2200 – 1840 = 360 x 2 = 720 / 332 = 2.1686747, right?

2200 – 1840 = 360 x 2 = 720 / 332 = 2.1686747, right?

With just 40 to 42 slots available for first-year residents in the Department of Medicine, how are they selected from the 2200 medical students who apply for them?

Putting aside the laborious issue of reducing the 2200 applicants to the 360 who will be invited to an interview, how are 360 interviewees fitted into the busy schedules of faculty who are already busy with responsibilities in patient care, administration, teaching, and research?

The expert in this domain is Ronald Witteles, MD (assistant professor, cardiovascular medicine), who directs the residency program for the DOM.

“Each applicant has a one-on-one interview with two faculty members, in addition to a separate interview with me,” said Witteles, “rounding off the interviewing responsibilities at approximately 720 interviews that need to be set up for a faculty of 332 Department members.  Many of those 332 faculty are not clinically active and therefore, for the most part, are really not going to be the right people to interview students for residency.“

Figuring out the logistics of the annual interview process is thus a daunting task. It is also an evolving one that underwent several changes last year to make interviews at Stanford more fulfilling for both students and faculty.

“Every year after the Match, we send out a survey to all the students who matched with us, and a second survey goes out to the students who could have matched with us but chose to go elsewhere. We ask them about various aspects of their interview experience from the moment they received an invitation to interview through all the post-interview correspondence.”

“What became clear from looking at the survey results a couple of years ago was that the interview day was rated extremely positively, except for one area that was ‘fine’ but not ‘excellent’ compared with our peers: the actual interviews themselves. We know that students can base their decisions regarding residency on very small things, and the interview can be the difference between matching with Stanford or matching with one of our peers.“

The survey data were the stimulus for some alterations Witteles made to the interview process last year. Casting a somewhat more targeted net than previously, he approached certain faculty to ask them to become core interviewers (both senior and junior faculty, representing Divisions throughout the Department, and associated with Stanford Hospital as well as the Palo Alto VA).  He chose those who worked closely with housestaff and were regarded as superb educators who were really invested in the program.

(Left to right: Stephanie Harman, Neera Ahuja, Ron Witteles, Cybele Renault)

“We asked them to be core interviewers,” Witteles explains, “and as such sign up for a minimum of one-half of the interview slots. To give you an idea of the scale, there are 14 interview days and there are two one-hour-long interview slots each day. Having core interviewers guaranteed us that on any given interview day we would have enough faculty to do the interviews, and we could put forward the faculty who, based on resident reviews, were the best at working with residents and knew the program well.”

The 25 core interviewers did not just agree to accept this new role, however. They also received information on interpreting applicants’ files, best interview practices, and advice about how to reduce grilling candidates and instead focus “on exploring what Stanford might have to offer and why it might be a good fit for their interests.”

“For several reasons we didn’t want to have only core interviewers doing the interviews,” Witteles continued. “There are many excellent faculty members who we did not approach to be core interviewers who do a great job interviewing, and we wanted to include them. And, in some cases, there is a faculty member who is a perfect match for the research interests of a student being interviewed. So, as we always have, we open it up and request all of the faculty to be available for interviews if at all possible.”

“As the person who assigns the interviews, it was nothing less than a delight for me to assign them and know that we would always have enough faculty who share the career interests of the applicants on any given day.”

And ultimately, did all this additional effort pay off? Indeed it did.

According to Witteles, “Last year we had a tremendously successful Match, possibly the best we’ve had.  And when we did our post-Match survey, two things were apparent.  First, there was a big uptick in terms of reviews of the interview experience. And second, when we looked closely at the interview schedule for the candidates who matched with us, we found that core interviewers were significantly overrepresented in terms of the candidates who are residents at Stanford today.”

For Stanford’s Department of Medicine, for the Residency Program, and for Ronald Witteles, this is a good thing.