November 6, 2008

• It begins…

  So tomorrow is my very first residency interview. Allow me to briefly explain how this process works for those of you not in the med school machine

  Earlier this year I decided what specialty of medicine I wanted to go into. I registered for the NRMP (more on that later) and filled out my ERAS (electronic residency application service) and my CAS (central application service) mostly because I am dual applying for specialties to cover my bases. This entailed basically uploading a transcript, a resume, and endless personal statements. I then chose all the schools I wanted this information to be sent out to

  People choose schools for many reasons-some choose sights well known for research, or associated with excellent programs in their specific specialty, others choose by region hoping to stay close to home, or conversely far from it.

  I still dont much care for research, so I opted to apply by region focusing mostly on the cities I have grown up or lived in-New York Chicago and Southern California. Along with a few Isolated programs in Philly, Miami and other coastal places.

  Anyway, the schools all receive your info as soon as you submit it to ERAS or CAS. Then you go out and get letters of recommendations, exam scores and a photo because as I have stated before, nobody wants an ugly doctor . These also get uploaded and sent out to programs as they come in to the central office. Finally in november the school sends out a deans letter with an overall evaluation of your performance while enrolled-outstanding, superior, good or competent.

  Many programs wil wait until receiving this deans letter before deciding whether or not to offer you an interview, but not all. Some will start contacting you right off the bat and you then have to coordinates dates and times, and places to stay. All of this on your own dime btw. So an intelligent applicant tries to schedule as many interviews in the same region as close together as possible as well as find many friends (IRL or xanga-hint hint ) willing to put up said applicant for a night or two.

  Anytime you receive an interview from a program, that is a potential job offer right there. A hospital may receive 500 applications, interview anwhere between 25-100 applicants, and then select between 4-20 depending on the competitiveness of the specialty. If you are interviewed you have already made it past the hardest screening process.

  Most of november, december, and january are spent zipping about the country from one hospital to another trying to see where you might be happy spending the next 3-5 years depending on the length of your specialty. Then in february you rank all the programs you interviewed at from where you would most like to go to where you would go if you have to. Similarly, the programs rank you from the student they want on their wheaties box to the one who they will take if every other applicant were to suddenly die of arsenic posoining (not that I am advocating anything, but stranger things have happened)

  Then a giant computer program looks at both lists and somehow “matches” you all up. This program actually works in the students favor, as it is designed to place you at the highest ranked program you want. So if your number one program ranked you as last, and your number two program ranked you as 10th, but your number three program ranked you 1st, you get matched to your number 3 program. Rank lists tend to be fiercely private and frequently changed right up until they are due. I have not yet decided whether or not to make mine known, but if I do it would only be at the level of a protected post, so any of you interested will have to message me separately if you want to up your stalking of me to the next level.

  So how does the interview process go? Well usually you get a tour of the hospital, an introduction to the director as well as some residents who happen to be handy and the questioning begins on both your parts. Most programs include lunch, and some offer a night out with the residents to get to know them in a less formal setting. For that one day the hospital turns into a used car lot-everyone will say pretty much whatever they think the other side wants to hear to put them into a shiny new cadillac residency.

  Anything and everything you have mentioned in your application could come up, from research you have done to hobbies or previous work experience to speaking with a native speaker of a tongue you have claimed fluency in. Really its anybodies guess.

  I have collected a host of these questions from friends and those who have gone before me, and just for the sake of forcing myself to think about it, I will be sporadically posting with some of these questions and their answers. No solicitation of your internet services is required, but if there is anything you would like me to further clarify by all means please ask-the better I am prepared for each interview, the more likely I can get bumped up on the schools ranklist

  After all, all I have left to rely on now are my good looks and charm. And while the good looks may be debatable (gosh I miss my beard) when it comes to charming, well phrases such as “the pants off” have been known to apply.

  So wish me luck, because tomorrow the last phase of my medical school career begins.

  Oh yeah, and my next rotation starts again on monday, so patient stories will probably make a reappearance too at some point in the near future

  -Almost Dr J
  

  • 10:22 pm
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