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Residency Interviews and Resident Selection 2016
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Let me take you back to a time that may or may not be that long ago for many of us. You’re a 4th year podiatry student. You’ve just spent the last almost four years with this dark and nebulous idea of residency interviews hanging over everything you’ve done. All of your hard work and preparation have come down to this. You’ve arrived in Frisco, Texas after having worked incredibly hard at your last clerkship rotation. Many hours have been spent sitting in front of your computer reading prep manuals, textbooks and journal articles. Your head is so full of information (how much of it useless you have no idea) that it’s about to pop. You may be the most knowledgeable you’ll ever be (balanced out, of course, with the fact that you have very little real experience).
You look around the hotel, this one a monolithic building with an open central area that lets you look up to the 14 floors above. Standing on multiple levels are other residency applicants in their dark suits carefully chosen to look professional. They try to look relaxed, but underneath the façade they’re exactly like you: scared witless.
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Welcome to the CASPR/CRIP Residency Interviews 2016
For me, this lovely experience occurred back in 2003, and as I walk into the hotel - now on the other side of the table as a residency interviewer – I can recall all of those feelings of uncertainty, worry and sometimes frank fear. On my trip to the interviews, while flying on the plane the evening before, I experienced itchiness while sitting. When I arrived at the hotel I undressed to find out I was covered in urticarial hives, caused by my incredibly high stress level. That’s how my body dealt with the stress. They were everywhere, and I mean everywhere! These interviews are stressful.
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As I said, it’s much better to be the interview-er rather than the interview-ee. It’s actually very enjoyable in many ways. If you remove the stress of all these people desperately trying to secure their immediate future, there are actually some fun aspects to this. As a teacher at Western University CPM, it’s very exciting to see my students again, some of them having been gone for several months on clerkship rotations. They look so grown up in their professional suits, so different from the incredibly young faces that looked at me for the four years previously. I listen to their stories of adventures at various rotations around the country and see just how much they’ve grown. It’s very exciting.
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“Kudos to Residency Directors for the tireless work that they do. They are our heroes and well deserve to be!”
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As with all podiatry-related national events, I get the chance to see some old friends and meet new colleagues too. The Council on Teaching Hospitals puts on a residency faculties’ CME event, which exposes me to the fantastic podiatric educational leaders in the United States. They take the time to educate directors and faculty about various aspects of the training process, and this year’s was very effective. They had a couple of speakers discussing residency selection of candidates and then broke up into small group discussions. As a new director this was particularly useful for me. How many chances do we have to learn from literally hundreds of years’ worth of collective experience and wisdom? Being a residency director is not an easy job, and for many of these physicians, it’s a thankless job for little pay and long hours. These people should be recognized for what they do, preparing our next generation of podiatrists. Here, here, residency directors!
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It’s also a fun time to get closer to my own work colleagues. This year, two of my work partners and my chief resident accompanied me to the interviews, and we had some fun. As the things went on, we were joking around between interviews and having a good time. It definitely eased the stress – both the applicants’ and our own.
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It's All About the Relationships
This, I think, is the true theme to my commentary this week: the power of relationships. As we all know, podiatry is a small community in which many of us know each other. It’s highly likely that many, if not most, of the students I’m currently teaching will become future colleagues and friends. Similarly, this is one of the primary reasons I love teaching residents. These people are metaphorical minutes away from becoming my true colleagues with strong bonds and relationships for many years to come.
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“Podiatry is a small community in which many of us know each other. These relationships will enrich your career in the years ahead.”
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And just as I gain personal strength, comfort, knowledge and joy from my own personal relationships, so too should our young colleagues applying for residency use those same strengths to get through this very trying time. Congratulations to all of you who interviewed. Whether you match with your favorite program or not you’re already a success.
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