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A medical student pm'd me and asked me what questions may one get during an interview.
I chose to respond here because I think this is a meaningful general question that is often asked during the interview season. I don't know how long SDN holds older posts because I know I've answered this question before.
Some typical questions I remember being asked during my interviews...
What made you choose psychiatry?
Can you present one of your most interesting cases?
What is your biggest weakness?
Tell me something about yourself that may let me get to know you better in the limited time we have.
Where do you see yourself practicing in 4-10 years?
Do you plan on staying in the area (of the residency)?
Can you name the DSM criteria on this disorder? (Don't worry, it'll be one of the more basic ones such as depression or schizophrenia. Don't expect something out of left field such as Ganser's syndrome).
Can you name any psychiatric books you've read?
What was the most interesting experience you've had in your medical or psychiatric training?
Explain to me the 5 axis system we use in the DSM.
Several questions may be derived from your personal statement, or issues in your application good or bad. This can be an opportunity to discuss a weakness in your application that may unfairly blemish your appearance. E.g. if you had a bad term in medical school because of a personal tragedy, you can discuss it in more detail during the interview.
Why did you choose this program?
Here were some of the tougher questions, or questions that I thought were somewhat out of line.
Are you mentally ill?
Hmm, given that you're (a female, male, white, asian, black, what have you), your parents must have been (disappointed, happy etc) with your choice in psychiatry. Tell me about that.
Any attempt to psychoanalyze a candidate. Psychoanalysis requires the interviewer to know the person for several sessions. I found it interesting, even a bit out of line for psychiatrists to attempt to psychoanalyze candidates except as a means to break the ice, and with full disclosure to the candidate that this is the only intent. I've seen some psychiatrists try to make candidates feel uncomfortable or try to make themselves appear to know more about the candidate than was actually the case.
I've seen and heard some cases where the interviewer made some very inappropriate comment such as "it appears you have a apparently have some type of insecurity" or something to that effect after only talking to the candidate for a few minutes, and with no real basis other than hypothetical analysis. That IMHO is out of line.
Loaded questions. Some people on occasion will get an interviewer who will try to box you in a corner as if you are a hostile witness in court. While this is apparently rare, it can happen. If I were you I wouldn't care. (In fact I recommend you try to use this as a means of self entertainment while you see the interviewer get in a histrionic display.) If you're like most candidates, you'll have several options and interviews. So what if one place you're not treated well? You'll likely have several choices. Remember if a place interviews you, they're interested in you. The relationship is not as much against you as if it during the medical school admission process. Just like if you had a bad experience in a restaurant, you have the choice of several others. If some guy treats you like a hostile witness, nix that program (unless there's just something about that program that makes you have to be there.....).
(Oh, and by the way, the one guy that did this to me, a friend of mine who did go to that program told me that attending assaulted a resident a few months later, and had a long list of residents complaining that this guy was over the top with blowing up in anger.)
In general, expect about 1 hostile/out of line interviewer for every 10-20. Believe me, if you get an interview the program is seriously considering you vs the hundreds of others where they did not offer an interview.
I only had one extremely out of line interview during my residency process. I did have 3 interviewers ask some out of line questions, but it wasn't to the extreme where I was thinking there was something really wrong with the interviewer. I had for example one guy say "you've made your parents mandate." only on the basis of my race which I thought was out of line. I had one interviewer comment that "Intermittent Explosive Disorder is a bull$hit diagnosis (in anger when I was asked about an interesting case I had. In that particular case the guy responded fairly quickly to a mood stabilizer even though he did not meet criteria for bipolar disorder. I didn't think the diagnosis was bull$****, and I thought her comment was somewhat out of line. However since those comments weren't part of a chorus of other out of line comments I figured maybe the interviewer didn't mean anything bad.
The point is you may get a tough interviewer, but in general most programs want you to have a friendly experience because they want you in their program.
For all of you that recently had a interview, please list some of the questions you had.
I chose to respond here because I think this is a meaningful general question that is often asked during the interview season. I don't know how long SDN holds older posts because I know I've answered this question before.
Some typical questions I remember being asked during my interviews...
What made you choose psychiatry?
Can you present one of your most interesting cases?
What is your biggest weakness?
Tell me something about yourself that may let me get to know you better in the limited time we have.
Where do you see yourself practicing in 4-10 years?
Do you plan on staying in the area (of the residency)?
Can you name the DSM criteria on this disorder? (Don't worry, it'll be one of the more basic ones such as depression or schizophrenia. Don't expect something out of left field such as Ganser's syndrome).
Can you name any psychiatric books you've read?
What was the most interesting experience you've had in your medical or psychiatric training?
Explain to me the 5 axis system we use in the DSM.
Several questions may be derived from your personal statement, or issues in your application good or bad. This can be an opportunity to discuss a weakness in your application that may unfairly blemish your appearance. E.g. if you had a bad term in medical school because of a personal tragedy, you can discuss it in more detail during the interview.
Why did you choose this program?
Here were some of the tougher questions, or questions that I thought were somewhat out of line.
Are you mentally ill?
Hmm, given that you're (a female, male, white, asian, black, what have you), your parents must have been (disappointed, happy etc) with your choice in psychiatry. Tell me about that.
Any attempt to psychoanalyze a candidate. Psychoanalysis requires the interviewer to know the person for several sessions. I found it interesting, even a bit out of line for psychiatrists to attempt to psychoanalyze candidates except as a means to break the ice, and with full disclosure to the candidate that this is the only intent. I've seen some psychiatrists try to make candidates feel uncomfortable or try to make themselves appear to know more about the candidate than was actually the case.
I've seen and heard some cases where the interviewer made some very inappropriate comment such as "it appears you have a apparently have some type of insecurity" or something to that effect after only talking to the candidate for a few minutes, and with no real basis other than hypothetical analysis. That IMHO is out of line.
Loaded questions. Some people on occasion will get an interviewer who will try to box you in a corner as if you are a hostile witness in court. While this is apparently rare, it can happen. If I were you I wouldn't care. (In fact I recommend you try to use this as a means of self entertainment while you see the interviewer get in a histrionic display.) If you're like most candidates, you'll have several options and interviews. So what if one place you're not treated well? You'll likely have several choices. Remember if a place interviews you, they're interested in you. The relationship is not as much against you as if it during the medical school admission process. Just like if you had a bad experience in a restaurant, you have the choice of several others. If some guy treats you like a hostile witness, nix that program (unless there's just something about that program that makes you have to be there.....).
(Oh, and by the way, the one guy that did this to me, a friend of mine who did go to that program told me that attending assaulted a resident a few months later, and had a long list of residents complaining that this guy was over the top with blowing up in anger.)
In general, expect about 1 hostile/out of line interviewer for every 10-20. Believe me, if you get an interview the program is seriously considering you vs the hundreds of others where they did not offer an interview.
I only had one extremely out of line interview during my residency process. I did have 3 interviewers ask some out of line questions, but it wasn't to the extreme where I was thinking there was something really wrong with the interviewer. I had for example one guy say "you've made your parents mandate." only on the basis of my race which I thought was out of line. I had one interviewer comment that "Intermittent Explosive Disorder is a bull$hit diagnosis (in anger when I was asked about an interesting case I had. In that particular case the guy responded fairly quickly to a mood stabilizer even though he did not meet criteria for bipolar disorder. I didn't think the diagnosis was bull$****, and I thought her comment was somewhat out of line. However since those comments weren't part of a chorus of other out of line comments I figured maybe the interviewer didn't mean anything bad.
The point is you may get a tough interviewer, but in general most programs want you to have a friendly experience because they want you in their program.
For all of you that recently had a interview, please list some of the questions you had.
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