Association Between Type of Residency Interview, Virtual Versus In-Person, and Distance From Applicants' Dental School to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Program Matched: Report From the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons Committee on Education and Training.

BACKGROUND

Oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) residency interviews for the 2021 match during the Covid-19 pandemic were near universally virtual in contrast to in-person interviews of prior years. In deciding whether to conduct in-person or virtual interviews, it is important for residency programs to understand the association of interview type on the distance between dental school attended and the program to which the applicant matched.

PURPOSE

The study purpose was to measure the association between the type of residency interview conducted and the distance from the dental school attended to the program which the applicant matched.

STUDY DESIGN, SETTING, SAMPLE: A retrospective cohort study was designed using National Matching Services Incorporated data of all applicants to OMS residency programs who matched the year following dental school between 2019 and 2021. Those who did not match the same year as dental school graduation were excluded.

PREDICTOR VARIABLE

The predictor variable was interview type. Match years 2019 and 2020 were coded as in-person and match year 2021 coded as virtual.

OUTCOME

The main outcome variable was the straight-line distance in miles between dental school attended and residency matched calculated from geographic coordinates.

COVARIATES

There were no covariates.

ANALYSES

Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed to determine if an association existed between the interview type and the distance. The significance level was set at a P value of ≤ .05.

RESULTS

The final sample was composed of 418 applicants who matched into OMS residency between 2019 and 2021. There were 277 (66%) and 141 (34%) applicants in the in-person and virtual interview groups, respectively. The mean distances between the dental school and the resident program for the in-person and virtual applicant pools were 633.22 miles (SD = 681.12 miles) and 630 miles (SD = 710.21 miles) respectively, (P value = .6).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

While distance between dental school and residency program may play an important role in the match, that distance did not have any statistically significant association with the type of interview.