Residency Interviews & Life as a fourth year

4th year life

It’s good. The rumors are true. Well post-interview season. right up until the high anxiety of match starts. The sigh of relief after finishing cores, auditions, applications, and interviews - now just for waiting. Waiting and living. I had to get used to going home and not having a mile-high pile of things to do. I endorse this “soft life”. My husband and I can watch TV shows. That’s it. There’s no speed running Anki while “watching TV” or listening to podcasts on 2x while I shower as “relaxation”.

Traveling North and North-er

We didn’t get any time to catch up last winter! I scheduled a 2-week break for the holidays. We traveled to my family up north and then my husband’s family north north (Canada). On the journey up, we went to Sacramento to go to a King’s game (husband is a huge Kings fan). I’ve never been to Old Sacramento. It was a cute little area to stroll through. We had our dogs with us and they enjoyed sniffing a new city.

Then we flew to Canada for 5 days. It was incredible to be part of a big family again. Every day there was a dinner or a party. It reminded me of growing up Filipino with multiple family parties to go to every weekend. Medicine easily takes the spotlight of life. I feel like it was too easy these last 4 years to fall into the rhythm of the grind and forget that I love being a daughter, sister, cousin, friend.

When my dad said I’ll only see him 200 more times in the next 40 years…well that definitely sent me into a spiral. I am recommitted to proving that prediction wrong. I want more of these random adventures.

2024 Goals & Running for fun?

My really awesome badass friend and I did a little vision board party. I was so timid I was to put my goals out there! Even with one of my closest friends who I know would never judge me. I kept thinking how can I ask for these things? I think I’ve gotten so comfortable with being happy for anything positive to come my way. I never thought I’d be in a position to ask.

Anyway, I put this on top of my dresser in my closet. When I’m getting ready every day, it’s been wonderful to ask myself every morning which part of this dream I am working towards. I find myself kind of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind person. So having a daily visual reminder of all the things I want has helped so much.

A little sneak peek, I want to travel more. I always put my money to pursuing medicine and then the panini happened. I haven’t ventured out there. I want to see more of the world. I want to love my hobbies more like sewing, reading, and playing video games. I want to run…for fun. I never thought I’d say that. It’s only been a form of punishment in other sports for me. I signed up for a Hot Chocolate-themed 5K in March. The day before Match week starts - just to distract myself (edit from future Rainee: that in fact did not work).

Residency Interviews

It’s finally time! The moment I never thought would come and the moment that couldn’t get here fast enough. I’m in my 4th year! And I’m doing residency interviews! I’m going to have a job??

If we’ve been chatting here for a while you know that I’m an introvert. Well, I’d say an ambivert really. Because I love people and I do have a social battery. Initially timid cat persona with gold retriever love but also needs time to recoup. Ah I’m Kalbi, my pug. So this whole thing of meeting lots of people but at the same time trying to show someone who I am within 15 minutes brought in some performance anxiety for sure.

My interview process experience

After I submitted my ERAS application in late September, I did the thing I would recommend you not do. I went onto the Reddit post with live updates from everyone post-submission. Bad move. People were getting invites hours after submission. Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s too easy to get hurt out here as a softie like me.

I applied to Family Medicine. I got my first interview invite 2 weeks after submission. Most of my invites came in mid-late October with some trickling in during November and one during early December. Some specialties release only after a certain day (this year Pediatrics, EM, and I think General Surgery).

How interviews are set up

Residency programs extend invitations via email. Tip: Create a new email for ERAS when applying or if you already created an ERAS account you can change the linked email. I made a gmail that only receives ERAS things. Then I downloaded the Gmail app and changed the notification settings so I’d get urgent notifications from this email. So if I was out and about, I’d know I needed to step out.

When I received an invite, I was usually instructed to use Thalmus or ERAS to sign up for an interview date. You are prompted to make a Thalmus account during your first invite through the system. There was a list of dates from October to December/January with an indication if it’s AM/PM/all day. I usually set it up as quickly as possible because some programs filled their slots very quickly. Of course, you can waitlist for another slot. There were 1-2 instances where there were no slots left. I emailed the program coordinator and they usually helped me find a date. I believe it’s a new rule that if offered an interview, you need a slot to interview. Programs in the past would send out more invitations than there were spots.

My strategy for setting up most interviews was to have the interviews of my most interested programs near the end of the season. I wasn’t confident in my interview skills since it had been a while. However, I didn’t account for how exhausting interviewing was, and no matter how I tried, I tended to become a robot. I’d get asked “Why Family Medicine?”, Me: Great question, proceeds to go into rehearsed response. Ugh, nooo.

Interview structures I encountered

Most interviews I had were rounds of 3-8 interviews. It’d usually start with a welcome from the PD or staff with some information about the program and sometimes a virtual tour or pictures of the site. Then we’d be moved into breakout rooms with usually one but sometimes two staff who would often ask prepared questions with some time at the end to answer questions. Then I’d get moved back into the main room to get redistributed to the next interview. The two in-person interviews usually had a tour, interviews, Q&As, and lunch was provided.

The virtual interviews had options for virtual/in-person socials with the residents to ask questions before or after the interviews. One of the in-person interviews had an in-person resident dinner as well. Both types of interviews also often offered “second look” experiences to happen in January when I will visit the campus and meet more of the staff. There was only one program that offered a scholarship that I could apply for to get financial support to attend these events.

How to prepare for interviews

It’s been a while since I did a proper job interview. I had never done a job interview for something that wasn’t more than a way to pay rent or gain experience. It was surprisingly personal. I mean of course in hindsight. But after just chugging along for the last four years, I forgot how personal this journey and career has become.

I panicked a week before my first interview. I was asking my friends how they were doing theirs. One had recommended a residency interview prep service. Ironically, I worked with a resident in rotations who was one of the interview coaches. I scheduled with her and I’m so glad I did a session with her. Because I absolutely bombed. Even though I was rehearsing in the car during the commute, the shower, with my dog, the responses…just didn’t hit. I was so anxious that I forgot everything. Even better my interview coach knew me and was able to candidly say that performance was just not it, not me. So I would recommend real practice with a real person. You don’t have to pay anyone, you can practice with a friend or family. But doing one session with a service was so helpful. It also provided a lot of reassurance. I used Resiyay and highly recommended Dr. Neha Siddiqui.

So #1 Practice. #2 Research the program by looking at its website, social media, and Residency Explorer. Look for things that are important to you: location, curriculum structure (how many electives/what electives), how big the class is, qualify for PSLF, etc. It was helpful to have one thing I knew I liked about the program and at least 3 questions I had in my pocket. During the presentation, I usually gathered a bunch more. It was helpful for the “Why this program” question and “Do you have any questions” portions. Tip: Write or record your thoughts about each program right after your interactions with them. Lots of people use notebooks or have online docs. I liked making voice memos like it was my gossip podcast.

What about rotations

I didn’t have any breaks during interview season to do interviews. All of my rotations were incredibly understanding. Even, the audition rotation. I tried to avoid scheduling that month, but I had to take 3 and all the residents and attendings were understanding about it. I would inquire with the coordinator about what to do about interview days. Usually, the protocol was to tell the resident or attending when I needed time off.

My set-up for virtual residency interviews

When I did my mock interview, we tested my equipment. Though it was sufficient, the audio from my airpods seemed to have bad quality. It’s not necessary, but I opted to buy a little gear because my house can be loud and I can be quiet and the lighting wasn’t always consistent. Plus everything was on sale for Prime Day I think.

Microphone: I was recommended this $20 microphone which was super helpful because I can be soft-spoken. Especially because my husband works downstairs and I didn’t want to interrupt his meetings.
Ring light ($30): I like this one because it holds my phone which I use for my webcam and it’s dimmable.
Air pods for audio: I preferred to have my audio via earphones to avoid any echo.
iPhone for camera: I have a Mac and the webcam isn’t great. I even got a budget webcam during the virtual med school days but even that wasn’t awesome. BUT, I found out you can use your iPhone as a webcam which has awesome quality! This is what I used to learn how to set up.

Note, these are affiliate links which amount to a dime my way but might as well right? Anyways none of this is necessary. On Reddit, it sounded like everyone did this. But when I got to the real virtual world, more people didn’t have a ring light or just used what they had. It’s all fine as long as the interviewers can hear and see you.

Common questions (in my opinion & coordinating with Google)

I won’t talk about this in complete detail because it goes against policy. So here are the top questions according to Google that I agree with. The way I approached this was I made doc and pasted the most common questions and some of the extras. I spent some time typing out bullet points for each question. Then I’d rehearse what I’d say. It was helpful so I could practice the length of replies and know what talking for a minute felt like. Or if talking about a certain thing brought up something else I wanted to include. A good point I was given by a lot of people was to make these answers fit your theme, your story. The interviewers want to know a general gist of the person you are, so though we’re all very complicated we have to give them something to work with.

1. Tell us about yourself: I had a blurb prepared which I changed depending on the situation. It seems there is no wrong way. I came up with this after watching a bunch of residency interview videos. My blurb usually included

Thanks for the opportunity
I’m born and raised in California
I’m looking for a community in California to place my roots with my husband and 2 dogs.
My Filipino culture influenced how I value service and community and that made it natural to find medicine and family medicine
Outside of medicine, I like sourdough baking, powerlifting, and [insert another hobby].

I think it went over well because it gave a lot of room to talk about a lot of things. It was also flexible so if I got the just that the interviewer didn’t want the complete sonnet, I could tailor it down.

2. Why did [Specialty]?

I gave about 3 points to this and it felt sufficient. My sample about FM: FM is perfect for me because it’s diverse. You can continue to learn about every field and treat every age. I love how it’s a choose-your-own-adventure field. I can work inpatient, outpatient, urgent care, ER, wand omen’s health. Most of all, I love the role FM physicians play as a home base for patients. Etc, etc.

3. Tell me about a time that was challenging/there was conflict/you made a mistake. There are lot of situation questions and I would look them up just for ideas. I had 2 patient stories in my pocket that would cover most questions.

4. How do you manage stress and maintain work-life balance? Wellness has been an increasingly popular topic among other netizens too. I brainstormed things I like to do, how I relax even when I have little time, what’s important to me, and why it’s important to me. It can be helpful to have examples.

5. What are your strengths and weaknesses? This could be worded in many ways. I had 3 of each that I framed as things I’m proud of and things I’m working on. I liked to tie the characteristics to patient care if there was time. Like I’m proud of my communication skills. I feel like it’s bettered my patient care. I’ve gotten X, Y, and Z feedback from attendings, and my patients say X about it.

6. Where do you see yourself in five years? This question is helpful to see if you want from a program fit. Do you want to work in outpatient primarily but the program is mostly inpatient? Do you want to stay in the area? What population do you want to work with? Because all my interviews were in a place that I wanted to put in roots, I usually emphasized that in my picture of me in 5 years.

Questions I like to ask

There’s almost always time dedicated to questions you have about the program. So I’d have a few standard questions prepared about what’s important to you like food, call schedule, etc. I’d also have some program-specific questions which often came up after looking at their website. Some of my favorite questions to ask were:

Favorite thing about the program (often it was the people, so maybe better phrased: Besides the people, what’s your favorite thing?)
Is any recent feedback incorporated into the program?
Why do you like working here?
Do you have any advice for me?

A note about Prematch

I rotated one site and loved the people. The residents there taught me my clinical foundation. Especially coming from a COVID class, I felt so insecure about my clinical skills. I was so thankful to get an interview and prematch offer here. For prematch programs, you apply through ERAS like all the other programs. They interview around the same time. I got my interview in November. Within a week, the program called me to offer the position. They gave me a couple of days to decide if I’d like to take it. On the positive, I would have job security. A resident position was secured in November! Negatives, you have to pull out of the match. Though I absolutely loved my time at that program with those residents, I didn’t feel like I was the best fit for what the interviewers were looking for. Ultimately, I passed on the opportunity but I think Prematch is a wonderful opportunity for the right people.

How i took care of myself during interviews

This is a long journey. It was more exhausting than I anticipated, though I really enjoyed seeing all the futures I could possibly have and all the communities I could possibly join.

It was helpful to have hobbies and dedicated things for just me. I completely surrendered to the bread gods. Currently, I’m making baguettes! For the holidays, I made all my neighbors this cinnamon roll bread. It was so good! Probably not for your health, but definitely for your soul.