Selecting Residents in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery

Limited information exists to guide students of podiatric medicine and residency directors through the resident selection process. The present study aimed to evaluate the podiatric medicine and surgery resident selection process using an online survey. Residency directors of podiatric medicine and surgery programs across the United States and fourth-year students across all 9 colleges of podiatric medicine were contacted for participation. Two separate surveys were created, one for the directors and one for the students. The directors and students were asked the relative importance of 21 items considered in resident selection on a 7-point importance scale. Subsequent questions covered an array of related topics. The directors, compared with the students, identified the following items as more important (p < .05): previous disciplinary actions against the student, number of classes failed during school, undergraduate experiences and activities, number of Part I board attempts, class rank, involvement in research, and grade point average during podiatric medical school. The manual dexterity portion of the residency interview was considered significantly more important by the students than the directors. The directors more satisfied with their residents placed greater importance on the following items (p < .05): opinions of current residents, opinions of other attending physicians, and letters of recommendation. Additional trends and differences were also discovered. The results of the present study provide baseline data on the selection of podiatric medicine and surgery residents.