Relationships in med school

[Guest mying]

Okay, I'll bite.

 

It's hard. Anything that demands that kind of time and commitment is going to be a strain of some sort. But we looked at it as a test of what we could handle, and while I won't say things were always rosy, we managed.

 

By no means is it a disgrace to hit the emotional rollercoaster of medical school and find out that the person you thought was a life partner really wasn't. That just means you found out that you, as a partnership, weren't cut out for the tough things. Is medical school any tougher than having a very sick child? Nope, and wouldn't you rather know your partnership couldn't weather those things now rather than later?

 

Medical school is tough, no matter which school and no matter which person. Whether that's because you're not as academically strong, or it's the first time living that far from home or friends, or there are other life things going on outside of school that divide your attentions -- and as the esteemed Dr. Silcox of UWO pointed out, most students are in their mid-twenties and smack in the middle of that time of life when a LOT of things happen. And all these things are going to temper a relationship, and either weaken it or strengthen it.

 

I suppose I could say I was lucky -- I guess I had the right partner after all. My relationship has lasted and only grown stronger through the trials of the past two years. It was hard living apart, although it was only a two hour jaunt down the 401. It was hard having no time for movies and no money for vacations.

 

My experience is not necessarily everyone else's. A family member became very ill in my first year of medical school, prompting a severe restructuring of family roles and frankly throwing me for a loop -- and then, one of my partner's family members also became very ill and so he had to experience it as well. I think without qualification I am in the 10% of the class most challenged academically by medical school, which means I have to study longer, harder, and more often, just to stay afloat. And I did maintain some volunteer responsibilities despite all that, just to keep up the variety and to keep something in common with my partner who was also heavily involved in volunteering.

 

I had to rely heavily on my partner for emotional support at times when he may have needed support from me as well. I know that not everyone is able to do that. I can see how hard it was on him.

 

Furthermore, since we did decide to "take the plunge" so to speak, we were subjected to all kinds of so-called well-meaning people advising me that it was a bad idea: that we were an unsuitable match because I was in medicine and he was not; that he would be jealous; that he would feel left out -- something that was echoed in an earlier post in this thread and which is frankly the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

 

So my experience has been: it's tough, it's hard, it'll challenge a relationship like nothing else. And that's a good thing.

[Guest vm]

Hi although I don't really post here, I just came across this discussion and I thought I could share some insights on a few things.

 

Firstly Mying, who in the world imposed their view that things would not work out between you and your spouse when you decided to get married? I think that is the most negative and simply cruel thing to say to a new couple that has been together for a long time through thick and thin. If it was some of your med school classmates, I have to say I'm dissapointed in their reaction, that is awful. I find that there are some med students (hopefully in the minority) who have very forceful personalities that may cross the line between being assertive to imposive and perhaps even agressive when it comes to making sure their opinions are accepted. I think this may the case here and most certainly the case in the story below that I have experienced.

 

To the statement, "law school get by fine in the absence of interviews" I have had a slightly different experience. I recently grdaduated from law school and I am in the process of articling and completing the bar admissions courses. From my classroom days in law school, I had the fortunate opportunity to meet some really amazing people. Phd's, folks that spent 3-5 years on mission trips to Africa and war torn regions etc. I also came across people who had tremendous intellectual horsepower but had a great deal of difficulty interacting with others in the class, difficulty picking up on social cues, humour etc. I'm not sure that they will be successful in legal practice, because at its essence, the law is a people profession and communication skills is probably the most important skill a person can possess. The only way to assess this is really through an interview. These people surely had 4.0 GPA's and 170 LSAT scores, but an interview may have saved them the grief they will face upon graduation of discovering that they lack the interpersonal skills that law demands, and they are perhaps unsuited for the profession.

 

In my experience with renting out a house to med students (I won't say which school), I have met amazing people, very kind, great communicators, compassionate towards the house and others in the area etc. I have also met some really mean spirited people who make me wonder how in the world they got into med school. I would stick out my hand to shake theirs upon first introduction and they would look at me and my hand, not shake it and just bark "where's the house!", leave without saying good bye and basically treat me like I was a lowlife landlord type or something. My point here is the interview process is good for assessing communication skills, and there are some great applicants out ther, but I have run into some people who have been accepted that I would not even let into butcher school.

 

....and the final lesson here is be careful who you decide you wield your ego to, they may not be an illiterate landlord, but rather a law school graduate who is doing his father a favour in renting his house to med students, a father who is a MD/Phd at that medical school and a Professor that will be teaching you in September

[Guest faqir9]

but aren't you then making precisely my point? Its not that the social skills aren't necessary or desirable, but that interviews just don't help weed them out. Those folks in the house got past an interview, right. You just sort of assume that a interview helps cuz it makes sense to you that they should.

 

I am curious whether these divergent threads are all related. Most murders are domestic, as we all know. So maybe when relationships go bad in med school they go really bad. Or maybe its just all that hottie-envy that proves, um, fatal. It certainly is good argument against classcest.

[Guest UofCMeds2005]

My two cents about interviews and physcial appearance. If a strong correlation did exist between the two you would see an over representation of hot guys and gals in med schools all across the country. I am not sure if that is true...

[Guest Ian Wong]

but aren't you then making precisely my point? Its not that the social skills aren't necessary or desirable, but that interviews just don't help weed them out.

You're hop, skip, and jumping right into a huge fallacy, which is that if a screening test isn't 100% sensitive, that we should throw it out altogether. In other words, because one applicant snuck in under the radar along with 99 strong applicants, that we should scrap the whole interview process.

 

There is no doubt that there are a small number of immature or malicious personalities within each med school class. That doesn't mean we shouldn't abandon our efforts to discern these individuals and wait for them to mature before we accept them and start training them as doctors. And it certainly doesn't mean abolishing interviews, which are the best way to identify such people. Think of how much larger that pool of individuals might be if we abandoned interviews.

 

Bottom line: how can you possibly countenance letting people into a profession which absolutely hinges on good communication skills if you never meet these people in person and talk to them. You can't. That's why every medical school uses interviews.

 

Ian

[Guest faqir9]

I easily can if I believe that there is absolutely *zero* evidence supporting your conclusion that talking to them helps evaluate their communication skills. Yours is the argument with the fallacy. And that fallacy is the uninspected assumption that because it makes sense to you that an interview screens these for things it must be true, at least to some extent -- whether 99% or 3% is irrelevant.

 

Um, you are making the claim. You (collectively) want the interview, the burden is on you to support it. Where is the evidence? I can provide lots of evidence/studies to the contrary, some of which has already been mentioned including the tendency to score more attractive people higher on similar scales.

[Guest strider2004]

The medical school system has a limited supply of seats and a limitless demand. There have to be many criteria to slowly weed out the applications. When you have 200 equally capable applicants (and in my experience, I feel that 95% of the interviewees could easily be capable physicians) how are you supposed to choose between them? Besides the gestault ("overall, I think this person could be my physician/classmate/colleague"), you can break it down into criteria that (ahem) I can't say because it's kinda confidential but really, it's the gestault that wins out. If they don't like you overall then, even if you have a couple of outstanding qualities, you might not get picked. That's life.

 

Technically, the burden isn't on us to prove that the interview process works. It's the status quo. The burden is on YOU to change it. Give us a better solution.

[Guest QM6]

Yes, well, back in the field of relationships in med school...

 

I don't think anyone's going to argue that med school's not hard on relationships, but I also think it can be hard on the big chunk of us (48% in the class census (sorry I keep dragging that out, but hey, stats are kinda useful)) that are single too.

 

On the surface it's easy to be single, 'cause you don't have to worry about all the things mying and others in working relationships have to juggle along with med school stuff. You have all the time you need to just dive in head first into work and not get sidetracked with making things work with your significant other...

 

... but I also think you can easily get caught up with work and study, to the point that, you're so comfortable with it you don't feel as motivated to get out and make the work/commitment/sacrifices/changes you'd have to to start a meaningful relationship. That's the hard part - digging out of that "I'm too busy" mentality that makes single life the default, safe, lazy choice.

 

Ultimately it is a choice - and certainly many people choose to be single for all the freedom and mobility it allows - but it becomes a harder one to change your mind from once you're already neck deep in medicine, and then you feel that natural human need for companionship and support, whether it's in first year exams, the carmage, career issues or whenever. I have no idea how the rest of the 48% feel, but I've never been in a relationship before, and sometimes I wonder if being in medicine kinda predisposes me to singleness eternal. :\

 

One of the first lectures we have at Queen's is a "Relationships in Medicine" seminar, with some guest speakers sharing their experiences - a young couple (both residents), two that just shared their 20th anniversary, one doc that found a sweetheart later on at a ski trip, one that just had an amical separation... but no single people, and how they found going it alone in a career in medicine.

 

I don't know, it just strikes me that we talk a lot about the impact of med school on relationships but don't say much about people who aren't in one... Anyway, just wanted to make the point that as hard as it is managing relationships in med school, being single and in med school, or anywhere else for that matter, isn't always easy either.

[Guest faqir9]

you (collectively) meant medical schools and the establishment. And no, the burden is not on me.

Just like evidence based medicine, just because lots of folks do something -- just because it is the status quo -- that does not make it right. As I've repeated (about 1000 times).

 

If all the evidence/studies suggest interviews don't help select for these qualities, then it is no different than withholding a beta blocker from a patient with chf. Made sense -- but was just plain wrong. The difference with interviews is nobody dies (except the guys who the mac folks .....j/k) and interviews are indescribably more pretentious.

 

I've already given my solution.

[Guest Jerika81]

faquir9:

If you can provide so much evidence that interviews do not screen out anyone who would make a bad doctor, then why don't you? The evidence that interviews select for more attractive people is true to a degree I'm sure, as everyone has unconscious biases, including interviewers, and this is unfortunate, but it doesn't make interviews useless in determining who will make a good physician.

I think part of the "evidence" that the interview process does work is the fact that although there has supposedly been the occasional future murderer getting in to med school, almost all of those who get in to med school these days will make excellent doctors in the future, as can be seen by pretty much all of the med students posting on this forum, and I'm sure most people in med school would agree that *most* of their classmates will make excellent physicians. (At least those that I've spoken with have said this).

Some more *evidence* that the interview process does screen out people with bad communication skills-

well, I know a number of people who have awful communication skills, and also clearly don't understand the way the average person thinks. These people would not make good doctors, although they may be successful at other things. These people would most certainly be screened out by the interview process.

I'm not sure what other evidence there can be saying that the interview process works, there are obvious flaws to it, but everyone is aware of them. Unfortunately, the only better alternative would be to follow someone around for a week without there knowing, as someone already stated.

So please, correct me if you can, with all the hard evidence you seem to be withholding for no clear reason.

[Guest Megs]

Just a thought on this crazy thread. Why do employers wish to meet and interview their potential employees before they hire them? I haven't been keeping up to date on the 'research behind the medical school interview process', but I think that as a interviewer (for a medical school spot or a job), I would like to actually meet the candidates face to face.

 

Megs

[Guest peachy]

Just a thought on this crazy thread. Why do employers wish to meet and interview their potential employees before they hire them? I haven't been keeping up to date on the 'research behind the medical school interview process', but I think that as a interviewer (for a medical school spot or a job), I would like to actually meet the candidates face to face.

Useful job interviews are very different from medical school interviews, imho. Granted, I haven't had very many of them, but the ones that I have had have seemed designed primarily (1) to test my actual knowledge of the field that I'm applying for ("Show us that you can code in this language." "What are the applications of this algorithm", etc) and (2) to make sure that I can get along with the specific people I'm going to be working with. Neither of these things seem relevant to medical school interviews. Personally, I have no idea whether medical school interviews are actually useful or effective, but I don't think it's especially obvious either way...

[Guest faqir9]

It would be difficult for me to articulate how off-putting the show me cites you are hiding post was.

 

Jerika, I thought the rest of your points were, candidly, non-sequiters. Especially the reference to folks posting on the board who will be excellent doctors. I can name you lots of folks on this board who did not get past an interview that struck me that way.

 

Acad Med. 1991 Aug;66(8):474-6.

Medical school and residency performances of students admitted with and without an admission interview.

Smith SR.

 

Med Educ. 1981 Feb;56(2):77-82.

Admission decisions and performance during medical school.

Milstein RM, Wilkinson L, Burrow GN, Kessen W.

 

Med Educ. 1986 May;61(5):404-6.

A comparison of the first-year medical school performances of students admitted with and without interviews.

Smith SR, Vivier PM, Blain AL.

 

 

These studies demonstrated no correlation between interview performance to performance as a physician. I'm pretty sure that there's a canadian (unpublished) study too because I remember a reference at that conference I discussed before (I could be misrecollecting though).

 

I OBVIOUSLY don't have time (nor interest) to go do a literature search or find you more cites. I certainly am not claiming to be an expert on the topic. Not even all that well versed to be frank. And I am sure we could both come up with data one way and arguments the other. And candidly, its not those three cites nor any others that make or break the argument. The problems is there is a huge vast literature of studies on interviews/psych inventories/etc. generally -- ie, those NOT related to medical school admission which show inherent problems (which folks so flippantly disregard...gee, aside from the attractiveness issue). That is the evidence that is really damning. Even that is not the point though. The point is that the burden is on YOU GUYS. Not with half-baked gee my friends will make good doctors arguments, but real studies. Or, gee aside from the interviewer bias. Rememeber EBM?

 

If you really care about such personal skills why not give everyone a CPI/MMPI?

 

Though interviews have served me personally well, I can objectively recognize they are flawed. But I really wonder when I read these comments how many are influenced by a certain self-laudatory emotion.

[Guest sally2001]

faqir, man, you're a riot. a lottery system? i would be very unhappy if i knew my physician or specialist entered med school on a lottery system. insist that all candidates take years off to work and volunteer and prove themselves? why would applicants willfully put off med school and take extra years.. i can see why many (like myself) *chose* to do that, but i cannot see any line of reasoning that would *compel* someone to do that as a pre-requisite for admission.

i bet your next suggestion would be to allow people in based on alphabetical ordering of their surnames. sorry man, you've totally failed to convince me with your argument. :rollin 12-22 year old references don't really incite me to look them up. too funny.

[Guest faqir9]

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[Guest faqir9]

I agree with you about the looking up references....I wasn't the person who posted why are you hiding cites. I've told you guys what evidence convinces me. (and was careful to note it certainly ain't those three stray cites).

 

lottery after gpa and mcat cutoffs -- not a prob. Stand by it completely. Do you have a problem with your mac doctor because she might've only had a 3.01 instead of your UT doc who got her 3.9? Of course not.

 

The biggest difference between you and me is I think it already *IS* a lottery -- I just want the lottery to be transparent.

 

as for compelling folks to go get some life experience first, that is *exactly* what B-schools do and the model I'd emulate. The line of reasoning is pretty straightforward/transparent whether you agree or not.

[Guest sally2001]

faqir,

i couldn't care less what my mac doctor had in her undergrad. if she passed her MD courses and her licensing exams, there isn't anything about her undergrad grades that would affect my trust in her abilities.

many a brilliant mind failed out of elementary school but would you classify them as mentally challenged because they were not over achievers since kindergarten.

your line of reasoning is faulty - b.schools train for grads to be managers and executives. how in the world can you manage someone if you've never worked a day in your life? med school is not a 2 years classroom-only experience, you've got 2 years of clerkship to apply what you've learned and get feedback on your abilities.

anyway - whatever you say. you seem very convinced by your ideas and i encourage you to take it to the adcoms of the med schools and enlighten them to the error of the ways. wish you best of luck.

[Guest strider2004]

These studies demonstrated no correlation between interview performance to performance as a physician.

 

I was really keen and looked up those references (step 2 of EBM is critical appraisal). Those studies never concluded that the interview makes no difference in the performance in a physician . For starters, one of the papers didn't compare week interviewees and strong interviewees. It just looked at interviewing schools and non-inteviewing schools. Second, they looked at academic scores and did not look at patient feedback or patient satisfaction with their physicians. One of your studies (Smith S) did show that the interview did not influence the demographics of the class which is a good thing for the pro-interview side(no observable discrimination by the interview for ethnicity or gender).

 

I don't agree with you touting evidence-based medicine and then hand-picking the handful of papers that side with your argument. This should balance the powers a bit. For your convenience (and mine), I've picked articles that have online abstracts.

 

Other studies have shown that there is a relationship between interview scores and the quality of the Dean's letter (Hall FR, Regan-Smith M, Tivnan T. Relationship of medical students’ admission interview scores to their dean’s letter ratings. Acad Med 1992;67:842-5.)

 

Other articles to note:

Powis DA, Neame RLB, Bristow T, Murphy LB. The objective structured interview for medical student selection. BMJ 1988;296:765-8.

 

Eamonn Ferguson, David James, Laura Madeley. Factors associated with success in medical school: systematic review of the literature . BMJ 2002;324:952-957 ( 20 April )

 

McManus IC, Richards P. Audit of admission to medical school: II--Shortlisting and interviews.

Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1984 Nov 10;289(6454):1288-90.

 

Kulatunga-Moruzi C, Norman GR. Validity of admissions measures in predicting performance outcomes: the contribution of cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions.

Teach Learn Med. 2002 Winter;14(1):34-42.

 

-This study was from McMaster and interestingly showed that the siulated tutorial did not predict future performance. The interview, however, did.

 

Patrick LE, Altmaier EM, Kuperman S, Ugolini K. A structured interview for medical school admission, Phase 1: initial procedures and results.

Acad Med. 2001 Jan;76(1):66-71.

 

 

Eamonn Ferguson,David James, Fiona O'Hehir, MSc Andrea Sanders. Pilot study of the roles of personality, references, and personal statements in relation to performance over the five years of a medical degree. BMJ. 2003 February 22; 326 (7386): 429–432

 

DeVaul RA, Jervey F, Chappell JA, Caver P, Short B, O'Keefe S. Medical school performance of initially rejected students.

JAMA. 1987 Jan 2;257(1):47-51.

 

Sade RM, Stroud MR, Levine JH, Fleming GA.

Criteria for selection of future physicians.

Ann Surg. 1985 Feb;201(2):225-30.

 

Rippey RM, Thal S, Bongard SJ. A study of the University of Connecticut's criteria for admission into medical school.

Med Educ. 1981 Sep;15(5):298-305.

 

 

Nobody ever said that everyone rejected from an interview isn't suitable to be a physician. Its intention is to pick people who are BETTER suited to be physicians. It is also not the only say in selecting an applicat but I believe it does add a dimension to an applicant's character that can't be obtained anywhere else.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I've told you guys what evidence convinces me. (and was careful to note it certainly ain't those three stray cites).

Then why even bother quoting them. Why not show the "good" evidence that proves your contention that interviews are unnecessary? Since you've trumpeted the term "Evidence-Based Medicine" over and over ad nauseum (without previously giving ANY evidence in the form of high quality, published studies), I'd expect there to be solid evidence of such. After all, we only started using beta-blockers in CHF after the MERIT-HF, BEST, and CIBIS-II trials (each enrolling over 2000 patients), were studied. These are examples of solid evidence.

 

The three studies you cited, in contrast, are not.

 

 

Smith SR. Medical school and residency performances of students admitted with and without an admission interview. Acad Med. 1991 Aug;66(8):474-6.

 

This paper was published out of Brown University, and states that classes admitted with and without interviews showed no difference on course marks, USMLE exams, and "evaluation scores from residency program directors" (whatever that last one means).

 

This is pretty unsurprising given that course marks and USMLE exams are based on written exams. Since the interview isn't directly assessing for academic aptitude, there really isn't any correlation you can draw from this study. Undoubtedly, academically-qualified people can easily be selected on the traditional basis of GPA and MCAT marks, and no one is disputing that. However, you cannot assess personal characteristics and "people skills" in this fashion, so this paper does nothing to support your point of view.

 

Interestingly enough, Brown still interviews their MD/PhD candidates (arguably the ones who are the highest commodity in the pool of applicants, and the ones who will receive the most resources and training), and almost all the rest of their medical students are enrolled in the eight year BSc/MD route (it's virtually impossible to get in after undergrad). In other words, if they had interviews, they would be interviewing high school students! It's not unsurprising these interviews would be low-yield. No offence to high school students out there, but the amount you evolve from high school through university is incredible, and I'm not sure that an interview done the day after high school is going to be at all representative of your background four years later once you finally start medical school.

 

 

Smith SR, Vivier PM, Blain AL. A comparison of the first-year medical school performances of students admitted with and without interviews. J Med Educ. 1986 May;61(5):404-6.

 

This second paper was written by the above authors, and earlier on. Unfortunately, Pubmed shows no abstract for this, but it's timing suggests it was the preliminary paper published before the above one. And as stated previously, that paper does nothing to show evidence to back up your claim that interviews are unimportant.

 

 

Milstein RM, Wilkinson L, Burrow GN, Kessen W.J. Med Educ. 1981 Feb;56(2):77-82. Admission decisions and performance during medical school.

This study compared a group of 24 applicants who were interviewed and accepted at the Yale University School of Medicine but went to other medical schools (AYEs) with a group of 27 applicants who attended the same schools but had been rejected at Yale following an interview and committee deliberation (NAYs). Measures of performance during medical school included scores on Parts I and II of the examinations of the National Board of Medical Examiners and evaluations from the dean's office at each student's medical school. No relationship was found between admission decisions and performance during medical school when AYEs and NAYs attending the same medical schools were compared.

This study is an incredibly weak paper, and if this is representative of the "other evidence" that is out there, then you clearly are way out on a limb citing papers like this as evidenced-based proof.

 

This study enrolled a whopping 24 students with another 27 controls. If you give me a sample of 24, I could probably use that to prove that eating grass lowers serum cholesterol. In other words, it's such a small sample size that the conclusions you reach aren't any better than random chance.

 

I use the term "control group" loosely because they haven't even defined why those 27 students were rejected. Perhaps they had lower GPA's, or MCAT scores, or some other mechanism that led to them receive rejection letters compared with the accepted group. Perhaps the accepted students were taken earlier in the process of rolling admissions, such that similarly qualified individuals who applied later were rejected. In other words, perhaps there were lots of confounders at work here. Miniscule sample size, poorly defined controls, and vague endpoints = weak study.

 

Bottom line, you cannot draw conclusions from badly designed studies, and pronounce their results as valid. You've cited three papers, and a cursory glance at them tells me that all three, in one methodological fashion or another, do NOT support your conclusions. I think we'll continue to see interviews for some time yet until someone comes up with better data to discount them.

 

Ian

[Guest faqir9]

That's an obviously selective quote Ian.

 

I was also careful to note that the only reason I posted anything at all (stray cites as I called em) was because of the virtually ad hominen "gee why are you hiding your data" faqir assertion that was leveled (although ironically I never even claimed to have data on this particular topic, nor to be an expert on this topic).

 

I was also careful to note what evidence I did think was compelling.

 

And also careful to note a lot of other stuff that you guys are smart enough to know that you are selectively omitting/ignoring.

 

Not least of which is upon whom the burden of evidence should fall.

 

I have no doubt I (or you) could come up with other methodological complaints. I did not rely on those three studies. I would never rely on those three studies. I would not even rely on a literature of medical school interview/application studies if such a literature exists (and it would seem from strider it does...but let's be frank...I am more interested in the gadfly aspect of the discussion than actually going and reading a bunch of papers on this topic -- there are some obvious methodological problems related to our discussion/the conclusions reachable from those abstracts too, but that's not surprising). I think (and have repeatedly reiterated my belief) the overall "interview bias" etc. literature is the appropriate discipline.

 

That said, I haven't mischaracterized your views or statements. Please give me the same courtesy

[Guest strider2004]

as for compelling folks to go get some life experience first, that is *exactly* what B-schools do and the model I'd emulate. The line of reasoning is pretty straightforward/transparent whether you agree or not.

 

Isn't this what the interview helps do? We look for life experience (ie. extracurricular activities) and the interview helps assess the QUALITY of the experience.

 

The problems is there is a huge vast literature of studies on interviews/psych inventories/etc. generally -- ie, those NOT related to medical school admission which show inherent problems

 

Faqir, that's like saying that the general population (young and old) should take aspirin because it's shown to reduce mortality in those over 50 years of age. But in the general population, the risk of mortality from GI bleeds is higher than the benefit. You have to look at SPECIFIC studies related to our question.

 

I am more interested in the gadfly aspect of the discussion than actually going and reading a bunch of papers on this topic

That's too bad. I was hoping that you'd at least learn more about critical appraisal from this discussion.

 

I think the overall "interview bias" etc. literature is the appropriate discipline.

 

I don't even know what that means.

[Guest faqir9]

I wish I could figure out how to use the damn quote button.

 

1. There is no doubt that's what interviews are *supposed* to do. The question is whether they actually live up to the billing. Contrast an interview with say making all applicants take a CPI where at least you have an alleged quantification (note: I'm not a great fan of PIs and can come up with some awesome objections, but this would so utterly freak out candidates its actually sort of a cool idea).

 

2. The aspirin for low risk patients comment was actually pretty funny in light of *this week's* BMJ (I confess, I haven't yet read the four articles, just the "save this issue" editorial) -- it was actually among the things that I was most curious to read about. FWIW, my understanding of the data right now is actually that daily aspirin is not unequivocally warranted/beneficial for low risk patients over 50.

 

3. The issue is not my alleged lack of critical appraisal skills (nor the ad hominen response I seem to elicit) but the topic. If I wanted to spend my time really researching topics like interviews I'd be a sociologist or a lawyer or a .... OTOH I prefer wasting my time on stuff like cv benefits vs bleeds. Hence.... I mean, come on, you don't really CARE about this topic do you? Its just a way to waste some time, but not THAT much time.

 

4. The stuff related to medical school admissions is just a drop in the bucket. The "overall bias" literature means there is a vast literature on interviews/interpersonal dynamics that has nothing at all to do with medical school. The discrimination literature. The attactiveness literature. The nobody can reliably tell when someone is lying (except secret service agents if memory serves) literature. Etc.

[Guest strider2004]

I mean, come on, you don't really CARE about this topic do you? Its just a way to waste some time, but not THAT much time.

Well as a former interviewer, I'm trying to justify my existence.

What's your motivation?

 

The "overall bias" literature means there is a vast literature on interviews/interpersonal dynamics that has nothing at all to do with medical school. The discrimination literature. The attactiveness literature. The nobody can reliably tell when someone is lying (except secret service agents if memory serves) literature. Etc.

 

Again, you have to look at the specific situation of the interview. Computer companies have useful purspoes for the interview. You've probably heard of Microsoft's infamous questions like the one of U2 crossing a bridge and the optimal order they should cross(they have different speeds, only 2 at a time, one light). The goal is to assess a person's resource allocation skills (extremely important in any kind of engineering) and thought processes under pressure. Consulting companies do the same thing.

It seems that you're critical of the interview process because of poorly done interviews. But there are so many methods to quantify the process. Heck, that's what HR departments do!!

 

The stuff related to medical school admissions is just a drop in the bucket.

The good stuff or the bad stuff? If you're saying that all the negative studies are the tip of the iceberg, then you're ignoring all the positive studies. Even the studies which show bias don't conclude that the interview should be scrapped altogether (as you have). Instead, they suggest ways to make the interview more accurate.

[Guest MDCY]

I can't believe I read through all these posts about the interview process My 2 cents on the topic: As long as there are more applicants than seats available, there will always be a form of bias one way or another. We live by the interview and we die by the interview. Is there a better way to admit people to medical school? Probably, but is it feasible and would enough of a change justify overthrowing the status quo? I don't know. faqir-it seems like you want the admission process to be totally objective (and I would like it to be too ideally) but in reality, there are few things that are objective and so biases come into play in our every decision. That's life.