A Few Tips and a Short Reflection
A few tips for before interview season
Take some time to reflect on the medical school journey.
Whether you write things down, talk with a loved one, or just reminisce on your own, it will be extremely helpful in having answers to many interview questions at the forefront of your mind. Think about the journey as a whole and take a minute to let it sink in that the journey is almost at an end!
What moments stand out to you in general as you start to think back? What moments made you really feel like you’ll be a doctor someday soon? What moments defined your experience?
Some specifics to reflect on:
- Patient encounters: your favorites, your least favorites, interesting cases, memorable to you or ones that impacted you
- What you would have changed about your journey
- Favorite and least favorite experiences/memories
- How you decided on your specialty (You’ll be asked this in almost every interview)
- What challenges you’ve overcome
- Why you spent your extracurricular time the way you did and what you learned from it (student organizations, research, volunteering, etc)
Think about what will be most important to you in your life during residency.
(In both your professional and personal life)
The things that are most important in terms of what the residency program will offer in your professional life will vary widely person to person and by the specialty. Thinking about this is a large part of the interview trail as you learn about each program and are considering your rank list. I’m personally still sorting all of this out.
Some personal life things to think about:
What are your hobbies and wellness activities that keep you grounded, and which of them are absolutely non-negotiable to have in your life? Is it important to you to live in a house with a yard or will any setting do? If you have children or other family members who will live with you, consider what they will need from the city you end up in. If you have a partner, consider their job markets and how it may vary in different places. Is having the ability to visit your support system in-person easily and/or often a top priority for you?
Overall the goal is to end up at a program where you’ll be happy, and a large part of that may depend on many things that aren’t directly related to the program itself. As I’m trying to picture my life in each of the places I interview at, I’ve thought about these questions, and I think it would have been helpful to think about even before interviews started.
Picture your life and your goals for after residency.
Think about what setting you want to practice in, if you want a fellowship, and then think about how your residency training will prepare you specifically for your goals. I’ve been surprised how often this is a topic of conversation in my interviews, but it definitely makes sense. The programs want to help you reach your goals and land your dream job when you’re done with training, and that requires you having at least a vague idea of your path in mind.
Some of my own reflections on the interview process so far
When asked how my interviews have been, the number one word that comes to mind is: surreal. It only intermittently sinks in how close I am to being finished with the medical school journey and getting to work as a resident, but when it does it is such an exhilarating feeling. I internally don’t feel much different from the 18-year-old-me who wanted to be a doctor when I grew up, but I’ve done and gone through so much in the last 8+ years, and it’s crazy to be talking about that and reflecting on it as I figure out where my next chapter will be.
My other main feeling around the interview process is harder to articulate, but fulfilling and validating are almost the right words.
As I’ve gone through this journey, I have always faced doubts and “imposter syndrome” intermittently, and I think everyone does. Even as I submitted my application, I was wondering how strong of an applicant I am and hoping I had put in enough work during medical school to stand out. Talking highly about my accomplishments is uncomfortable for me, but I know part of the interview process is learning how to do this while still being humble so I was mentally preparing for that. But, in many interviews I found that the interviewer would praise my application for me, for one reason or another, and that just made me feel so proud. To have professionals who have been in emergency medicine for years, who have been meeting almost-residents and training excellent ER docs, speaking so highly about my medical school career has been so fulfilling and I’m very grateful. I don’t regret my internal questioning of myself because I didn’t let it stop me, I just would feel like I was “faking it until I make it” to push through those doubts. I also know that having my previous doubts and questions makes me appreciate this positive feedback that much more, and makes the entire journey feel like it’s coming full circle in a beautiful way.
Without my previous doubts, I wouldn’t fully appreciate my current feeling of contentment and certainty that I am meant to be on this path. I’ve always gone through life telling myself “all you can do is your best, so just keep doing that until you fail”, and I’m currently just so humbled and thankful that my best was enough to get me where I am today…and admittedly still holding my breath a little until I officially “match” in March.