Interviewing Amidst a Pandemic: Perspectives of US Residency Program Directors on the Virtual Format

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 imposed significant limitations upon the 2021 U.S. National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), most important of which is the replacement of traditional in-person interviews with a virtual format. To determine the strengths, limitations, and overall utility of virtual interviews (VIs) for residency applicant selection, a 14-question electronic survey was administered to programme directors (PDs) of all American Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited residency programmes, from December 2020 through March 2021. PDs were asked about their experience with VIs and the ability to assess residency applicants using the virtual format. A total of 1123 PDs (30% response rate) representing 30 different specialities responded to our survey. Compared to in-person interviews, VIs made it more challenging to assess applicants’ fit with the programme, emotional intelligence, commitment to speciality, and ability to function as a resident physician. Overall, only 15% of PDs believed that VIs were better than in-person interviews. Once travel restrictions are lifted and in-person interviews are possible, 67% of PDs plan on hosting dual-format residency interviews, while 26% and 5% of PDs will exclusively host in-person interviews and VIs, respectively. This result was significantly different between surgical and non-surgical programmes [35% of surgical PDs suggested they would offer in-person interviews exclusively, compared to 21% of non-surgical PDs, p < 0.0001]. Although proven to be cost and time-efficient, VIs were challenging in evaluating certain qualities of residency applicants. While this study was focused on U.S. residency matching, it provides important insights about the future of VIs in medical recruitment as a whole.

KEYWORDS:

• Surgery
• education
• COVID-19
• residency
• interviews
• technology

List Of Abbreviations

NRMP: National Resident Matching Program

VIs:Virtual Interviews

PDs:Programme Directors

ACGME: American Council for Graduate Medical Education

External Funding

The authors report no external funding source for this study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Prior Abstract Or Poster Presentation

This study/data/abstract have not been presented.

Prior Publications, Online Or In Print

This paper has not been published online or in print, and is not under consideration elsewhere.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21614083.2022.2087397