The Undifferentiated Medical Student

Your virtual mentor for choosing a medical specialty and planning a career in medicine

The Undifferentiated Medical Student Interview Flow

What makes a great interview? It’s all about the STORY. Also, it’s all about the AUDIO. Regrettably, even a set of Apple earbuds results in poor audio quality.  Unless you already have something more sophisticated, I would like to send you a Logitech Clearchat headset to ensure high audio quality. If you decide you would like to do an interview, I will be requesting your mailing address.
Please take a moment to look over the range of questions I will ask. While we can take the conversation in almost any relevant direction, it is not my intention to catch you off guard with anything I ask, and in fact, I find that these interviews flow much more smoothly, as well as usually move more quickly, when my guests know what’s coming.
On average, the interviews take a little over 90 minutes.

Interview Flow

1. Intro

  • I will share your 200ish word bio then turn it over to you to fill in the gaps.
  • I will ask you to fill in any gaps I may have left in your bio and then to share the story of your decision to go to medical school in the first place.
    • Note: I will ask you for the complete story of what happened after you got into medical school in Part 3!

2. “Tell us about your specialty”

  • I will read a description of your medical specialty from the AAMC’s Careers in Website website, let you opine, and then ask what you think medical students should know about your specialty to be well informed, before I jump into my follow up questions.
  • My follow-up questions will include:
    • What does a typical (daily/weekly/monthly) routine, a typical patient, and a typical outcome for this patient look like?
    • What is generally considered to be most exciting about your specialty, and what is considered to be most mundane?
      • Note: many physicians lament that “charting” and “paperwork” are most mundane. However, because these things are not unique to any one specialty, I encourage you to share the mundanities that are unique to your specialty.
    • What is one thing you wish you had known before entering your specialty? And what would you encourage a medical student to think about in earnest before committing to going into your specialty?
    • How does the practice of your specialty change based on setting: inpatient vs. outpatient; academic vs. private vs. public; urban vs. rural; civilian vs. military vs. governmental; national vs. international.
    • What is the biggest challenge facing your specialty, and where do you predict your specialty will be in 10 or 20 years?
    • Others.
  • I will then ask about resources you used and would recommend others use to learn more about your specialty.

3. “Tell us about how you decided your specialty was right for you“

  • I will ask you to tell us the STORY of how you chose your specialty, including struggles, insights, and the eventual ‘ah-HA’ moment when it all made sense. We’ll expound upon any lessons you gleaned from this process, and then I will ask you how you would recommend a medical student facing this decision today should work through it.
  • My follow-up questions will include:
    • What did you struggle with and what factors (personal or professional) ended up weighing most heavily for you in your decision?
    • Was there ever a head-to-head decision between 2 or more specialties, and, if so, what made you decide to choose the route that you did?
    • The 3rd Year Question: If you were a 3rd year medical student, undecided on speciality with limited time remaining before residency applications were to be submitted, what do you think would be the fastest, highest-yield route to making the decision?
    • Others.
  • Again, I will ask about resources you would recommend to aid in making this decision.

4. “Give us advice for long-term career planning irrespective of choice of specialty”

  • You have practiced medicine for some number of years now.  Take a moment to tell us what you have learned about what it takes to ensure a maximally fulfilling career, irrespective of the choice of one’s specialty.
  • My follow-up questions will include:
    • If you could go back and do it all again, what would you do differently, and what would you do the same, and why?
    • What is a career mistake that you have seen other physicians make? What is something you have seen another physician do well that has made you want to emulate it?
    • What is one thing you are struggling with or lamenting about your career today, what are you doing to remedy it, and what would you encourage a medical student to do right now to help avoid this problem entirely in the future?
  • I will then ask “What is one book, medical or non-medical, that you think every person pursuing a career in medicine should read?”

5. Finale

  • We’ll end with you sharing any final thoughts.
  • I will then ask if there is anything you are working on that you would like to listeners to be aware of, if there is somewhere where they can go to find out more about you (if you want them to), and what the best way to connect with you is (if you want them to).
  • Say our goodbyes.

I will call you via Skype at the appointed time.  My Skype ID is Semidecent. This is an audio only interview.  Again, the interview will take about 90 minutes.

*Disclaimer*

Recording: By participating in the UndifferentiatedMedicalStudent.com interview, you agree to allow UndifferentiatedMedicalStudent.com of Iatrocast, LLC to record, distribute, and disseminate the podcast in any manner. You also agree to allow UndifferentiatedMedicalStudent.com and Iatrocast, LLC to retain rights to the produced media for potential future use in speeches, books, and in all other public distribution.