Interviews I

I'm back from half a dozen interviews in the last two weeks. Although it is fun to visit new cities, meet other applicants, and see various programs, all the accompanying accoutrement - the cost of flights, the sleep toll of time zones, the stress of braving public transportation - can be really wearying. I'm glad to be nearing the end.

What is the goal of the interview? At the bare minimum, it allows programs to ensure that I am the person advertised. It allows applicants to ask any questions of the program and gauge the fit with faculty. But the range of interviews is quite tremendous; at some preliminary programs there is one meeting with a chief resident whereas at some derm programs have twelve 20-minute interviews in a row with faculty. I can't imagine doing that; that would make my head spin.

The types of interviews vary considerably. Most applicants dread the "stress" interview where applicants are put in an uncomfortable situation to see how they react. Those are rare these days, mostly because applicants don't want to go to programs that employ that technique, and it may not be all that revealing. Likewise, I have not yet been asked any "content" questions, that is, quizzing an applicant on a specific disease or EKG or biochemical pathway. Classic questions like "What's the rate-limiting step of the Krebs cycle?" have fallen out of favor, and I think this is the right direction to go. Certainly, applicants have test scores that represent normalized comparisons to peers in controlled settings, and an interview that focuses on assessing fund of knowledge would hardly be better than the standardized exam.

The bulk of questions I've experienced have fallen under several umbrella categories. The easiest have to do with things I mention in my application or personal statement. "Tell me about your research" and "how did you get interested in anesthesia" are straightforward questions as long as I've put a little thought into my application and residency decision. Other interviewers ask me what I'm looking for in a program or what my favorite clerkship was or where I see myself in ten years.

Even harder questions involve fundamentally important events and ideas such as: "how do you think health reform is going to affect anesthesiology?" "What is the role of anesthesia-extenders like nurse anesthetists?" But the hardest questions I've had are "behavioral interview questions." Adapted from interview techniques in the business realm, these questions are becoming more popular because they cannot be easily anticipated, and apparently, answers reflect how a candidate may act in future situations. Examples of these questions include: "Describe a situation in which you stood up to someone." "Give me an example of a time in which you had to make a split second decision." "Give me an example of a time when you tried something and failed." These are very tricky, and I personally dread them.