University of Utah using an NP to interview med school applicants?

[GoPelicans]

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Has anyone been interviewed been interviewed by a PA or an NP? I am a current third year resident and I find this completely inappropriate. I believe most of my colleagues would agree. I'm wondering if my view is a 'generational gap' and some of you find this ok?

 

[Rachapkis]

Having a PA or NP, who may be a trusted part of the faculty, interview will provide a different perspective on applicants. Doctors are going to have to work with a wide variety of people and should be team players. Why would you want to get only one perspective?

 

[GoPelicans]

Having a PA or NP, who may be a trusted part of the faculty, will provide a different perspective on applicants. Doctors are going to have to work with a wide variety of people and should be team players. Why would you want to get only one perspective?

I think you should be interviewed by people who will train you or people who have experience with the job. You will be trained by PhD's for the first year of med school, then largely MD's for the rest of your years of training. You will never be trained by an NP or PA. They have no idea what it takes to succeed in med school or residency because they have never been there, and their programs are not close to the rigor of an MD or DO school. They have never gone through the grueling application processes or exams that you will take to receive a medical degree. Many of them recieve their degrees from online degree mills with minimal clinical training. They will never receive training remotely similar to a resident. So how is it acceptable that they are selecting people for these positions? Also there is an obvious poltical bias to the tweet above. Mid-level is a completely acceptable term for what they are trained to do, yet from that tweet it sounds like she would be fine rejecting someone from med school for using that language. And yes doctors do work with a wide variety of people every day, by that logic should we get nurses, social workers, respiratory techs, etc to interview med school applicants too?

 

[WildMed1234]

Keep in mind that occasionally interviewers are members of the community, some that are physicians and some that are not. You don’t necessarily need to be a physician to make an assessment on whether or not someone is a suitable candidate for a medical school when often they are looking for interpersonal skills and ability to work together on a medical team. Remember, your MCAT is the tool that assesses your ability to successfully pass board exams, not your interview.

Additionally, you will be expected in your career as a physician to work alongside other provider levels, so your ability to play nice with others does have practical importance. I am absolutely not arguing that these programs are as rigorous as med school but to characterize them as all coming from online degree mills is categorically false and I absolutely would find it fair for an admissions committee to reject an applicant if they made such a generalized, uninformed assumption.

Last thing. Where in that tweet does it say that someone would be rejected for using the term mid-level?

 

[Goro]

Has anyone been interviewed been interviewed by a PA or an NP? I am a current third year resident and I find this completely inappropriate. I believe most of my colleagues would agree. I'm wondering if my view is a 'generational gap' and some of you find this ok?

Calm down.. med schools have used civilians from outside the school, dentists, local clergy from posts I've seen on SDN.

And consider the source. Reddit is the cesspool of the internet.

 

[Med Ed]

Has anyone been interviewed been interviewed by a PA or an NP? I am a current third year resident and I find this completely inappropriate. I believe most of my colleagues would agree. I'm wondering if my view is a 'generational gap' and some of you find this ok?

Offices of Admissions typically have to scrounge for interviewers. If you want to be part of the solution then volunteer your time when you're an attending.

 

[GoPelicans]

Calm down.. med schools have used civilians from outside the school, dentists, local clergy from posts I've seen on SDN.

And consider the source. Reddit is the cesspool of the internet.

I prob did close to 20 med school interviews when I applied and was only ever interviewed by doctors or PhD's. I guess this must be a new thing.

 

[Med Ed]

I prob did close to 20 med school interviews when I applied and was only ever interviewed by doctors or PhD's. I guess this must be a new thing.

Or a function of your own, isolated experience.

 

[bngli]

Looking her up, she has a PhD

But I was only interviewed by MDs and that is what I prefer

 

[Isoval]

I have no problem with being interviewed by an NP or PA.

I have a problem with an NP or PA giving low marks when an applicant uses the term “mid level” because of their inflated ego, as I think is implied from the referenced post.

Mid-level is a reference to the level of care they provide - which is midway between a nurse and a doctor - and not their intelligence. If that’s hard for this person to understand, perhaps she shouldn’t be doing medical school interviews. Just my two cents.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

You don’t have to be a physician to be a good judge of character. I do think at least one of the interviewers should be a physician, but plenty of schools use community members, etc. She’s not automatically a bad interviewer because she’s a midlevel. If she’s giving ****ty write ups and ratings to applicants who don’t use her preferred misleading language, then that’s something completely different.

 

[Goro]

I prob did close to 20 med school interviews when I applied and was only ever interviewed by doctors or PhD's. I guess this must be a new thing.

Avoid the sin of solipsism.

 

[deleted1072382]

I had an interview last month at a t10 medical school, and one of my interviewers was a nurse. She was really lovely to talk to, no complaints on my end.

 

[drducky.]

You don’t have to be a physician to be a good judge of character. I do think at least one of the interviewers should be a physician, but plenty of schools use community members, etc. She’s not automatically a bad interviewer because she’s a midlevel. If she’s giving ****ty write ups and ratings to applicants who don’t use her preferred misleading language, then that’s something completely different.

Woah read the post bruh, you can’t call her a midlevel.

 

[Tenk]

Having a PA or NP, who may be a trusted part of the faculty, will provide a different perspective on applicants. Doctors are going to have to work with a wide variety of people and should be team players. Why would you want to get only one perspective?

For the same reason RNs, techs, and EMS don’t interview potential applicants: they aren’t doctors.

 

[la flame]

I got interviewed by a Sociology professor and a Chemistry professor for MD school. Both who had 0 connection to the school. If I get that, I honestly don't see what is wrong with an NP/PA interviewing people for medical school.

 

[deleted1075353]

I got interviewed by a Sociology professor and a Chemistry professor for MD school. Both who had 0 connection to the school. If I get that, I honestly don't see what is wrong with an NP/PA interviewing people for medical school.

I hope you had more interviews at this school with actual MD/DOs. I don’t have a problem with being interviewed by non doctors (including mid levels) but to not be interviewed by a single physician would be silly.

 

[LizzyM]

I hope you had more interviews at this school with actual MD/DOs. I don’t have a problem with being interviewed by non doctors (including mid levels) but to not be interviewed by a single physician would be silly.

It all depends on what the purpose of the interview is. If you are assessing an applicant's personability and abililty to communicate complex information in a way that is clear to a lay person, then non-physicians may be better suited to making those assessments. As noted, it is challenging to get physicians to volunteer to be interviewers and they not only give their time without compensation but they give up hours that they could be billing for clinical services meaning that using physicians for something that (dare I say) a mid-level or no-level can do is not cost effective for the enterprise.

 

[Med Ed]

My biggest concern with something like this is, as some people pointed out, the obvious miscommunication and misinterpretation of 'mid level'. I'm getting really tired of keeping up with all of the terms, phrases, tones and tropes that used to be inoffensive and standard and are now policed by social justice causes. I'd love to keep up but it looks like a new term or phrase is off limits every day. How am I supposed to know what might offend that particular person on the other end of the table? I would never, in a million years, have guessed that referring to certain healthcare workers as "mid level" is super offensive.

This linguistic skirmish has been going on for years. You learn about such things by listening and reading.

 

[la flame]

I hope you had more interviews at this school with actual MD/DOs. I don’t have a problem with being interviewed by non doctors (including mid levels) but to not be interviewed by a single physician would be silly.

nope just those two people. I also had another interview at an MD school where it was a medical student from that school interviewing me. I actually haven't had a single physician interview me yet haha but they have all been great people.

 

[Isoval]

nope just those two people. I also had another interview at an MD school where it was a medical student from that school interviewing me. I actually haven't had a single physician interview me yet haha but they have all been great people.

I personally think student interviewers are an excellent idea. Often they are the best judges of who will and won’t fit into a class.

 

[Goro]

I personally think student interviewers are an excellent idea. Often they are the best judges of who will and won’t fit into a class.

Interestingly, my student interviewers tend to be very harsh on the interviewees!

 

[LizzyM]

Interestingly, my student interviewers tend to be very harsh on the interviewees!

True. The physicians tend to be supportive of all the candidates while the students tend to be more discriminating (meaning they rank and classify students across the spectrum rather than lumping everyone together as no different than any other applicant).

 

[LizzyM]

Do you think this is a rite of passage thing? Like, "I went through hell so it's incumbent upon me to impose hell as well"

Nothing to do with "hell". Would this person be someone I'd want to have as a classmate? Is this someone I'd want to have take care of my mother? I think that the medical students are more likely to call out flaws whereas attendings are moved by the sincerity and vulnerability of the supplicants.

 

[Goro]

Nothing to do with "hell". Would this person be someone I'd want to have as a classmate? Is this someone I'd want to have take care of my mother? I think that the medical students are more likely to call out flaws whereas attendings are moved by the sincerity and vulnerability of the supplicants.

10000% this.

 

[DNAJB6]

Do you think this is a rite of passage thing? Like, "I went through hell so it's incumbent upon me to impose hell as well"

You mean like a medical academic form of hazing?

 

[GoPelicans]

Nothing to do with "hell". Would this person be someone I'd want to have as a classmate? Is this someone I'd want to have take care of my mother? I think that the medical students are more likely to call out flaws whereas attendings are moved by the sincerity and vulnerability of the supplicants.

I think physicians might be less discriminating because they have the most pertspective and wisdom that 'fit' in a class is an artificial thing made up by admissions committees to stratify thousands of people who are essentially all very similar for very few available spots in a class. First two years you spend 95% of your time self studying. Third year you barely see your classmates. Fourth year you basically never see them. You could probably randomly shuffle all the medical school classes in the country and really nothing much would change regarding a class's dynamic. Residency is a completely different experience where I will actually work with my coresidents every day for years, and for that reason 'fit' is relevant.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Which is weird because in hindsight I had very little interaction with classmates outside of required anatomy lab and a few required modules. I think physicians might be less discriminating because they have the most pertspective and wisdom that 'fit' in a class is an artificial thing made up by admissions committees to stratify thousands of people who are essentially all very similar. First two years you spend 95% of your time self studying. Third year you barely see your classmates. Fourth year you basically never see them. Residency is a completely different experience where I will actually work with my coresidents every day for years, and for that reason the interviews and interview day are very very relevant. The truth is most people with the appropriate academic qualifications will be great doctors at the end of the day given the standard training and oversight.

Fit is absolutely not an artificial thing. Maybe if your school has very minimal required interaction between students it wouldn’t matter. But at schools where students are frequently interacting, there is absolutely a fit.

 

[LizzyM]

Fit is absolutely not an artificial thing. Maybe if your school has very minimal required interaction between students it wouldn’t matter. But at schools where students are frequently interacting, there is absolutely a fit.

I agree. The amount of interaction required of students in small groups varies by school and students who do best by themselves with a pot of coffee are not going to be a good fit with a school that has mandatory small group sessions in the first two years. Furthermore, the requirements for graduation differ among schools and those that put a premium on intellectual curiosity, inquiry-driven research, and so forth will be looking for a different type of student than the school that is interested in producing primary care providers for underserved areas. Part of the art of admissions is identifying those people who will do well in medical school but will be absolutely miserable at this particular one.

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

I think physicians might be less discriminating because they have the most pertspective and wisdom that 'fit' in a class is an artificial thing made up by admissions committees to stratify thousands of people who are essentially all very similar for very few available spots in a class. First two years you spend 95% of your time self studying. Third year you barely see your classmates. Fourth year you basically never see them. You could probably randomly shuffle all the medical school classes in the country and really nothing much would change regarding a class's dynamic. Residency is a completely different experience where I will actually work with my coresidents every day for years, and for that reason 'fit' is relevant.

Fit is absolutely not an artificial thing. Maybe if your school has very minimal required interaction between students it wouldn’t matter. But at schools where students are frequently interacting, there is absolutely a fit.

I agree. The amount of interaction required of students in small groups varies by school and students who do best by themselves with a pot of coffee are not going to be a good fit with a school that has mandatory small group sessions in the first two years. Furthermore, the requirements for graduation differ among schools and those that put a premium on intellectual curiosity, inquiry-driven research, and so forth will be looking for a different type of student than the school that is interested in producing primary care providers for underserved areas. Part of the art of admissions is identifying those people who will do well in medical school but will be absolutely miserable at this particular one.

With respect, I think it's not possible to accurately measure fit. The act of measuring changes the variable you're trying to measure. By using "fit" as an explicit requirement, you're making applicants put on a different hat for every school, and privileging those who are the best at sociopathically changing their personality to match whatever the perceived requirements are. The notion of fit is also antithetical to the ideal of "diverse perspectives" that schools stress so emphatically.

I think most of us would find a way to fit in no matter where.

 

[LizzyM]

With respect, I think it's not possible to accurately measure fit. The act of measuring changes the variable you're trying to measure. By using "fit" as an explicit requirement, you're making applicants put on a different hat for every school, and privileging those who are the best at sociopathically changing their personality to match whatever the perceived requirements are. The notion of fit is also antithetical to the ideal of "diverse perspectives" that schools stress so emphatically.

I think most of us would find a way to fit in no matter where.

If that were the case, we could take the top 43% of MCAT scorers and randomly assign them to a medical school somewhere in the country and expect a graduation rate of 100% at four years. Tell me how you think that would work.

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

If that were the case, we could take the top 43% of MCAT scorers and randomly assign them to a medical school somewhere in the country and expect a graduation rate of 100% at four years. Tell me how you think that would work.

I'm no expert (and I know you are one) but I can't imagine it would be much different from how it is today. I did some quick googling and found a document from the AAMC in 2014. Current 4 year graduation rates are around 80%. This is actually a drop from ~90% in 1970, when the system was much less holistic and more stat-based, much closer to what you propose with taking the top 43% of MCAT scorers.

 

[borrawin95]

I'm no expert (and I know you are one) but I can't imagine it would be much different from how it is today. I did some quick googling and found a document from the AAMC in 2014. Current 4 year graduation rates are around 80%. This is actually a drop from ~90% in 1970, when the system was much less holistic and more stat-based, much closer to what you propose with taking the top 43% of MCAT scorers.

4-year graduation rates is a bad metric to compare medical school success. Schools have expanded offerings of 5th year programs.

Medical students are also taking additional gap years during medical school so they can match into extremely competitive residency programs.

 

[LizzyM]

4-year graduation rates is a bad metric to compare medical school success. Schools have expanded offerings of 5th year programs.

Medical students are also taking additional gap years during medical school so they can match into extremely competitive residency programs.

Quite right. The usual metric is 5 year graduation rate.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

With respect, I think it's not possible to accurately measure fit. The act of measuring changes the variable you're trying to measure. By using "fit" as an explicit requirement, you're making applicants put on a different hat for every school, and privileging those who are the best at sociopathically changing their personality to match whatever the perceived requirements are. The notion of fit is also antithetical to the ideal of "diverse perspectives" that schools stress so emphatically.

I think most of us would find a way to fit in no matter where.

You've got a couple of errors in here, the largest being that someone who is able to get along with a lot of different people is somehow a sociopath.

I'm no expert (and I know you are one) but I can't imagine it would be much different from how it is today. I did some quick googling and found a document from the AAMC in 2014. Current 4 year graduation rates are around 80%. This is actually a drop from ~90% in 1970, when the system was much less holistic and more stat-based, much closer to what you propose with taking the top 43% of MCAT scorers.

A lot has changed since 1970. You might want to look into the rate of students taking research years, the average difficulty in medical education, etc. before you just assume that stats driven admissions is overall better for graduation rates.

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

Quite right. The usual metric is 5 year graduation rate.

You brought up 4 year graduation rate. I only used it because that's what you used. 5 year graduation rates have fallen too, though less so: 97% --> 94%. The document I found is attached.

If that were the case, we could take the top 43% of MCAT scorers and randomly assign them to a medical school somewhere in the country and expect a graduation rate of 100% at four years.

You might point out that it's only a 3% drop which can be explained by any number of factors. At the very least though we can see that looking for "fit" certainly hasn't led to any improvement in graduation rate.

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

You've got a couple of errors in here, the largest being that someone who is able to get along with a lot of different people is somehow a sociopath.

Anyone can get along with a lot of different people. Is that what you mean by "fit?" The vast majority of medical school applicants can fulfill that criterion. I don't think it tells you anything unique about how they will fit in with the school.

Also, if someone is rated as a good fit at a bunch of different and widely varied schools, doesn't that undermine the whole notion of fit?

A lot has changed since 1970. You might want to look into the rate of students taking research years, the average difficulty in medical education, etc. before you just assume that stats driven admissions is overall better for graduation rates.

I'm not assuming stats-driven admissions is better. I'm pointing out that there's no demonstrable benefit to fit-driven admissions/holistic admissions.

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

I think physicians might be less discriminating because they have the most pertspective and wisdom that 'fit' in a class is an artificial thing made up by admissions committees to stratify thousands of people who are essentially all very similar for very few available spots in a class.

Fit is artificial. It's a subjective value judgement with no detectable basis in reality. This means that it can (and will) be gamed by applicants who are good actors.

I would be very interested to see if any evidence exists that applicants rated as a good fit are in any way more successful. I highly doubt it, and I doubt any will ever exist. It's impossible to get an accurate measure of such a thing. Social science type studies attempting to put a number on subjective judgements like this are spurious at best and pure survivorship bias at worst. The repeated measures correlations are junk. The studies justifying MMIs and CASPer are prime examples. Many who were rated a "bad fit" would have been successful if they were given the chance to try. Many who were rated a "good fit" are not successful.

I have the utmost respect for @LizzyM and @Matthew9Thirtyfive as your advice has been very helpful to me in the past. I hope that you will at least think about these points and consider them when you're next evaluating applicants. I hope some other applicants will read this too and evaluate for themselves.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm not assuming stats-driven admissions is better. I'm pointing out that there's no demonstrable benefit to fit-driven admissions/holistic admissions.

Based on what?

 

[7thAndLASTPoopoftheDay]

Based on what?

Based on the fact that there's no detectable increase in graduation rate since the advent of holistic admissions. Maybe even a slight decrease. Maybe graduation rate is not the right metric, but I think any other metric would have the same problem. Even if "fit" were real, and it helped, you could never tell. You could never even design a study that would accurately measure success rate based on fit, it's just too nebulous and there are too many other factors.

You might still believe that it's meaningful even if the evidence doesn't show it -- I'm aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. My point is that it's just not possible to find enough evidence to make an affirmative statement that fit is real. If you still think so, then that's fine but it's just an opinion. I personally think that when ADCOMs hold that opinion, it opens up the system to being gamed by people who are good at acting, and undermines the integrity of the process.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Based on the fact that there's no detectable increase in graduation rate since the advent of holistic admissions. Maybe even a slight decrease. Maybe graduation rate is not the right metric, but I think any other metric would have the same problem. Even if "fit" were real, and it helped, you could never tell. You could never even design a study that would accurately measure success rate based on fit, it's just too nebulous and there are too many other factors.

You might still believe that it's meaningful even if the evidence doesn't show it -- I'm aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. My point is that it's just not possible to find enough evidence to make an affirmative statement that fit is real. If you still think so, then that's fine but it's just an opinion. I personally think that when ADCOMs hold that opinion, it opens up the system to being gamed by people who are good at acting, and undermines the integrity of the process.

Anyone can get along with a lot of different people. Is that what you mean by "fit?" The vast majority of medical school applicants can fulfill that criterion. I don't think it tells you anything unique about how they will fit in with the school.

Also, if someone is rated as a good fit at a bunch of different and widely varied schools, doesn't that undermine the whole notion of fit?

You seem to have a weird idea of what fit is.

One school I interviewed at has a mission dedicated to putting more physicians into the area surrounding the school and to improving the healthcare of the local population. I was a military applicant which means I would be leaving the area after graduation and not coming back for at least 5 years. While my stats were competitive and I had a good interview, I was not a good fit for that school because an acceptance for me would mean taking a seat away from someone who could actually contribute to their mission. I got waitlisted.

There are people who have interviewed at my school who definitely wouldn’t have fit in with the student body and the mission of the school. And there are a few students in my class who probably shouldn’t have gotten in, tbh. They are smart enough but they don’t fit in with the culture—it’s tainting their experience and getting on other people’s nerves.

So no, fit isn’t something you can objectively measure, but you don’t have to. That doesn’t make it artificial.

 

[LizzyM]

At a school where a thesis is required for the MD degree, someone who is not inclined to want to do original research and write a thesis is not going to be a good fit. They can act all they want at the interview but the personal statement and the AMCAS application, which is the same for all schools, may well preclude an interview for such a candidate on the basis of "poor fit". Ditto the applicant who is heavily invested in research and ultimately seeking a role as a med school faculty member. Not likey to be a good fit with a school geared toward the training of clinicians for rural communities.
Once we select those who on paper seem to be a good fit with the school's mission, the task of the interviewer is to assess verbal communication skills and ability to act like a human being (not an automaton). Going back to the original point of this thread, one need not be a physician to assess these attributes in a medical school candidate.