Queen's Anesthesia Interview

[JukkerTop]

Without breaking any confidentiality rules, is anyone else unsure as to how to rank the Queen's Anesthesia program? That was...something. 

 

edit: typo

[Jazzerciser]

A program that allows (and presumably encourages) faculty to treat residents like that is not for me. I understand they want to see how we handle stress but there are more ethical ways to go about that. 

[gangliocytoma]

:O I really wanna know what happened now lol

[Redpill]

We need more details

 

[hopeful_med]

Oh god are they still doing that? I interviewed in 2018 and came out wanting to cry, and decided we had to go get pedi/mani because the interviewer made us feel like shit. Def went low on my rank list

[JukkerTop]

On 1/30/2020 at 4:38 PM, Jazzerciser said:

A program that allows (and presumably encourages) faculty to treat residents like that is not for me. I understand they want to see how we handle stress but there are more ethical ways to go about that. 

It was unprofessional. Distasteful to treat people who spent the time, money, and effort to come to a job interview to be treated this way.

[Burrito110]

It is definitely going much, much lower on my rank list. If I decide to rank them at all. That kind of disrespectful behaviour should not be endorsed by any residency program. The fact that there's another interviewer there witnessing it and allowing it to happen is somewhat mind boggling. 

[bearded frog]

So... what happened?

[UBCResident]

.

[klamar]

The Queen's anesthesiologists are nice people but the problem in my opinion is with the program director here

[BSPX4]

It sounds like queens anesthesia has a history of conducting their interviews this way. There is an email through CaRMS that allows them to follow up with complaints and concerns, while allowing the applicant to remain anonymous. compliance@carms.ca

https://www.carms.ca/match/r-1-main-residency-match/applicant/file-review-interviews-r1/interviews-r1/interview-guidelines-r1/interview-complaints-r1/ 

Heres info from the webpage regarding this compliant process. 

CaRMs is already an extremely taxing process, having to endure this during an interview is simply unacceptable.

[rmorelan]

19 hours ago, yoyoyoyo12 said:

When I interviewed there last year, one of the interviewers started shouting at me for being 'unworthy' for the program, repeatedly berating me as a 'waste of oxygen', all while pimping me on obscure anesthesia questions. When I got a bit flustered, the interviewer said that 'in the time you're taking to stutter like a blithering idiot, 2 patients would have died'. Then, they told me to 'GET THE F*** OUT! GET OUT!'

At that point, I was in shock and completely frozen, unsure how to respond. The interviewer noticed and said 'oh, you poor thing, how does it feel to realize you'll be human garbage as a resident and nothing more?' The signal then rang, and I left. There was another interviewer in the room as well, but they kept silent and just wrote down notes. Apparently the station was meant to test your mental fortitude or something.

Queens is the most insecure school in the country (they're the only school that asks you 'why queens?' in the med school interview) because they're located in the most depressing and desolate city. The only redeeming quality they all cling on to is the 'sense of community' and 'collegiality'. Needless to say, I got ZERO impression of this from the interview and did not rank their anesthesia program.

I'd encourage you all to name and shame Queen's publicly.

errrrrr.....what the hell? 

I mean I know CARMS is competitive of course, and if you want anesthesia you consider all options but really? How would this really help Queens get anyone at all to their program? 

[rmorelan]

4 minutes ago, BSPX4 said:

It sounds like queens anesthesia has a history of conducting their interviews this way. There is an email through CaRMS that allows them to follow up with complaints and concerns, while allowing the applicant to remain anonymous. compliance@carms.ca

https://www.carms.ca/match/r-1-main-residency-match/applicant/file-review-interviews-r1/interviews-r1/interview-guidelines-r1/interview-complaints-r1/ 

Heres info from the webpage regarding this compliant process. 

CaRMs is already an extremely taxing process, having to endure this during an interview is simply unacceptable.

I would second this - really somethings are not acceptable and have to be dealt with. 

[Redpill]

If you really want something to be done about this you may want to consider going to the CBC. Universities tend to only act if their reputation is threatened, and there's an interesting story here about health professionals promoting a toxic work culture that will really make Queen's squirm.

Otherwise I doubt anything will happen. Someone brazen enough to have an interview station like this is not going to care what Carms has to say.

[MSWschnoodle]

On 2/2/2020 at 7:46 PM, yoyoyoyo12 said:

The interviewer noticed and said 'oh, you poor thing, how does it feel to realize you'll be human garbage as a resident and nothing more?' The signal then rang, and I left. There was another interviewer in the room as well, but they kept silent and just wrote down notes. Apparently the station was meant to test your mental fortitude or something.

Nothing about this experience as it is written above is testing "mental fortitude". Mental fortitude does not mean allowing yourself to be actively abused by other people. Any program that compares their residents to "human garbage" needs to take a good long look in the mirror about what the actual goal of medical training is. It is in the best interest of every residency program and every physician in the country to have a physician workforce that is competent, productive, collegial and supportive. That starts with building a culture of learning founded in support and mutual respect at all levels of medical practice. A culture where residents/learners are actively abused and referred to as "human garbage" before they even get into the program doesn't accomplish any of those things... but it will put those residents/medical learners at higher risk of burnout and suicide compared to well supported colleagues.

If we are truly as tired as we say we are of seeing doctors and medical learners die by suicide then frankly there is no room for things like that experience above. If we truly believe that physician wellness and preventing burnout are important goals for the profession then there is absolutely no room for education driven by fear and shame. For those that do run in to that kind of experience on the interview tour, I agree with the suggestions above that these things need to be reported - they need to be reported to CaRMs, to Resident Doctors of Canada, to PARO (or PARO equivalent in other provinces) and they especially need to be reported to the college that accredits these programs. The only way the culture of medicine is going to change is if a consistent message is sent from both physicians and our various representative bodies (be they protective, regulatory etc.) that a toxic fear/shame based culture, dehumanizing behaviours and workplace violence have no place in medicine.

There are programs who do an excellent job of testing conflict resolution skills and interpersonal skills during interviews - I attended several interviews where these skills were tested and at no point did I feel disrespected or dehumanized. My hope would be that those programs still using the techniques above could reach out to the programs who are testing these skills well for guidance and expertise because regardless of our disciplines we should all have the same goal: Fostering a culture of learning that allows us to showcase our skills and thrive both personally and professionally in the disciplines we have chosen so we can best serve the patients who come to seek our care. 

To those that had this type of interview experience in any discipline, I am sorry this happened to you. It speaks to how broken the CaRMs system is right now and you do not deserve to be treated like this. You are not the broken part of the system and please do not let any negative experiences you have had during CaRMs convince you otherwise. 

[Ziggy3]

I also had a similar interview at Queens, although not nearly to the scale I heard of others. 

If this also happened to you please consider reporting it:

https://www.carms.ca/match/r-1-main-residency-match/applicant/file-review-interviews-r1/interviews-r1/interview-guidelines-r1/interview-complaints-r1/

[NeuroD]

Holy cow. Can't believe this is real. I'm pretty upset. How do they expect to provide good AN service to the hospital if they're scaring good eople away?

---- 

Side note, I just wanted to address one of the earlier comments about Queen's. As bad as AN CaRMS interview might be, Queen's as a whole is the exact opposite! I've lived, rotated, and worked throughout most of southern Ontario, and Queen's/Kingston was my surprise favorite. People (outside of anesthesia I guess...geeez) are generally nicer than most other centers, there IS a really sense of community, and the city happens to fit my personality perfectly (don't come here if you're looking for Toronto's bar/club scene). NONE of that excuses how AN behaved during interviews though, and I hope you guys do report it.

[rmorelan]

17 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

Holy cow. Can't believe this is real. I'm pretty upset. How do they expect to provide good AN service to the hospital if they're scaring good eople away?

---- 

Side note, I just wanted to address one of the earlier comments about Queen's. As bad as AN CaRMS interview might be, Queen's as a whole is the exact opposite! I've lived, rotated, and worked throughout most of southern Ontario, and Queen's/Kingston was my surprise favorite. People (outside of anesthesia I guess...geeez) are generally nicer than most other centers, there IS a really sense of community, and the city happens to fit my personality perfectly (don't come here if you're looking for Toronto's bar/club scene). NONE of that excuses how AN behaved during interviews though, and I hope you guys do report it.

that's the trouble - when one group's bad behaviour poisons a school. Worse it doesn't sound like it is the first time, so again someone hasn't dealt with it at a higher level. 

of course people are nervous with CARMS and don't want to rock the boat as it were - still don't forget to help address this in the proper fashion as per above. 

[NeuroD]

37 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

that's the trouble - when one group's bad behaviour poisons a school. Worse it doesn't sound like it is the first time, so again someone hasn't dealt with it at a higher level. 

of course people are nervous with CARMS and don't want to rock the boat as it were - still don't forget to help address this in the proper fashion as per above. 

Exactly. The rest of the hospital benefits if you guys DO report it and force them to change. Please do.

[thethirdlaw]

Just a reminder re: rocking boats. Program rank lists are due in 1 hour.

 

Quote

 

12 February 2020 at 14:00 ET

DEADLINE: Submission of program rank order lists

Programs must submit their rank order lists through CaRMS Online by 14:00 ET.

 

 

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, thethirdlaw said:

Just a reminder re: rocking boats. Program rank lists are due in 1 hour.

 

 

ha here we go again Best of luck everyone

[rmorelan]

7 hours ago, thethirdlaw said:

Just a reminder re: rocking boats. Program rank lists are due in 1 hour.

 

 

and because someone flagged this to be clear - PROGRAM rank lists are due then, but of course med students have more time

and don't wait until the last minute ha - technical issues have happened, and it is amazing how clarifying it can be to actually send in a list so it is there ha. 

I always have to add good luck to all! 

[gangliocytoma]

9 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

Holy cow. Can't believe this is real. I'm pretty upset. How do they expect to provide good AN service to the hospital if they're scaring good eople away?

---- 

Side note, I just wanted to address one of the earlier comments about Queen's. As bad as AN CaRMS interview might be, Queen's as a whole is the exact opposite! I've lived, rotated, and worked throughout most of southern Ontario, and Queen's/Kingston was my surprise favorite. People (outside of anesthesia I guess...geeez) are generally nicer than most other centers, there IS a really sense of community, and the city happens to fit my personality perfectly (don't come here if you're looking for Toronto's bar/club scene). NONE of that excuses how AN behaved during interviews though, and I hope you guys do report it.

It's actually quite perplexing to hear this. I (and all the classmates I've talked to) had an awesome anesthesia core rotation at Queen's. The staff were awesome teachers, the residents all looked happy and enjoyed their program. I felt super welcomed each time I walked into the OR and actually for the first time in clerkship, felt like I was able to meaningfully contribute to the care of a patient because of how hands on they allow medical students to be. It was only my third rotation, but the teaching I got from working with the staff one-on-one was awesome. It's so strange hearing these things. I guess what is more strange is that the is program is acting very differently from how it normally does

[rmorelan]

2 hours ago, gangliocytoma said:

It's actually quite perplexing to hear this. I (and all the classmates I've talked to) had an awesome anesthesia core rotation at Queen's. The staff were awesome teachers, the residents all looked happy and enjoyed their program. I felt super welcomed each time I walked into the OR and actually for the first time in clerkship, felt like I was able to meaningfully contribute to the care of a patient because of how hands on they allow medical students to be. It was only my third rotation, but the teaching I got from working with the staff one-on-one was awesome. It's so strange hearing these things. I guess what is more strange is that the is program is acting very differently from how it normally does

I don't think the staff are normally cruel or horrible people ha

I just think someone got it in their head that stressing people out like this is somehow something necessary to test for in a candidate (perhaps because it rarely occurs despite efforts otherwise). 

That could explain it, but not excuse it. They may otherwise be great teachers, and the program may even be excellent. Problem is it is hard to take that chance. 

 

[thethirdlaw]

Now that match has happened, anyone wanna shed more light on their experiences?

This is unacceptable.