How do interviews work?

[Cumberland]

I know the theme of my posts lately are planning-future thinking type posts.... but I was wondering... How does the whole residency interview thing work? How much notice do you get for residency interviews? Do you have to budget thousands of dollars to fly all over the country with not much notice, plus paying for hotels? Are spouses encouraged or discouraged to go along ( not on the actual interview but to the city)?

Thanks!

Well, we have two interview experiences to draw from. Your husband's interview process will depend on how competitive the residency is in general and the how competitive the specific programs are. (In other words, the more competitive the selection process, the more places he needs to apply to and interview with).
Our first interview experience was for internal medicine. Eric applied to 5 programs (2 in our home town). He received interview offers for all 5 -- with enough notice to buy tickets at least a month in advance. Application fees through ERAS was about $150. We all flew to Seattle together for the UW and U Oregon interivews, stayed with friends part of the time, and borrowed a car. His total cost for air and hotel was probably around $400-$500.
In contrast.....the derm residency application process ran us about $3,700. This includes ERAS fees -- $260 for 25 programs, NRMP -- $90 (costs more the second time, gotta love that), and the rest was for the trips. This does not include other interview related costs like a new suit, etc. Eric was extended 11 interview offers but was only able to go to 9 due to time/scheduling constraints. Most of the offers allowed at least 14 days to purchase a ticket. One offer resulted from another candidate cancelling an interview so that was pretty short notice. The travel costs were lower than they might have been because we used a frequent flier ticket, did multi-city plane tickets, stayed with family, and used last minute "getaway" packages in some cases.

Due to the cost of the interviews, we were able to accompany him on one trip. I wouldn't say that spouses are encouraged to go on the interview trips but I would certainly encourage you to go along. Especially to cities that you have not been to before. I think the spouse bears more of the changes associated with moving to a new city because the spouse typically has more free time than the resident. Do everything you can to find a cities that you will be comfortable living in! Some programs will offer a dinner the night before the interview which the spouse is typically not invited to. (These pre-dinner interviews are important and should be treated as part of the interview -- especially for competitive specialties).

I would agree that it is important for the spouse to go along if possible. My DW only had two in town interviews the first time around and it was agreed before the match was done that she would have a spot in town. When that year neared the end, she entered the Match again and interview, again at three locations. We had the ability to accompany her on all three trips. We enjoy road trips so we drove to the locations. We visited Temple TX, Houston TX, and Kansas City, MO.
We had about a month notice from each program and they actually put us up in hotels. We were reimbursed travel expenses up to a certain amount. While there, there really wasn't much for me to do but I did get local papers and some housing info along with wandering through the hospitals and area malls!

Hope that this little bit helps.

[Rapunzel]

My experience with the residency interview process (before we decided on the Air Force deal we have) was very similar to nmh's second experience. Because of the competitiveness of radiology my husband applied to 19 programs. I can't remember exact costs because it's been a few years but the ERAS cost was well over $300. Jon then interviewed at around 12 programs. Some of them he could drive to, but many of them required long flights. We ended up completely maxing out a credit card entirely on his flights, hotel stays, and taxis. The grand total was about $4000.00! His first interview was in early November and his last one was in late January so we had advance notice of these interviews anywhere from a few weeks to a few months ahead of time. I only went on one interview with him - because it was in San Antonio and he needed someone to drive for him because he had literally just flown in from Baltimore and had no sleep. The San Antonio program was really not very interested in me tagging along (and certainly not prepared for me) so I just went shopping (since I was already familiar with SA). We had come to the conclusion that even if we could afford to take me to every residency interview I would not go because of our experience with the medical school interview process. During that process I was deemed "excess baggage" by every one of the med schools Jon interviewed at (6 total). I was the only spouse along for those interviews and felt like a pariah. I think it would've been a very similar experience had I gone on all of his residency interviews (especially after the San Antonio experience and also because there actually was one program - Hopkins- that outright told the potential residents that having a family was something they deemed a liability to their program). Anyway, we did not have a pleasant residency interview experience - for radiology it is expensive, nerve-racking, and there is a lot of NASTY competitiveness among the candidates and the programs.

Rapunzel -- it sounds like your radiology experience was similar to our derm experience! Our credit cards are still bending under the weight of all those flights, hotels, etc. The crazy thing is that when Eric was a med student he could have taken out more loans for the interviews but, of course, we didn't need them that time around.....ugh.
I think that one interview that Eric went to (Emory?) would have been ok with including spouses at the pre-interview dinner because all the faculty members brought their spouses and children. I think this reflected more on the derm program at Emory than Emory as a whole.
You are right that those competitive specialties are nerve-wracking and expensive! I had no idea! Fortunately, the fellow applicants were (for the most part) a nice bunch and realized they were all in the same boat together.
One especially nerve-wracking part is waiting for the interview offers and rejections. For some weird reason, Eric's rejection letters were not evenly distributed with the offers. So he had about five rejections before getting a single offer and was, understandably, *freaked* out. A lot of the offers he got were for better programs than the ones that rejected but we didn't know that for months! (For derm, offers start coming in early Nov and take until early Jan to finish). It was also hard to try to guess which other programs would want interview him in light of other programs that already offered. So, when he got an offer from Oregon we are wondering if U of Washington will offer too since they are close in location, interview dates, etc and he could combine a trip. Stressful!

Everyone has such different experiences with the whole interviewing process. My husband specialized in anesthesia, which (of course!!!) became very competitive last year when he was applying. A strike against Russ was that he was a DO applying to MD programs so even being at the top of his class, he only received five interviews. Now we look back on that as a huge blessing because we didn't have to spend so much money on traveling to all the interviews. The other disadvantage that Russ had was that the DO school he was at gave no time off for interviewing. That was a REAL pain because he would have to basically call in sick from his rotations a few times. Because of that, he had to really spread each of the interviews out so that he didn't miss too much work in any one rotation. The school now gives one month off for interviewing. Plus he had board exams in January right when everyone is interviewing. For us it was very stressful BUT ... it didn't cost us a fortune. I don't know how we would have done it besides maxing the credit card.

I didn't go on any of the interviews due to time and cost BUT ... I would have loved to just to hang out in the city. I would have done what Matt did and checked out housing prices and interesting places to see and if I felt comfortable there. I had to settle for searching the Internet, which was a good second choice. Russ found the interviews to be mostly very friendly and the other applicants quite friendly too. He only had one interview that was "antagonistic" and that was due to his DO status. He wondered why they even bothered to interview him because of their antagonism and then he received a letter stating that he would be accepted into the program if he ranked them high!!! He said there was no way he was going to work in that atmosphere for four years.

ANYWAY ... it is definitely a unique experience. For some it is quite stressful and for others it is totally easy sailing! Lots of luck in the future!

Robin

[DCJenn]

This doesn't really apply to you but for those of you who may do a miltary residency, because there are so few military training facilities, the interviews are not that big a deal. (Especially for those USUHS grads who basicially get a military residency or will work as a GMO after graduation (general medical officer- but that's a who 'nother can of worms)

Anyway, my husband (who was not my husband at the time, he was 'just' my boyfriend) was able to schedule his rotations during fourth year at each of the hospitals that had peds residencies and interviewed during those rotations. (Which meant that the poor guy had to suffer through a rotation in Hawaii (although he managed to squeeze in two!!), Seattle (again, two rotations) and San Antonio (two more) plus he threw in a rotation in San Diego at the Navy hospital so he would end up in California at Christmas and could go visit his family.

At least I was able to visit every place except Hawaii.

Jenn

Hey Robin,

that is what Gretchen had to do also as she is DO. Lots of sick days and it really made you feel like you were sneaking around!
I think that our total cost was only in the low hundreds for travel and eating. It was back in the days when we had an "economical" car!! (and three of us fit in it...barely!). From Tulsa OK to all those places was at most a days drive.

[Rapunzel]

Oh! I forgot the best part! (sarcasm intended) It turns out that one of the programs we never heard back from (and one we were both very interested in) apparently wanted to interview my husband but the secretary never mailed the interview invite!!!! Jon found this out after he called the program office to find out why he had not heard anything back from that program. He had waited too long, though, and it was too late in the interview season for him to have time to schedule any more interviews (it was January by then). It pays to call these programs and check on status.

Gee whiz, I barely can remember the interview process for residency. I know he interviewed at about 18 places and that he matched in his 4th choice. We spent a lot of money and time traveling all over for the interviews. I went with him for a few of them, just to play at the hotel and check out the area.

When he prematurely quit his surgical residency and began searching for a residency or fellowship in rad/nuc. med., he went on about 4 interviews (post match) and lucked out with a fellowship in nuc. med.

Now he is heavily involved in the attending interview process, though still thinking about doing more training, too. He's had one interview within a few hours driving distance. There he met with a couple of people in the department, and the process was rather low-key. He has an upcoming out of state interview next week. The potential employer is flying him out and covering all of his travel expenses. They have a limo picking him up and taking him to a hotel and then a few people in the department are taking him out to dinner. The next day, he is going to have ten 30 minute interviews with the others in the dept. and an "informal" lunch. Let's just say, it will probably be a very long day!!!!!!!!!

[PrincessFiona]

Interviews

Sue,

Inteviews for us were a big deal..we drove to most of them as a family and videotaped it all 8) As to money...I'd say that we easily sank $3500 (credit cards of course because there was no money to budget ) in travel expenses including plane tickets for Thomas to places that were too far away to drive.

Residency and Fellowship interviews didn't really have a problem with the spouse coming but there was no program or meeting set up with the spouses. I came along purely as a support to Thomas..

Post-training interviews are paid though!


As to the time thing...he'll need to figure out about when he wants to interveiw and set up his rotations in such a way that it's easier..but the program will likely accomodate his interview schedules without a problem.


kris

[Amiens]

We had a very enjoyable experience interviewing. It didn't cost near as much as we had anticipated. Matt applied to (if memory serves me right) 25 anesthesia programs, and 28 internal med programs (he wanted to do IM for his internship). He received interviews to all of the anesthesia programs, and 27 out of 28 IM. Matt ended up not interviewing at all of the places he was granted interviews- it came down to whether or not we really wanted to live in that particular place. Matt cancelled interviews at Brigham Womens and Mass Gen in Boston, and UC-San Fran, and Stanford in CA.

Matt grouped his interviews into two major trips- East coast and West coast (Oregon and Washington), and we also took a small drive to UT (8-hours) for an interview. We took a week and a half interviewing on the East coast. We found a great deal for our flight from Denver to Boston, and the same with a rental car. My dad worked for Marriott at the time, and so we got awesome deals on hotels- the two we stayed in. One of the programs (Dartmouth) gave Matt a food allowance, paid for his hotel, and parking. Another program reimbursed him for 2 days of the rental car. Matt also when setting up his interviews for this trip would explain to the administrator that he would be interviewing on a certain day somewhere, and they would try really hard to accomodate him. UT also paid for our hotel. Most places paid for our hotel, even Matt's alma mater (CU-Med School's anesthesia) wanted to put us up in a hotel for a night. Oregon paid for our hotel, and the same with Virigina Mason. We stayed with family friends in south of Seattle part of the time as UW didn't provide lodging.

I went to the dinners with Matt, and it was a good experience, especially if spouses were there. That way I could probe for how they liked the area, cost of living, etc. One program (Univ Vermont), didn't have a formal dinner set up, but when Matt asked if there was anything- they had the chief resident take Matt and I out to dinner at a really nice restaurant, and showed us around. I also set up meetings with realtors in each of the areas Matt interviewed in to get an idea of house prices as well as rentals-- what areas were considered safe, etc.

Hope this helps

Crystal

[Rapunzel]

A couple of years ago anesthesia was such an incredibly sweet specialty to interview in. We had friends that had Crystal's experience - LOTS of programs begging for interviewees and the programs plunking down money for the candidates to stay in hotels and eat. It was the only specialty that did that for candidates for residency. Talk about really, really nice!!!! 8) Unfortunately, I think in the last year anesth. has gone the way of radiology (which about seven years ago was the same way towards residential candidates) in that it has suddenly become a highly popular field and is currently enjoying a flood of applicants. Obviously this means that in the coming years anesthesia residency programs will taper off or stop all together their heavy wooing of residential candidates because they won't have to.

With that in mind it's really odd how with the significant downturn in numbers of candidates surgical specialties are receiving that surgery programs aren't doing what rads and anesth did when they were hard-up for residents! Or are they and I just don't know about it?

I just wanted to post a clarification on a reason why my family and Rapunzel's had such crazy interview experiences. (Correct me if I'm wrong, Rapunzel). Both dermatology and radiology are smaller programs. The derm programs interviewed about 8-15 applicants per available position; usually there are 2 to 6 derm positions per year, depending on the program. That means that some programs only interviewed 25 people and most programs only offer 3 interview dates. And a lot of the time the dates conflict between programs. One program that Eric interviewed with only offered one date for a two day interview that spanned a weekend. Of course, this date conflicted with the dates offered at other places he had interviews -- fortunately those places offered several dates. So, that is why scheduling the interviews can be difficult and a lot of cross-country travel is required. Some of the programs, all the NYC ones for example, coordinated dates so that applicants could arrange to make only one trip to a city or region.

Not only are the specialties competitive and necessitate as many interviews as possible to secure a spot, those interview dates are tough to coordinate. But certainly not impossible -- both our spouses matched!

[Amiens]

The year that Matt interviewed Anesthesia was starting to become competitive again. Matt interviewed with a good mixture of big name and smaller programs--- the smaller programs were the ones that seemed to really "wine and dine" him, whereas the larger programs didn't--- ie- the place we are at now- UW- they had a dinner, and that was it. Whereas Dartmouth, they only accept 10 people a year-- provided a hotel, and dinner.

Crystal