 might not matter. That person won't be chief anyway next year when you are there. Maybe it's different with specialties that have more residents (like IM, which is what I did) but I never felt it mattered much who the chief was. We had multiple chief residents also...like one for inpatient and one for outpatient. They really didn't do anything except for make the schedule for everyone, and present a few conferences, so I felt like it didn't matter that much to be who the chiefs were.

 

#3 - wow I had one residency interview last year that I still talk about occassionally. The residents were the isle of the misfits. On the drive over to the residency get together, the resident who was guiding us there stopped at a 7-11 and said : hey if you want to get some booze you can get it here. By program policy we cannot provide it, but if you want to get some its cool. Everyone understands, I think everyone in this program has been through rehab at one time or another". The residency interview started off weird, and got weirder and weirder and weirder.

 

3: During the get-to-know-you lunch, we're sitting with one intern. Another intern joins us and the two interns immediately start arguing about something and looking genuinely angry at each other. The rest of us just sat there thinking... what is going on....

Not ranking them. Didn't like the program at all in other aspects but this just sealed the deal. You'd think that people could at least pretend to like each other in front of applicants.

 

I can't say with 100% accuracy that I know this is true, but a classmate of mine (who has never lied to me as far as I can tell) told me of an interview last year where the PD did not show up for the interview and the first resident he interviewed with said "I would not go here if I were you" - my classmate got up and left without finishing the interview hahahaha. Mcdonalds interviews are conducted with more professionalism. Medicine hahahaha

 

doowai,
as far as stopping @ the 7-11 for alcohol, maybe that was a weird attempt at a joke, or maybe they were fishing to see whether you had some sort of substance abuse problem?

 

I've had 1 and 3.

For #1, the PD was impersonal and shrugged off "difficult" questions. Several residents then told me that "yeah, Dr. X is not really friendly or personable, but luckily we all get along." One of the assistant PDs who interviewed me didn't even introduce himself. Not ranking.

For #3, went to the pre-interview get-together, and the vast majority of residents were of the same ethnic background. Don't get me wrong, my med school class was as diverse as it gets, but that's exactly the point - I'd rather a nice mix than feel like the odd man out, no matter how nice they may be.

The latter situation is not a bad thing - it just means that the program wasn't for me.

 

I dunno, I don't think so. If I told you more about the interview I think you, like me, would think they were serious - it was a weird bunch

 

#3- one program I really like... except for this one girl. She was frankly bitchy and kept talking about how some of the residents "don't like each other". It's really hard to describe- she was a resident diva-type? Something about her really grated on me. But, everyone else seemed nice and normal. I hate to base my views of a program on one nasty personality, considering the fact that there will be unpleasant people everywhere in life.

 

#1 encountered this twice: one I just felt like I wouldn't jibe well with the program director on the long term. I placed the program lower in the rank list for this but didn't put it in a no rank position. Other the program director was hung over, inappropriate and a poor representation of the program. I didn't rank it.

#2 never encountered this but I think it depends. As was said before, chiefs reflect teaching and if you don't like several of them, it should give you pause. If its one person, they will leave. Give it the weight it deserves.

#3 Intereviewed at one place like this. I loved the faculty. Definately didn't fit in with the residents. It ended up really low on my rank list (and only on my rank list for location reasons).


All in all, I would say trust your gut. When people over think things is when they get in trouble. If your gut tells you to stay away, listen to it. If it tells you to think about it but not completely remove a program, do that. etc etc