For Medical Students
Post-interview contact adds stress for matching trainees
Varying interpretations of the guidelines on post-interview match communication may be creating additional stress for doctors-in-training, writes Diana S. Curran, MD, in a study published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education.
In her survey of obstetrician and gynecology program directors, 76.6 percent reported that their programs initiated contact with residency candidates after interviewing them. Of those, 28.7 percent said they did so all of the time, 21.3 percent said they did so most of the time and 26.6 percent said they sometimes did so. Only 23.4 percent reported never initiating post-interview contact with candidates.
While post-interview contact is not itself prohibited, the substance of some of these communications is cause for some concern. More than half of the respondents, 51.5 percent, also reported that highly desirable candidates might be contacted to inform them they were ranked to match.
This variance in policies among programs creates a "game playing" for candidates as they attempt to guess at and interpret the meaning of program communications, Dr. Curran wrote. She calls for more uniformity among programs and said she hopes her study will spur discussion between obstetrician and gynecology program directors, the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and medical schools to "protect candidates from inappropriate pressure."
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