So You Wanna Be A Doctor?

Interviews, particularly med school interviews, become more and more silly the further I go. I firmly believe that the vast majority of admissions decisions have already been made before an applicant shows up on campus. The interview is really just a way to see if you can walk, talk, and not do anything resembling a sociopath for at least a few hours in a row.

Despite the grandiose stories you may hear, my own interviews were relatively benign. No one made me go through virtual patient scenarios or grill me on difficult ethical situations. I was fortunate to interview fairly widely, and there were some real characters on the interview trail.

One particular school paired me up with the most introverted interviewer I had ever seen. His opening bid was telling me his name, specialty, and asking how I envisioned myself connecting with patients. I was enthusiastic because that was by far one of the most interesting questions I had been asked to that point. After my answer, though, he just stared at me. We looked at each other for about twenty seconds before he said,"OK, are going to tell me anything else about yourself?" He actually expected me to fill up the entire interview by myself while he simply listened! Needless to say, I didn't get into that school. But I did get a wonderful idea of what kind of person I wouldn't admit to medical school if the tables were turned.

This story is one of the extreme examples of ineffective interviewing, but I see it in all forms. Many people doing the interviewing for medical school are faculty that are simply volunteering their time. They are squeezing applicants into their schedule and are often unprepared to really learn anything about the person sitting in front of them.

This amateurish approach to interviewing seems particularly egregious to me. Fortune 500 companies spend large amounts of dollars and resources on making sure that they select good people to work for them. Why would selecting future physicians be less important? I realize that big corporations often have more resources to commit to this task, but that's not an excuse for cutting corners in my book.

The result of our poor interviewing is that the admissions process comes down to who can perform the best academically and then suitably pad their resume. I have no problem with making sure that future doctors can perform intellectually. I have a big problem, though, with our tacit suggestion that how you interact with people isn't just as important. Patients don't visit an encyclopedia. They visit a real, human being who can understand their problems and help them. We should make our selection process reflect that.