What to Look For?

[marcus8]

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What do you look for when you are researching programs and going on interviews? Any hallmarks of a great program? Any red flags?

Thanks.

 

[PEA]

You need to figure out what is important to you in a program and what is not so important that you can live without it for 3 years.

My list was something like this:
1. Location, location, location... My family and I needed to like where we were living
2. EMR vs paper and to what degree is the hospital paperless... EMRs make life sooooo much easier. A paperless hospital was quite high on my list.
3. The program in general... i.e. how often I took call etc.
4. What is the relationship like among the residents and between the residents and attendings

 

[oldbearprofessor]

4. What is the relationship like among the residents and between the residents and attendings

I'm curious how you can figure this one out from an interview? It's kind of like interviewing for med school and trying to find out what the faculty-student relationships are like. You can only go by what you hear from the few selected folks you talk to. There's no way to do this by direct observation on an interview day.

So, I think that although the sentiment is good, I'd be cautious about this one.

 

[PEA]

I'm curious how you can figure this one out from an interview? It's kind of like interviewing for med school and trying to find out what the faculty-student relationships are like. You can only go by what you hear from the few selected folks you talk to. There's no way to do this by direct observation on an interview day.

So, I think that although the sentiment is good, I'd be cautious about this one.

You can see a lot of interaction if you look for it. Most of the programs I interviewed at involved us going to morning report and noon conference. I watched the residents closely during that time. Non verbal is everything and the most 'honest' communication. Did they ALL look tired? Or just one or two? If tired, was it a 'happy' tired? (I can live with 'happy tired', I can't live with 'miserable') Were they talking to each other? Was it 'happy chatter'? etc. Look at their body language - closed or open posture? You can see so much if you look for it. Non-verbal is very hard to hide.

I agree it's very hard to observe resident-attending interactions so I asked a lot of different residents at different times and I watched their initial reaction... before the words came out. It's amazing what you can pick up. Just seeing an inconsistency between verbal and non-verbal is meaningful.

 

[bks524]

So I am currently at a big program, but trained at a medium sized program. I have always thought location is ultra important. figure out where you want to live and that should probably be priority number 1 and 2. the difference I see between my two programs is, prep for gen peds career. I think my residency program did a terrific job of getting you ready for gen peds career. I think with the large program, some of the gen peds things get lost. Either too much subspeicalty care or being pulled in different directions each month. The big advantage to me of the big programs is opportunity. Research, multiple attendings with varied backgrounds, and variety of electives offered.

Also, decide if you learn best by seeing or doing.

 

[generic]

Look for happy residents. If it's a place full of happy, fulfilled residents, that's a good sign.

Then make sure those residents are like yourself. If you can envision yourself working there and getting along with those people in that environment, I think that's a winner of a program.

 

[twilightdoc]

My analogy for the residency interview and subsequent matching process is that it is similar to getting married after one "blind date".

There are so many factors that can be important to different candidates, but I think that finding current and former residents who are pleased with their training and who have been successful in passing their specialty or inservice boards should be high on the list. And the setting is important, both for your happiness when not working and also (and perhaps more importantly) the happiness of your spouse/significant other (if you have one). The good news for applicants in Pediatrics is that there are many excellent programs in just about every type of city and region of the country that you might want.