Personal
1.Tell me about yourself…
Short answer vs Long answer.
1 min vs 5 min.
Where are you from, undergraduate, why podiatry, interests, activities, involvement, etc.
2.What are your hobbies?
Marathons, painting, reading, traveling, biking, cooking, exploring locally, etc.
3.Favorite subject in school?
Biomechanics, surgery, limb salvage, trauma, sports medicine, etc.
4.Least favorite subject in school?
Pathology because as much as I studied, I struggled to grasp a good concept. It is a difficult subject and I have much respect to the people in that profession.
5.Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
6.What do you like to do outside of podiatry?
7.Last book you read?
8.Favorite villain in a movie?
9.Your personal accomplishment in podiatry?
10.What are your strengths? What sets you apart from other candidates?
Time management, prioritization, trustworthiness, attitude, self-awareness, commitment to improvement, service oriented, respect to the profession, creative, disciplined, flexible, learn quickly, have a lot of enthusiasm.
11.What are your weaknesses?
My kindness gets taken advantage of, I take on too many projects, I am too critical on myself, I attempt to please everyone, I’m too detail oriented.
In the past, I struggled slightly with ____. However, what I have done to overcome that is ___.
School Related
12.How do you relax?
13.How do you function under pressure?
14.Who was your most memorable patient and why?
15.Your favorite/least month of core rotation?
16.What journals do you read? JFAS, JFAR, JAPMA, FAI, Clinical Diabetes Journal, Journal of American College Wound Specialists.
17.What is the greatest obstacle you had overcome in podiatry school?
18.Name a time where something didn’t go as planned and how you handled it?
19.Talk about a difficult decision you had made in podiatry school?
Medicine Related
20.What qualities would you look for in a doctor?
21.List three issues that confront medicine today.
22.Do you think that doctors are being paid too much or too little? Why?
23.How would you go about improving access to health care in this country?
24.What are your views on the latest changes to the Medicare program?
Residency Related
25.Why our program?
26.What do you know about our program? (if you did not extern)
27.What are you looking for in a residency program?
28.Name a weakness of our program?
29.Who would you want as a co-resident?
I enjoy #1 because he has these qualities, but #2 has awesome qualities as well. It would be tough but if I had to choose my team player for 3 years it would be #1 because we have similar personalities and work-ethics.
30.What did you learn during your clerkship at our residency program?
31.What would you do if you don’t get accepted into a Residency?
It would be heart breaking to invest a lot of time and emotion into a profession and to come out short, but I would pick myself up, dust off the old me, re-evaluate myself, see where I went wrong, and try to apply for a residency next year.
Laugh Out Loud
32.Tell me a joke…
33.You are on the front page of the NY TIMES, what does the headline say?
34.What three famous people in history would you have dinner with?
35.What part of a bicycle would you be and why?
36.What type of dog would you be and why?
37.You are granted any three wishes by a genie. What would your wishes be?
38.You are stranded on a desert island. What one person would you want to have with you?
39.Favorite surgical instrument?
The K-wire or the Kirschner wire (Martin Kirschner 1909), it is one of the most underappreciated and well-used instruments in our profession. You can use it for holding bones together in fixation, angulation before placing screws, or even as anchors in tension band wiring. You don’t know how valuable it is until you don’t have it available.
Politics
40.If you were president, how would you solve the problem with North Korea?
41.Are you a supporter of the 2nd amendment? Why?
42.There are more and more prisons built in America; what are your views on this issue? Do you agree with this justice system or would you do something different?
43.There is a significant amount of homeless people in major cities. What plan do you have to get them off the streets?
44.What types of things does the field of podiatric surgery need to improve in the future?
Tough Questions
45. Why should we hire you?
- I can be held accountable
- I have a good solid foundation of education
- I expect to be challenged, I expect to be placed in emergency situations.
- I know that I still have so much to learn
- I don’t want an average experience
- I am confident I would be a great addition to your residency.
- I take pride in my work, and I am constantly looking to improve academically, clinically, surgically
46.Can you recall any time when you disagreed with a patient’s diagnosis or treatment?
I disagreed with a R3 resident about a patient dactylitis vs gout attack. I was a 2nd-year student, and just finished exams on gout. The patient had a clear presentation of chronic tophaceous gout, tophi oozing out, he had a history of gout attacks. The resident blew it off and said it was dactylitis with serous fluid and that it should resolve on its own. My heart wasn’t settled because my gut feeling told me we were not going to diagnose it right, and even worse, not even offer to treat the patient.
I followed a plan of hierarchy. I looked at a peer to validate what I saw, then I told the nurse of my suspicion and then asked the director to take a second look before dismissing the patient. The R3 was not happy, I felt like she didn’t want to do the extra work up, paperwork, or drug medication submission because she was stressed with other stuff.
47.A number of residents (15%) leave surgery residency. Why do you think so?
I can’t speak on behalf of those individuals, but if I had to guess ti would be from lack of support from their program, going to a residency that was not one of their top 15 choices, or not used to long hours with sleep deprivation. Residence is tough; if it was easy anybody would do it. This is a mental game and you need to find the motivation to keep you going.
PrePodiatryStudy 