Top 5 Tips for Preparing Ophthalmology Residency and Fellowship Applicants

The interview process has long been an important part of residency and fellowship applications. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic fundamentally altered this aspect of the process when the American Medical Association, Association of American Medical Colleges, and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education all recommended rotations be halted and residency interviews be conducted virtually, a recommendation that affected both the 2020–2021 and the 2021–2022 match cycles.[1] [2] Virtual interviews introduce factors not previously considered during interview preparation but that may have a real and significant impact on the perception of interviews and applicant outcomes. Over the past two interview cycles, the Ophthalmology Department at Yale School of Medicine opted to redirect student guidance to help prepare their residency and fellowship applicants specifically for this situation by conducting mock virtual interviews with self-reflective and faculty feedback, allowing students to feel better prepared and more confident going into the uncharted territory of the COVID era of resident and fellowship application cycles.

The in-person interview has been an integral part of residency and fellowship applications that allows program directors to assess applicant attributes not found on paper. Program directors consistently list interviews as the most important factor when ranking applicants.[3] [4] For ophthalmology, 95.4% of Residency Directors listed interview performance as critically important for residency selection.[3] Although virtual interviews are not a new concept, they are new to the residency and fellowship application process. Current literature on virtual interviews highlights pitfalls and problems with Web-based interviews that can negatively affect applicants. These include spotty Internet connection, poor lighting, and bad camera angles.[5] [6] A 2020 review by Wolff and Burrows uses communication theories to discuss these issues and recommends preplanning and testing of all equipment prior to the interview.[5] We used this study as a baseline framework for our mock virtual interviews.

Currently, there is a paucity of literature and resources to adequately prepare residency and fellowship applicants to address the nuances of virtual interviews. To address this, our program offered medical students and residents applying in the 2020 and 2021 residency and fellowship cycles a recorded virtual mock interview with faculty. Those who agreed to participate completed a preinterview survey. The questions in the survey addressed known virtual interviewing pitfalls and common interview questions compiled by ophthalmology faculty who conduct residency and fellowship interviews. The survey focused on important factors during virtual interviews such as lighting, eye contact, Internet connection, sound, video, and answer quality. Fifteen applicants participated in a 10-minute Zoom interview with three faculty members, during which they were given real-time feedback and were then sent a recording of their interview for review. After reviewing their performance, participants completed a postinterview survey that reassessed the same factors as the preinterview survey (see [Supplemental Material S1] for full survey). Of note, this study focused on affective factors that may influence delivery and perception of the virtual interview rather than the content of interviewee responses. These are the top 5 lessons that were learned through this preparation process that may help other ophthalmology departments to prepare future residency and fellowship applicants with virtual interviews.

Publication History

Received: 14 March 2022

Accepted: 27 September 2022

Article published online:
13 January 2023

• References

• 1 Conducting Interviews During the Coronavirus Pandemic | AAMC. Accessed March 9, 2021, at: https://www.aamc.org/what-we-do/mission-areas/medical-education/conducting-interviews-during-coronavirus-pandemic
• 2 Recommendations for Away Rotations and Interviews for Fellowship Applicants in 2020–2021. Accessed March 9, 2021, at: https://acgme.org/Newsroom/Newsroom-Details/ArticleID/10421/Recommendations-for-Away-Rotations-and-Interviews-for-Fellowship-Applicants-in-2020-2021
• 3 Nallasamy S, Uhler T, Nallasamy N, Tapino PJ, Volpe NJ. Ophthalmology resident selection: current trends in selection criteria and improving the process. Ophthalmology 2010; 117 (05) 1041-1047
• 4 Wagoner NE, Suriano JR. Program directors’ responses to a survey on variables used to select residents in a time of change. Acad Med 1999; 74 (01) 51-58
• 5 Wolff M, Burrows H. Planning for virtual interviews: residency recruitment during a pandemic. Acad Pediatr 2021; 21 (01) 24-31
• 6 Ahmed B, Ly V, Parikh A. et al. Perceptions of a virtual interview exercise for ophthalmology residency applicants. J Acad Ophthalmol 2021; 13 (02) e256-e263
• 7 Kruger J, Dunning D. Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. J Pers Soc Psychol 1999; 77 (06) 1121-1134