So, you’ve gone for your interview at a residency program. Now what?

Many applicants struggle with when to contact a program after the interview day. Should you send a thank you to every program? Only the ones you are ranking highly? Should you send a hand-written letter or an email? While there are no clear rules for post-interview contact, there are some basic guidelines that you should follow.

Finally, residency interview season has come to a close. Your suit can get packed away in that garment bag for another 18 months, as scrubs (and the dress clothes that you don’t mind getting blood- and sputum-covered) move back to the front of your wardrobe. You can relax, put your feet up, and hopefully cruise through the rest of fourth-year while you rack your brain trying to get your rank list in order.

When it comes to preparing for medical residency interviews, there is one question every med student asks:

Interviewing candidates for residency positions is undoubtedly a difficult job for interviewers and program directors alike. Residency programs look at a relatively homogenous stack of applications, with precious little time to devote to each. To make matters more difficult, many medical schools have moved away from traditional grading system and rankings, and residency programs are left to decide how Medical School A's "highest honors" compares to Medical School B's "high honors." Furthermore, students are oftentimes asked to "draft" their own letters of recommendation that letter writers will "edit" and sign, or standardized letters are used which downplay the narrative aspect of student-attending interactions.

Dr. Fred Bertino hosted a FB Live Q&A session entitled,  "FB Live Q&A: Residency Interview Dos & Don'ts – Etiquette, Tough Questions, and What to Do After." 

Watch and listen as he discusses all topics related to residency interviews!

You’ve recently interviewed at a program you loved. The residents were friendly and helpful, the program director was motivating, the facilities are beautiful, and the program seems to offer nearly everything you could want. The question many students find themselves asking at this point is whether or not to send a thank you note, email, or engage in follow-up communication after leaving the interview. Here are a few rules of thumb for following up with programs after interviewing:

Dr. Tedi Begaj hosted a FB Live Q&A session entitled,  "FB Live Q&A: Success In Your Med School Interview." 

Here he addresses questions related to preparing for your med school interview, as well as other common med school admission-related concerns.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Kind of. Whether you love them or loathe them, it’s time for interviews. Time to dust off your suit, brighten your smile, and wow every program with your charm. And, in this day and age where every question that crosses one’s mind can be answered by querying the internet at large, you have landed here. Excellent choice. We’ve dug through the MST mailbag to answer some often asked questions, big and small, that students have about interviews. Read on to maximize your chances of matching with a stellar interview performance.

Interview season can be stressful. For one thing, our future is riding on our performance. An amazing interview can be the difference between matching at your dream program and not matching at all. On top of that, you might be traveling across the country, navigating cities and even cultures that you are not accustomed to. On top of the dry cleaning and Uber rides and chaotic logistics, there is the need to be “on” from the moment you step inside the door of the pre-interview dinner until your final sign off when you leave campus. Stressful indeed.

Professionally, I feel very drawn to radiology, and I can't picture myself feeling fulfilled in any other specialty. That said, I recognize that diagnostic radiology easily lends itself to depersonalization. The images have no faces: no fear, no joy, no sadness.