Resident characteristics to evaluate during recruitment and interview: a Delphi study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Residency Program Assessment
• Healthcare Professional Development

Background:

• Medical residency recruitment is resource-intensive.
• Limited research guides the evaluation of residency candidates.
• This study identifies essential candidate characteristics for assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a consensus-ranked list of successful resident candidate characteristics.
• To guide medical residency programs in evaluating applicants.
• To inform the recruitment and interview process for residency programs.

Main Methods:

• A three-round Delphi study involving 16 expert interviewers from 14 family medicine residency programs.
• Consensus building around a ranked list of candidate traits.
• Interrater reliability analysis using average pair-wise agreement and Krippendorff's Alpha.

Main Results:

• Clinical skills, medical knowledge, interpersonal and communication skills, critical thinking, and professional/ethical behavior were top-ranked characteristics.
• High interrater reliability was achieved, with average pair-wise agreement of 6.30% and 11.04% in rounds two and three.
• A consensus-ranked list of desirable traits for residency candidates was developed.

Conclusions:

• Residency programs can enhance candidate evaluation using an empirically derived list of characteristics.
• The findings provide a foundation for improving the selection process in medical residency.
• Future research should involve national surveys and longitudinal studies to validate the list and correlate it with residency success.