Virtual interviews for admission to health care residency programs during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced residency programs to adapt their selection processes. Our objective was to describe the experience of virtual interviews conducted to select residents through applicants' perception.

An electronic questionnaire was sent to health care residency applicants after their interviews conducted in 2020.

Two-hundred and twenty-one questionnaires were collected and the average distance to the facility was 163 km. Also, 67.9% of the applicants used a personal computer, 98.2% felt that they were treated appropriately, 77.8% were able to state their ideas, and 12.2% reported technical difficulties. In addition, 32.6% said that they would prefer virtual interviews for future selection processes and 17.6%, that it would be irrelevant.

Virtual interviews allowed the resident selection process to be completed; one third of applicants would prefer virtual interviews in the future and there were no apparent technological limitations.