Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Anesthesiology, University of North Carolina Children's Hospital, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Paediatr Anaesth. 2021 Sep;31(9):968-976. doi: 10.1111/pan.14226. Epub 2021 Jun 21.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a situation with an urgent need to produce a virtual system for the 2019-2020 pediatric anesthesiology fellowship cycle. With fellowship interviews beginning in April 2020, there was minimal time to adapt. Each program rapidly developed its own platform, expectations, materials, and process for interviews, and applicants were exposed to a wide array of variability in the process-all while under the stress of interviewing for fellowship positions.
The aim of this survey-based study was to obtain input from applicants to help guide program decisions about "best practice" for the future for both pediatric anesthesiology and other graduate medical education matches.
A 28-question survey was developed utilizing Qualtrics. An anonymous link was sent to all pediatric anesthesiology program directors for distribution of the survey link to all recently matched applicants. Incoming fellows who were accepted outside of the match process were also invited to respond.
Fifty respondents completed the survey, for a response rate of 30% based on the 167 matched fellowship positions nationwide (50/167). A majority of the respondents reported they felt virtual interviews allowed them to learn the following things equally as well compared with a traditional interview about fellowship programs: salary and benefits, available academic opportunities, available clinical opportunities, clinical schedule of the fellowship, mentorship opportunities, clinical experience and training of the fellowship, and expected work-life balance during fellowship. Respondents report that the most important factors in making their rank list were perceived goodness of fit, desired geographic location, and perception of program leadership. Additionally, respondents ranked the types of information and interactions that they found most helpful to make decisions. All respondents reported the benefit of cost savings compared to a traditional application cycle, with the most commonly reported estimated savings being $3,000-$5,000 per respondent.
These results allow recommendations for "best practices" for virtual interviews to include programs providing an electronic packet of information prior to the interview day, providing dedicated time for applicants to interact with current fellows, providing applicants an understanding of the city/region of the location of the program, and offering a completely optional postinterview visit, when possible. Based on the results of this survey, we recommend that programs continue to offer virtual interviews as a penalty-free option for applicants, even when in-person interviews may be feasible.
COVID-19 大流行导致需要紧急创建一个 2019-2020 年儿科麻醉住院医师培训周期的虚拟系统。由于住院医师面试于 2020 年 4 月开始，因此几乎没有时间进行调整。每个项目都迅速开发了自己的平台、期望、材料和面试流程，申请人在面试过程中也面临着各种各样的变化——所有这些都是在面试住院医师职位的压力下进行的。
本基于调查的研究旨在从申请人那里获得反馈，以帮助指导项目决策，为儿科麻醉和其他研究生医学教育匹配的未来制定“最佳实践”。
使用 Qualtrics 开发了一个包含 28 个问题的调查。向所有儿科麻醉项目主任发送了一个匿名链接，以将调查链接分发给全国所有最近匹配的申请人。也邀请了在匹配过程之外被录取的新研究员做出回应。
50 名受访者完成了调查，基于全国 167 个匹配的住院医师培训职位，回复率为 30%（50/167）。大多数受访者表示，他们认为虚拟面试让他们能够与传统面试一样平等地了解以下关于住院医师培训计划的事情：工资和福利、可获得的学术机会、可获得的临床机会、住院医师培训的临床时间表、指导机会、住院医师培训的临床经验和培训、以及住院医师培训期间的预期工作生活平衡。受访者报告说，在制定他们的排名名单时最重要的因素是被认为适合度、理想的地理位置和对项目领导的看法。此外，受访者还对他们认为最有助于做出决策的信息类型和互动方式进行了排名。所有受访者都报告了与传统申请周期相比节省成本的好处，最常报告的节省估计为每位受访者 3000-5000 美元。
这些结果为虚拟面试提供了“最佳实践”建议，包括在面试日前提供电子信息包、为申请人提供与现任研究员互动的专用时间、让申请人了解项目所在地的城市/地区、并提供完全可选的面试后访问（如果可能）。基于这项调查的结果，我们建议项目继续为申请人提供虚拟面试作为一个无惩罚的选择，即使现场面试是可行的。
