Your Residency Application: What to Do if You Receive No or Few Interview Invitations?

1. Don't panic.

2. Try contacting - in a professional manner - all institutions to which you have sent your ERAS. You can send an email and call. When you call, be calm, respectful, and enthusiastic. Do not demand to speak to the program director. Let the person who answers the phone know that you are very interested in the program and would appreciate the opportunity to interview. Offer to be on an interview wait list if necessary.

3. Prepare for the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP). Note that SOAP is not a separate program from the residency Match. So a) your main residency Match user status must be active and b) your credentials must be verified by the Rank Order List Deadline in order to participate in SOAP. Here is more information on SOAP. 

4. Make a plan for what you will do if the Match and SOAP don't work out for you. What will you do next year? How will you improve your written materials, interview skills, and overall candidacy? If heaven forbid, you do not have success in either the Match or SOAP, please consider getting help from me or a faculty member who is experienced in residency admissions - the sooner the better to improve a candidacy and prepare for a re-application.

Responses from Program Directors are as Valuable as the Email They're Written On

A strong residency candidate asked me to review an email a program director (PD) had sent him after interview day. The candidate wanted to know if I had any insights to the intent of the PD: Was the PD sending a generic note or was he really interested in the applicant?

I told the applicant honestly, who knows and who cares?

I wasn't trying to be dismissive. The point is that it is impossible to know what a PD is thinking. Unfortunately, I've seen applicants heartbroken by false hope they read into a PD's comments. More importantly, what a PD says should not affect your rank list anyway. The algorithm requires you to put your first choice first and your second second, etc. (More on that in a future blog post.)

As they say, kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises. Ignore those PD notes because they don't guarantee a thing and don't change management. 

Finding - and Redefining - Balance: It's Not about Better Multitasking

This time of year, when the residency and medical school interview processes are in full swing, many of us feel overwhelmed. Here's a brief but thoughtful piece regarding balance. As you consider your future career, it's worth thinking about issues the author covers like clarifying what brings you joy, considering your goals while understanding they will change, and defining balance for yourself. 

In this day and age, one can choose a traditionally tough specialty but work in a practice setting that allows for some autonomy and flexibility. But you need to know what you want, and you need to give yourself the room to explore that in order to guide yourself in the right direction.

Accomplished, Not Lovely

A few years back I went to hear the author Nicole Krauss speak about her novel Forest Dark. I am a big fan of Krauss' writing (especially the History of Love in case you are looking for something wonderful to read). The day I heard the author speak, she had published an opinion piece in the NYT Sunday Magazine called "Do Women Get to Write with Authority?" In the article, Krauss speaks about the lack of authority that women writers have compared to men, and specifically, how female artists' work is often characterized as "lovely," a word she describes as lacking in "independent power."

I must admit that I sometimes use the word "lovely" (both for women and men) when I like someone. But Krauss made me think about the word in the context of achievement - not personality - and her point is well-taken.

What does this have to do with medical school and residency admissions? When you interview, you want the faculty member to leave the table saying you were "accomplished," not "lovely." Many applicants miss this point: You don't want to simply be liked; you want to be seen as worthy. It's important that you focus on that important goal as you practice for interviews.