Additional question: We are supposed to have 3-5 questions when asked, "Do you have any questions for us?"
I know you're not supposed to ask easily google-able questions, so I'm not sure how to approach this. The spreadsheets have almost anything I could ask. Sick leave, research support, surgical volume, etc.... There are a few programs that are true black holes of information, so I could very well ask "Do you have moonlighting opportunities?" or something like that, but I'm a little stumped aside from generic "What's your favorite part of this program? If you could change anything about this program, what would you change?"
Great question. If you genuinely have a question then by all means ask it, but programs are pretty good these days about giving you all those answers up front. Nobody hides the call schedule anymore, it’s usually front and center alongside rotation schedules and the like.
I would divide the questions into two categories based on who you’re talking to.
Residents:
Usually much easier, just ask about their personal experiences, quality of life, relationship with faculty, level of autonomy, how prepared the seniors feel for independent practice, research opportunities and support, etc. Honestly this is where you probably get the most important info from any interview. Also pretty easy to think of things to ask residents and they’re generally more approachable because they’re usually only a couple years ahead of you in training.
Faculty:
When in doubt, ask about what it’s like living in that city, things to do, where to live, where past residents have lived, etc. Always good conversation starters and you’ll want to leave with some sense of what it’s like to live and work there. I would also ask more personal questions, where they worked before the current job, why they came on as faculty. For key faculty you like, ask about their future plans, sticking around awhile vs pounding the pavement for the next step up the academic ladder (beware faculty who’ve been somewhere in the 5-7y mark as that seems to be a tipping point of bailing vs climbing where they are). For more senior faculty/chairs, I’d often ask about plans for the department, where they’re building/growing actively, their own career plans during your period of training.
Those are all reasonable questions and good conversation starters that will also yield you some potentially useful information. It’s a strange feeling because you go from selling yourself to all these programs to the nights at home pondering your rank list and suddenly realizing how much power you personally have. One flip of a rank spot may change your whole career because you can only match one place. And it gets tougher the further down you go - why does program 8 get ranked over 9? It’s entirely up to you and in those moments a lot of those other little intangibles start to matter quite a bit.
Use the “do you have any questions?” as an opportunity to flesh out some of those details. You’ll start to feel which programs have strong relationships between faculty and trainees because those faculty will know a lot about where residents live, what they do for fun, etc. And then you’ll meet others where the faculty clearly have no clue and trainees are merely an afterthought.
