Surveying Applicants to Improve the Family Medicine Residency Interview Day

The diversity of family medicine residency programs across the country makes a generalized assessment of applicant preferences and experiences regarding the interview experience difficult. As such, there have been few publications in recent years relating to interview trail trends and modification of the interview day process to meet the needs of applicants. The purpose of this project was to identify applicant preferences and trends among applicants interviewing at Penn State Health's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center during the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 application cycles.

Applicants completed a voluntary, anonymous, 16-question multiple-choice survey during the interview day. Questions explored the preinterview dinner, interview day, and postinterview day communication methods.

In total, 67 surveys were collected from 68 eligible candidates (98.5%) in 2014-2015, and 65 surveys from 65 eligible candidates in 2015-2016 (100%) for a total of 132 participants. Applicant preferences focused on use of electronic communication and the importance of interviewing with both the program director and a current resident. Interview day trends experienced by those surveyed emphasized the inclusion of spouses/significant others, program support of hotel costs, frequency of applicant preinterview dinners, and the lack of emphasis on second-look visits.

This study highlights how the utilization of applicant surveys during the interview day may allow family medicine programs to identify trends occurring on the interview trail, while developing an interview day agenda that meets the desires of the applicants the program attracts.