BackTable Urology
Ep. 195 BackTable Resident Edition: Tips for Virtual and In-Person Urology Residency Interviews with Dr. Mihir Shah, Dr. Lindsay Hampson, Dr. Gina Badalato, and Yash Shah
Tue, 22 Oct 2024
Are you a 2025 Urology Match applicant or a residency program faculty member? In this week’s episode of the BackTable Urology podcast, guests Dr. Mihir Shah, Dr. Gina Badalato, and Dr. Lindsay Hampson provide guidance on navigating urology residency interviews. Their discussion offers insights from a residency leadership, department faculty, and medical student’s point of view with host Yash Shah. --- SYNPOSIS The episode covers tips for both virtual and in-person interviews, strategies for conversational engagement, and advice for how applicants should evaluate programs. They further detail aligning personal values with program culture, describing past challenges, and lowering interview anxiety through effective practice. The conversation offers applicants invaluable preparation tips to approach the interview process with confidence and a positive attitude. --- TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introduction 02:32 - Virtual vs. In-Person Interviews 07:02 - Preparing for Residency Interviews: Tips and Strategies 17:29 - The Role of Research 20:43 - Pivoting to Leadership and Advocacy 22:01 - Behavioral Questions: Tips and Examples 26:22 - Discussing Difficult Subjects 28:26 - Choosing the Right Residency Program 33:10 - Post-Interview Communication 36:24 - Final Advice
This week on The Backtable Podcast.
Check yourself. If you're ever answering a question for more than two or three minutes, you should probably find a way to wrap it up because you really want to give an opportunity to talk about many different aspects. And it may feel comfortable to talk about something you know for a long time, but I can tell you as the person sitting on the other end of that interview that
you're feeling like well i already read the application i kind of already knew some of the basics and now i'm being talked at instead of in a conversation and interviews are way more fun when you're in a conversation with people so have a mind have an eye on the clock and if you realize that you're kind of droning on about something wrap it up so that you can continue on with other parts of the interview and make it more fun
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Backtable podcast, your source for all things urology. You can find all previous episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at backtable.com. My name is Yash Shah, and I'm a fourth-year medical student at Jefferson in Philadelphia, and I'm here with our team today to continue our trainee-based series at Backtable Urology.
I'll start out by introducing Dr. Mahir Shah, who's a faculty member at Jefferson.
Thanks for having me. It's good seeing everybody. I am a urologist at Jefferson. I serve as the vice chair of clinical research and my clinical focus is urologic oncology and additionally reconstructive benign disease such as BPH and upper tract reconstruction.
And I'll also have Dr. Gina Badalato introduce herself.
Hi, my name is Gina Bottolato. I am a urologist at Columbia University in New York, normally the host of this podcast with Lindsay, but happy to surrender the reins to Yash today. Great to see everybody.
Yeah, and I'm Lindsay Hampson. I'm at UCSF and Gina and I are excited not to pose the questions this time, but to actually receive them. So very excited to have this topic that's really more oriented towards medical students.
And I think this is a real opportunity as we approach interview season to really feel like we're giving medical students some confidence going into interviews and setting them up for success.
Alright, thanks everyone. I was personally very excited for this conversation today. I think it's something that's going to be very relevant and hopefully I'll learn something and I'm sure that all the other student listeners will also gain a lot from this conversation.
So, I wanted to start out just by talking about some of the recent changes that happened to the plan for the urology match this year. So, some background for our listeners who probably are already aware. The SAU recently announced that programs have a choice for virtual, hybrid, or in-person interviews for really the first time since the pandemic.
And I think I can speak from personal experience and from conversations with some of my peers that this was a little bit unexpected and is something that maybe people want to learn a lot more about. I think that there's a lot of benefits to obviously slowly shifting back to the in-person interviewing, but there's also a lot of unanswered questions.
So one thing I wanted to talk to you guys about today was kind of how students can prepare for both virtual and in-person interviews. I think, you know, a lot of my peers did their even medical school interviews online. So it's going to be a new experience for a lot of us. I guess we could start with me here for some virtual specific advice on how to do well in a virtual interview.
And then we can dive into some of the newer options as well.
Sure. So I would prepare for a virtual interview like you would for an in-person or vice versa in this case, since you guys are more familiar with the virtual setting. But you want a bright environment, adequate light, make sure your internet's working well, have tested your equipment, have a working headset or computer, if you will, and then dress appropriately. It's still an interview.
You may be more comfortable in your own environment, but be professional, be on time, be punctual. And just showcase yourself, you know, it's just an opportunity to learn about each other. And so be true to yourself and stay engaged as best as you can. And the rest, you know, should be no different than in-person interview.
Maybe a little more comfortable in your environment actually might be a benefit.
And Gina, do you have any advice that might be different for in-person interviews? For example, anything a student should be aware of that might be some key differences on how those interviews might go or things that they need to think about?
Yeah, I agree with Mahir that it's very similar to in-person in terms of the content and the principles of interviewing. In fact, some programs are doing hybrid where some candidates are being interviewed virtually and others in person. And every effort should be made to kind of standardize that process in terms of the actual questions and evaluation process.
But I do think in-person lens, you know, kind of a different flavor. Your kind of collisions with your peers in the hallway or in a waiting area or on a tour are different. And I think, you know, you should really capitalize on those casual interactions with other residents and your other colleagues who are interviewing.
coordinators anyone else kind of making the day possible so some of those intangibles that arguably are part of program culture are more palpable during the in-person interview enjoy the culture of the city that you're visiting appreciate the setting of the hospital so it really is a is an opportunity for you to gather more data and you can ask specific questions about that obviously they're asking you there for a reason maybe to show you a little bit more about
the culture of their department in person or the city itself. So ask questions about that and be observant about that. Great. Yeah.
And I think I would say to piggyback on Gina, you know, and thinking about, well, how do you navigate the in-between? What about those hybrid situations? In my mind, in-person is really a benefit to the applicant, and I don't think it changes as much for the program. I think those intangibles that Gina talked about can really be a benefit for the applicant themselves.
So I think if you get offered a hybrid, if there's a hybrid situation, you can pick one or the other. pick the one that's right for you. If it's hard to travel, if it's expensive, if it's just feasibly impractical, then do the virtual option if that's what works better for you. Because in the end, I don't think that programs really change their assessment virtual versus in-person.
I think the in-person really benefits the applicant themselves because they actually get to walk the halls of the hospital. They get to sleep in the city. They get to see other applicants in person. And so I think the benefits of the in-person option are really mostly for the applicant and people should feel like they can definitely choose the virtual option if that one works better for them.
Great. And that was actually my follow-up question. So I think that's really insightful to hear because I've heard from a lot of students that, you know, when you're offered a hybrid option, they're concerned about, you know, what a program might feel for choosing one option versus the other. So I think maybe bouncing off of that, we can start with Gina.
But my next question was regarding the role of the interview and the residency match and the ultimate rank list process. How does the interview complement the rest of the application there?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think that, you know, when we review applications initially, you're looking for someone's qualifications. And then by the time you get to the interview, you're beyond that. Everybody interviewing is qualified. They're going to make excellent urologists. But it's really, would they be happy training at this particular program?
Do they have kind of the skills to thrive in this particular program? Would they bring something different? Would they complement or enhance the residency in some way? So you're really looking for how they would fit in that program. and whether it would be a mutual fit. So I think that's what you're looking for.
And a lot of the questions are geared towards kind of values that the program might have sometimes, you know, towards, is it community service? Is it certain skills that they have, multitasking or communication skills? So you're really looking beyond the qualifications and looking at who they are as people, and if this is a place that they could thrive. And your ability to click with somebody.
This is somebody that you're going to spend five to six years with, who's going to be calling you in the middle of the night, you know, and maybe working with you under incredibly stressful circumstances as a resident, as an attending in the OR. And you want to be able to trust that person, look that person in the eye and say, you know what, I really...
would like to work with you and feel that mutual kind of relationship with somebody.
Yeah, I really agree with Gina. And I think it's really, for me, the interview is really about allowing applicants the chance to understand the culture, because that's something that you may not be able to experience or understand on paper or online or from going to an open house.
You're getting a chance to talk to people, see how people interact with each other, see how people interact with residents. And this gives you a real sense of the culture because there's fantastic training programs across the country. And so you're going to go somewhere and you're going to get great training. The question is, is it the training you want?
Is it the training that fits where you want to be in the future? Is it a program that's going to support your goals for the future? And similarly, as Gina said, are you going to be a fit for what they're looking for? So I think it's really important in terms of understanding the culture. The other thing I would say is Gina's right. We already know that everyone we're interviewing is qualified.
And so the interview is not understanding what they've accomplished. It's more about understanding how they got there. So what was their path? What did they overcome? What drove them to do all the things that are listed in their application? So for me, in an interview, I'm really trying to understand what's motivating and driving somebody because I already know what's on paper.
I know what they've done already, and I want to understand the why behind it.
Completely agree with both Gina and Lindsay. I think it's more of finding the right match, you know, whether it's the applicant choosing the right program, if it aligns with their long-term goals, short-term goals, do they see themselves as part of the team? You know, does it feel like they would be a good fit for both the program and the applicant?
And ultimately, will they be happy under really tough circumstances? Training is universally challenging on certain days and
incredibly rewarding on others and it's the highs and lows and can they get through them you know together because some days i needed to be picked up and you know am i going to be surrounded by people that are going to lift me up do you have the support in the place you're going to be and do you feel supported and i think that's really what gets us all through you know the darkest of days and we still you know we build relationships that last a lifetime you know i still talk to my co-residents almost daily and i you know call my peers that trained ahead of me behind me uh all the time and it's incredible and it's
It's really rewarding, but you just want to make sure that that's the feeling you're getting at the end of the day. And that's basically what the program is also looking for, because otherwise you all have a seat at the table. You're all equally qualified in terms of your accomplishments.
We just want to make sure that we understand what kind of a person you are, what, how you're going to fit into the program.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So as we move through sub I season, I think what me and a lot of my peers are thinking about is now shifting towards the preparation for interviews. So I kind of had a two part question. And I guess we can start with Lindsay, just talking about the general preparation.
So before interview season even starts, what are some good ways to just get in the right frame of mind and some things to start thinking about generally?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's so many questions during interview season that you can anticipate. So why not prepare for those? Everyone's going to want to understand why urology, right? Like, why are you dedicating five or six years and the rest of your career to this field? So you want to have a good answer for that. And I think really you want to be able to tell your story.
Your application is a list of accomplishments, but we want to, as I kind of mentioned before, I think we want to hear the story of how you got here, why you got here, why was it unexpected or inevitable? What was your path to getting here? And then, you know, where you want to go. So you want to have in your mind what that story is and how it makes sense.
And I think a lot of people get there by working on their personal statement. It helps to kind of flesh that out for themselves. Often, there's a lot of generic questions that will be asked around obstacles or hurdles that you've encountered, examples of teamwork that you can give, accomplishments that you're really proud of, or things that are unique about you.
So I think practicing those types of more generic interview questions with your friends can be really helpful because Being in the interview situation is so stressful.
If you've already kind of practiced and you've thought of the words and you've thought of some things that you want to say, I think it comes out so much more fluidly and probably takes away a lot of the anxiety when you go into those first few interviews. And I'll just say, I think in the beginning, everyone's so nervous, but by the end of interview season...
people realize that it's actually, you know, not a nerve wracking experience. It's really fun. You're meeting these incredible people from across the country. But at the beginning, it does feel very scary. And so the way to take away those nerves is really just to practice on the things that you know you can.
Great. And I think the second part to that question was more so preparing for specific program interviews. So I'll turn this one to Gina. How would you recommend looking into specific programs kind of, you know, the night before or the week before and preparing for those specific interviews?
Yeah, I think that that's a great question. I just want to reiterate some of what Lindsay said about anticipating common questions. You know, like you're going to be asked, tell us about yourself or to summarize your application in a couple of lines. That should be like an elevator pitch that should not last for more than one or two minutes.
And common pitfall is just to get bogged down with that question and spend too much time on that so you don't get to some of these other more program specific questions that's meant to be an icebreaker. So really kind of mastering those quicker turnaround questions about summarizing your questions. You know, your path to urology, all the other stuff that should really be at your fingertips.
So then when you're looking at a specific program, I think websites are helpful. Social media X tends to be a little bit more updated on a day to day basis than the website sometimes are not as updated since they're more cumbersome to do that.
If you have any faculty alumni among your mentorship or mentor circles or home institutions or visiting institutions from that place, you can touch base with them. That could be a resident, a medical student or faculty alumni. You could do a PubMed search of some of the prominent faculty in that department. So those are all potential sources of information. And, you know, if there's any...
Anything like unique that that program has, unique to that city, a particular program, a research year, you should really be prepared to ask questions about how someone spends time during their research year, support during their research year, anything unique about that program to know those kind of details. And then you should also just know your application code.
So preparing is not just knowing the place, but also to know your application. Anything is fair game on your application, including... You know, a paper that you worked on a couple years ago, you might get asked about it. So you want to know, you want to like review some everything that you put on there. If you put a hobby, think about the last time you did that hobby or any insights you have.
If you write that you like to read as your hobby, what was the last thing that you read? Because you could be asked about those things. And so those are some general tips to prepare, but also just to be yourself. That's why I think preparing for those intro questions are helpful because they're icebreakers. And if you can get through that, you just get calmer.
You'd like an easy kind of pitch and then you can answer some of the more challenging questions that might come up later with more confidence.
Yeah, I really agree with that. And just to reiterate, you know, check yourself. If you're ever answering a question for more than two or three minutes, you should probably find a way to wrap it up because you really want to give an opportunity to talk about many different things. aspects.
And it may feel comfortable to talk about something you know for a long time, but I can tell you as the person sitting on the other end of that interview, you're feeling like, well, I already read the application. I kind of already knew some of the basics and now I'm being talked at instead of in a conversation. And interviews are way more fun when you're in a conversation with people.
So just have a mind, have an eye on the clock. And if you realize that you're kind of droning on about something, wrap it up so that you can continue on with other parts of the Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that's very insightful. I think one of the pieces of advice that I've heard from multiple mentors is you can try to have a few stories ready in terms of, you know, patients that you interacted with that really stood out to you or personal stories.
And that way you are able to kind of talk about them in a concise but meaningful manner and apply them to, you know, various questions or scenarios that you need to talk about. One thing that Gina mentioned that I think leads nicely into my next question is about research.
So obviously research has become a bigger and bigger emphasis for better or worse for the residency match across subspecialties. And so I'm sure it's likely to come up in the interview. What's your advice for tackling questions about research?
And I think we can just start out by talking about with, I'll ask them here first, kind of how to prepare for those types of questions and how to familiarize yourself with the research that you've done in the past.
Yeah. So like Gina said, and even Lindsay mentioned, anything on your CV is fair game, right? So even if you worked on it in undergrad or something you did years ago, but you put it on there, then I would make sure that you kind of brush up on it or you know what part you played in that project or what was your role.
And you can talk a little bit, again, we don't need a thesis, but just a little bit about how you got to working on it and what you learned and how you completed it. Really the core of what we're trying to get at is to understand if you can start a project, take something from infancy and see it all the way through. Are you committed?
Can you, can you be dedicated to a topic of something that you're not, you don't know a lot about when you start, but can you bring it to fruition? So it really doesn't matter. Let's say you initially thought you were going to do cardiology and you spent
you know, year or whatever, a few months in the summer between your first and second year doing cardiology research and you put it on there, you know, it's not a negative. Not everybody wakes up thinking they're going to be a urologist from day one. And so maybe you got insight into wanting to be a urologist later.
And so you could still put that on there, you know, and just be comfortable speaking on it and what, you know, how you, how it helped you and ultimately how you got to your decision of being a urologist. And if you're in a situation where you don't have a home program or you don't have access to research and you don't think you have a strong CV when it comes to research or things of that nature,
Again, the goal is really to see if you can be dedicated to a topic. If you're passionate about community service and you spend a whole year working, you know, in Africa taking care of patients, that speaks for itself. You know, it doesn't have to necessarily be clinical research or basic science research. So all we're looking for is to see, hey, I started this project.
I took it all the way through. It's a pub now. It's peer reviewed. You know, that's great. It doesn't have to be 20 pubs necessarily. Not everybody gets that opportunity. But you should at least know what you did on the project, what your role was, and what you learned through it.
Yeah, I want to just emphasize a couple of things that Mihir said. I think that's all really true. I think a big thing that we want to know when talking about research is your specific role. What did you do? And part of that is we want to understand how you fit into the team. And research is teamwork. So that's an insight into how you work in a team.
Part of it is to understand what skill set you have. So you may have learned how to build a database or you may have learned how to apply for an IRB or you may have learned how to call research participants or you may have learned how to interview. And these are all skill sets.
So if you, you know, when you're talking about research, talk about the specific things that you did, because those are all assets that you are going to bring with you. And I really agree also that if you haven't done a lot of research, that's okay. I think explaining what you have done is totally fine.
If you get a question where somebody wants you to answer, what research project are you the most proud of and you don't have a research project, You can talk about a leadership opportunity. You can pivot and talk about something you're really passionate about, something you did advocacy work in. There are other avenues.
And when we ask about research, it's not that we're interested specifically in research. We're interested in how you took something on, how you carried it through, what leadership roles you took in that activity. And a lot of people, you know, they may not have had opportunities. And that's important to highlight, too.
If you're at a program where you don't have a urology department at your medical school, talk about that and talk about how you want to do research, what type of research you're interested in doing, what skill set you think you would need to learn to help do the work that you want to do.
So there's plenty of opportunities to talk about research, even if you don't have a CV with plenty of publications on it. And we understand that.
That said, I would say if you're applying to a program that has a year-long research year, you know you're going to get questions about research and you know that's probably going to be important to the program because they're paying for a year of your time to do research.
So in that case, you really do want to be prepared to talk about what your vision is for research during residency and afterwards.
Okay, great. And I think the next set of questions I had were a little bit of a pivot, but I've heard that there's a lot of behavioral questions that oftentimes faculty will use to evaluate students on their ability to think on their feet or just kind of demonstrate their personality.
And I think those are very exciting, but also something that a lot of students may not have a lot of experience with. So I was wondering if you had any tips on preparing for and tackling those types of questions. And if you could maybe give us some examples and then talk about kind of how to approach them.
Yeah, some of these questions have to do with like situational awareness or ability to function in the team or ability to multitask or triage. These are all like essential skills in residency, organizational skills. You know, not every program is going to ask these type of questions. You may have a clear track.
This is why Lindsay was talking about understanding the why, understanding the challenges, because that clearly is more of a testament to your ability to master these skills in any one of these fields. these situational questions. But I would really listen to the question, take a minute to think about it.
And then most of them are going to deal with overcoming challenges, either interpersonal challenges or challenges involving organization, a lot of urgent things or challenges with maybe many times in surgical residencies, there's a hierarchy. How do you escalate something in an appropriate way? So think about those questions.
Think about experiences during your clinical experiences or during any prior careers you've had. How did you navigate that? A lot of common things are, you know, talking to people, communicating, expressing your concerns, going through normal channels, figuring out how you're going to develop a structure and how to prioritize things that are urgent.
You could just talk through your thought process and how you would try to do this as diplomatically and as... kind of logically as possible. You know, you don't have to just pop in an answer. This is what I would do, but talk through your thought process and reflect on your prior experiences. You could even flip the question on its head.
Actually, what you're asking about reminds me of a time and then talk about something you're comfortable with and how it relates to that. So you're in control of the question. So I think remember that and reflect on your prior experiences and see how they come to play in those
Those behavioral questions are all about your thought process, your approach, how you learn from past challenging events, what your attitude is like in the face of difficulty. If you're going through a challenge, what supports are helpful to you. So these are not about an act, you know, we don't care about what the actual challenge was.
We really care about what your thought process is, how you handle things, what you rely on, what you need to thrive. because ultimately we want you to thrive in a residency program. And so we want to be able to make sure that we have the supports necessary to help you thrive and achieve your goals and get to where you want to be. So really thinking, I think Gina's right.
The most common question that gets asked is, what's a challenge or a struggle or an obstacle that you've faced and tell us how you've overcome it or what you've learned from it. That's an easy one to prepare for because it's going to get asked a lot. And you could pick even something from your, you know, anytime. You could pick something from childhood if you wanted to.
If there's a certain life event that was really pivotal to you and kind of shaped how you think, that's fine too. It can really be anything that you pick.
One last thing I'll say is just to add to it is the way I when I went through it and I prepared is I actually talked to my non-medical colleagues because when they interview, that's all they get is behavioral questions. So I was like, hey, can you run through these with me? Because, you know, I'm so focused on just medical stuff, but maybe you have a better insight. So that was helpful for me.
If you have friends outside of medicine, you know, ask them. They do this a lot more than we do. So that may help.
I love that idea.
Yeah, that's a great idea. I'll have to use that one. But I think that's really helpful here. And just thinking about your thought process almost seems like killing two birds with one stone where you're answering the question and showing your own logic, but also kind of helping yourself by reasoning out to kind of the right answer for you.
I think the next topic I had, I'll pitch this one to Mihir, was about talking about a difficult subject. So there might be some students who have so-called red flags, whether it's academic issues that they've had, any gaps in their education, or other things that they might find difficult to discuss during the interview, but they might feel is something that they have to bring up.
How would you recommend talking about that? So, you know, again, it kind of ties into the behavioral questions. And if you don't bring it up, you know, you're more likely than not potentially to get asked at least once throughout the interview day by somebody, right? And again, it's just an opportunity to show your perseverance, your resilience, your grit.
It could be any number of circumstances, loss of a loved one, a catastrophic event in your life that was really critical that you had to take a gap year. Or it could be a whole host of reasons. Some family member needed help, et cetera. So it's really just another opportunity to show what the challenge was. It's not so important what it was. It's just really what we want to see is
How did you work through it? You know, who supported you during your tough times? What did you lean into? You know, how did you persevere? How did you pick yourself up? How did you get back on your feet and want to keep going? And clearly you're here. You got there. So we just want to learn, you know, how you...
we're able to navigate that challenging time and what you learned and how it really prepares you, like I said, for some tough days during training because it's inevitable. Some days are going to be tough. Some outcomes are not what you like. Some errors could occur and it's going to be tough and you may get down or somebody may kind of hold you to it.
And we just want to know that you can get through that. And actually, it's an opportunity to, again, showcase your strength, which is your grit, your perseverance, your tenacity, which is what got you here today, right? It's not necessarily a negative thing. Just be prepared to talk about it genuinely.
All right. Thanks so much, Dr. Shah. And my final question is something that I'll open up to the floor just because all of you guys have done residency at some point. And I love to hear kind of your reflections on that process. What should students try to learn about a program during the interview and ultimately when they're deciding where they want to go?
What have you found was most important to you? And kind of looking back, what do you feel like you wish you thought about back then?
I would say, as I mentioned before, I think culture is really the most important thing about the interviews. And so what I would recommend is make sure that you're looking at how the residents interact with each other and what those relationships are like. Look at how the residents and faculty interact. Look at how faculty interact with each other. Because this is the culture.
This is what you're looking for as a fit into, you know, what's the day to day like? What is it like to, you know, call people? What is it like to be taught by these people? What is it like to rely on these people? So it's really about understanding, you know, what the culture is that's created between these people. And there's a lot that you can learn from seeing those interactions.
And I think in the end, as I mentioned before, I think you can go to so many places and get amazing training. And so this is not about picking the one place that can train you. It's about finding the place that can train you to do what you want to do. And that's going to get you to your eventual goals. So think about it not, you know, for me, the interview is all about the applicant.
It's an opportunity for the applicant to really find a good match for themselves. We know they're qualified as programs. We've already selected them for interviews. So we know that anyone we interview is going to be a great resident. But this is a chance really for an applicant to figure out where they want to be, where they have a support.
supportive environment where they think they're going to be able to accomplish what they want to. So I always want applicants to feel like they're in the driver's seat. And I think it takes some of the stress away and helps people realize that you're not comparing, oh, does one program have one more day of call or does one program have, you know, one more of this or that?
In the end, those things aren't important. What's important is the fit to the program.
Yeah, well said. I have nothing to add to that. I've seen people develop very fancy spreadsheets, Excel files with all of these parameters. But in the end, it's your gut and your feeling about where you want to train. And as Lindsay said, the support that you'll have along the way.
Understand what your why is and what makes you happy and why you're doing this and where you're going to thrive and where you're going to get to your fullest potential. Because there's many ways to get there. There's many wonderful training programs. It's where you're going to do well.
And to that end too, I would just add, don't worry about disappointing anyone. We all want our students to be happy and to thrive. And don't, as a student, when you're making a choice, make their choice that's right for you. You're the one who's living that reality and You may feel like you're letting down mentors or people who have supported you. And I can assure you, you are not.
We want you to be happy in the long run. And I remember when I was an applicant, I was having a very tough time making a decision of, you know, putting together my rank list. And at the time I was at the University of Michigan, David Bloom was the chair and I called him in tears the night before the rank list was due and said, Dr. Bloom, I just... I feel like I don't know what to do.
And he said, Lindsay, take a deep breath. You know what to do. Just don't worry about disappointing anyone else. You do what is right for you. And he was right. I did know. And what was holding me back was feeling like I should, you know, do make choices for other people or, you know, to placate other people.
And in the end, you've got to sit down with the decision yourself, your own values, your own goals, and think about what's really right for you.
And just to add to that, if you do exactly that, then there is no disappointment because ultimately you may not match at number one, maybe not even number two. But honestly, you're going to match at a great program regardless because thankfully urology programs are accredited to a point where they're all really good to get you trained. the journey may not be linear.
It may not be a straight line and it feels like a bump in the road. Oh my God, I didn't get my number one choice. It won't matter because if you followed, you know, you set your priority is know what's important to you, where you're going to be the happiest.
Then you, before you know it, by the end, you look back five years later, you'd be like, man, I didn't rank at one, but God, it was the best decision in my life that, you know, something above knew better. And I ended up there because it's been an incredible ride. And so, you know, follow your gut. There's no other way to really parse it out. There's no perfect program, right?
But they're all really, really good. And so, you just have to find what is going to work best for you and then follow your gut and make your list. And before you know it, you'll reflect back on it as joyfully as we do.
Awesome. That's all really good advice and something that I'll definitely take to heart. As we wrap up, I was going to ask Gina about post-interview communication. So, obviously, there are some things that are allowed, some things that are not. Just want to get an idea of
what you recommend in terms of whether it's sending a thank you letter, anything beyond that, talking about maybe programs that you're more interested in and whether it's having questions or just expressing your interest further, how do you recommend handling that?
Yeah, I think so. The Society of Academic Urology has some clear rules about post-interview communication. The program really can't initiate any of that communication after the interview. You could send a thank you note. That's courteous. That's nice. I always tell my advisees that really, that's a lot of work. It's a lot of work.
For a given program, you may be interviewing like five or six different interviews with multiple people in a room. I don't really think it's expected and it's very time consuming. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.
If there's something personal that, you know, a personal connection you had with somebody certainly can do that, but it's definitely not expected and then people shouldn't feel like they have that responsibility. And so, yeah, officially the program can't really initiate a lot of the contact after the interviews are over.
Students will, close to the time of after they've submitted their rank list, they can reach out to programs to say, you're my top choice or something like that. But the program really shouldn't really respond to those types of outreach, at least according to the rules of the match. I don't know if anybody else wants to roll in on that.
Yeah, I agree. I think just know that you may reach out to the program and it's totally fine if you do, but they probably won't write back to you. And that's not because they don't like you. It's just because it's the rules and we're trying to abide by the rules and make sure that we're not giving anyone an unfair advantage. So if you want to send a thank you note, if you want to say, you know.
specific things because you feel like there's a certain fit with a certain program, that's totally fine. But just don't be offended if you don't hear back from anyone. And I always warn people that when we have them interview with us, I tell them, don't expect communication with us afterwards. And it's just part of the rules of making sure that we're all playing the same.
Nothing more to add. I concur. You're allowed to communicate, but the programs are not really. So it'd be nice, but you're not obligated to. So it's not an expectation.
Yeah, I would encourage potential applicants applying this year to go to the Society of Academic Urology website and just read through, familiarize yourself with all of the rules. This is just one of them, but understand some of the rules that apply to the match this year. As Yash mentioned, there were some changes. There's a lot of great information there and it's great to kind of
have those ground rules in place as you go through the process and clearly read through them. It's a great resource and the website has just been updated so I highly encourage. There's actually a section for students and some facts and commonly asked questions and it's a valuable resource.
And that's the same place that the programs are going to to get their guidance as well. So we're all getting the same information from the same place. It's great that we have that kind of common resource.
So as we near the end here, is there anything else that you guys wanted to mention or any other advice that you commonly give to your students that we haven't covered today?
I think a lot of the things we've said are be yourself, have fun, you know, enjoy the process. This is a really a chance to meet people that you may have read about or heard about or, you know, had an opportunity to think about working with. So it's a really exciting time during interviews and it should really be something that's fun for you.
So have fun with it because the more fun you have with the interviews, the more fun the interviewers have as well.
I'll just say this is my favorite part of the year. It's so exciting to meet new potential trainees soon to be peers. You know, I look back and before I know it, it's over. And here I am, you know, sitting on the other side. So, yeah, it's just, you know, don't get too stressed. At the end of the day, you're all going to do really well. Just be yourself.
Yeah, I agree. I think the best interviews, as we were saying earlier, are conversational. So realize that these are urologists taking time out of their day to chat with you. They're not professional interviewers. So they may say, well, what questions do you have for me? Be curious about that person. Ask them questions about their life, their training, what they like about that program.
Don't let that opportunity go by. You're going to be asked, what questions do you have for me? Always have some good questions in your pocket. And don't be afraid to ask about that person because people like it should be bi-directional. So be prepared for that and be curious.
All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us. We hope this is going to be a useful segment of our podcast. And hopefully going into interview season, it'll be something that serves as a resource for a lot of medical students preparing for interviews. And we look forward to seeing you on the interview trail. Thanks for joining.
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