S3E19: Confessions from the Interview Trail

Harjit: Hoodies, hoodies, hoodies.

Margaux: Harjit loves her hoodies.

Harjit: I love it so much.

Margaux: They're beautiful. They're holiday gifts from our beautiful, wonderful producer.

Harjit: She's imaginary.

Bushra: Imaginary?

Together: She's our imaginary friend.

Harjit: Imagination is wonderful.

Leen: She's the fairy godmother.

Margaux: She imaginative and creative I think is what you were trying to say.

Harjit: She's an artist, an inspired artist

Leen: My godmother, tooth fairy. God, me and Harjit are a disaster. I called her a magical godmother. Is that what I just called you?

Margaux: Oh my goodness. So if you all haven't noticed, all of our voices are here back in studio and that's because interview season is over.

Bushra: Finished. Done.

Margaux: Done. Done, done, done.

Bushra: Finito.

Margaux: What a milestone.

Bushra: Thank God. Just an FYI for everybody listening, we are all fourth-year medical students, and something that comes along with that is applying for a residency. And so we submit all of our applications to various programs and interview at these programs with the hopes of matching to a program so that when we become first-year residents, we'll have somewhere to train and practice medicine. And so that's why we're going on all of these different interviews looking at programs that we're interested in and could possibly work at.

Harjit: Basically, you get your degree after four years, you get the MD degree, but you can't practice unless you're trained and that's kind of the next step. And each residency has varying lengths, short as three years and can go up to seven, eight, nine years depending on what you're doing. So this is a process we all have to go through if we want to practice in a hospital, a clinic or whatever.

Margaux: And it is a situation. It is unlike when you apply for a job and you very much have a lot of negotiating power and say in where you want to go and what you want to do. It's not so much autonomy I would say. The match is basically an algorithm where you rank the places that you want to go in the order of preference they rank you. The match gives you preference as the applicant, but inevitably there are way more applicants than residency spots.

So there is so much pressure to feel like you have to perform well to do well on these interviews to get an X number of interviews to be "safe" in the match. And so it is definitely a lot of emotional and mental labor that goes into this process.

Harjit: But even then, you're not safe because there could be a person who just has one interview and could match. And there could be one who had like 15 and couldn't match.

Margaux: And you really never know. So it's a very stressful part of fourth year.

Harjit: Yeah. Definitely scary. And I think we have a lot of like ups and downs throughout the interview process because you go there like basically, "Show off about who I am," like why these people should hire me, but then you also have self-doubt because you don't know if you'll match. So it's this weird emotion of like staying confident, but then also knowing that like there is a reality that you won't match and then what will you do?

And I think that is like the struggle. It's something that I think that I've heard a lot of people would be like, oh, fourth year is awesome. And I feel like it's really difficult emotionally. And yes, it's true that some people might feel more stronger like they can make it just inherently because of their confidence and basically all the stuff that they had behind them. But some people, it's just really hard for you to have any stability.

Margaux: Shout out to all the fourth years. So today, because we've got a lot of energy in terms of being excited about interviews being over, we just want to talk about confessions from the interview trail.

Harjit: Confession, confession, confession.

Margaux: Yes. Inevitably, a lot of funny things happen. So let's start with the bane of interviews for me, which was traveling. And I don't know, I was actually meant to calculate how many miles I actually traveled, but it was a shit ton and too many. I'm way too familiar with flying now and how to pack a bag. I have so many little irritations about people going through security and all these things. So let's open up the floor. What are some travel disasters or plane disasters that you guys have encountered during interview season? Harjit.

Harjit: My turn. Hi. So I didn't miss any flights. I mean, like you know how the plane doesn't come on time, so you miss the flight.

Bushra: Delayed.

Harjit: It's like that type of situation. That happened to me like three times. And what I do when I'm like not feeling it is I eat food. And you know what was so annoying? I know this is so trivial but I was so irritated. They didn't have the Sour Patch watermelons. Utah is like the only place that has my Sour Patch watermelons and I was so upset.

Margaux: So why don't you pack them? It's a lot cheaper to do that too.

Harjit: I obviously didn't have that foresight.

Margaux: Foresight, yeah.

Harjit: Foresight?

Margaux: I'm like you Harjit: I have to be, you know the first one in my zone to be in line to get in my seat to put because it's all.

Bushra: You all are like bugging.

Margaux: I know.

Bushra: I was the last person to board the plane.

Margaux: I know and that stresses me out so much. It's for me it's about the overhead space because so pro-tip number one, we'll give pro tips throughout this, don't check your suit on interviews because you never know when they're going to lose your bag. So always bring it with you. And so then overhead space becomes very important. And so if you don't get on in the front of your zone, some other person is going to put their stupid little purse and their jacket, even though the flight attendants say no and take your space. So I'm the person who goes and lays claim . . .

Bushra: I was like, "Hey, whose jacket is this?"

Margaux: And she just throws it on the floor.

Bushra: I'm like, hey, need the space.

Leen: I really don't care. I have my suit like hanging with me and I just . . .

Margaux: Wait. How do you keep your suit?

Leen: I have this little bag thing that I carry it with. I guess it's in.

Bushra: You can ask the flight attendant to hang it up for you in the thing.

Margaux: And if the diamond gold metals sparkles status people took up all of it, then you don't get it.

Bushra: Then you fight.

Leen: I guess maybe, I don't know. I guess I've traveled to . . .

Bushra: I would like to speak to your manager.

Leen: Where's the pilot? Bring him out right now.

Bushra: I think for me the most stressful part about traveling is like during the winter obviously there's going to be bad weather and you can never control the weather and so delayed and canceled flights are super stressful.

I had an experience where I was flying from Boston to Indiana. I had my interview in Boston that same day, and then the next day I had to fly to Indiana for my interview that next morning. And I get to the airport and it was like, you know, sprinkling a little bit. By the time I got to the airport, it was a full-on like winter storm, and I was like, "Oh my God." So I'm like waiting to check my bag and the line is so long. I am looking at my phone like I finally get through to check in my bag. I still have some time left, get through security, go to my gate and then I get a notification on my phone that just says, "Oh your flight was delayed." And I was like, cool. I can go get a Starbucks, chill out, you know, munch on some snacks. And then I get a second notification on my phone. Your flight has been canceled. By that point . . .

Harjit: Straight up canceled?

Bushra: Canceled. No flights coming in or out of this airport today. And I was there like, "Bro, I got somewhere to be though. I can't be out here hanging out in Boston. I got to be in Indiana." You know what I'm saying?

And I was like, oh shit. Like I was supposed to make it in Indiana in time for the pre-interview dinner so when it was late, I was like, I guess I'm not going to the pre-interview dinner. And then when it was canceled, I was all like panic and like I don't know what to do. I'm like freaking the F out because I didn't want to miss the interview because I didn't want it to like reflect poorly on me.

I ended up emailing a couple of people at that institution, and they were all very like understanding that these things happen and all that stuff. But I didn't like . . . the amount of stress I felt, I wanted to cry in the airport. But I was just telling myself, "Girl, don't you cry in front of all these strangers. Not here. You got an ugly cry too. Like you know, don't be doing that."

Luckily I got onto the next flight early in the morning and like was able to make it to my interview by the skin of my teeth, but it was like just stressful dealing that with that one instance, and apparently these things happen all the time.

Margaux: Oh it's so true. One of my flights was canceled too, and I think it's just a product of having whose brilliant idea was it to put interview season not only in the middle of winter when the winter storms will delay your flights inevitably but also during flu and respiratory season.

Second pet peeve of flying, people who don't cover their mouth when they cough. Leen, you have a story.

Leen: So I'm sitting at the airport and this poor guy just kind of gives like the most minimal cough, like just kind of is more like throat clearing, right?

Bushra: Like mm-mm-mm, or ah-ah-ah?

Leen: Yeah, like that. This lady, she's an older woman. She turns to me and she says, "That stuff you learned from your mom, and apparently he wasn't raised right."

Bushra: What?

Leen: I was like, God, why are you talking to me? So the guy gets all awkward, like packs his stuff and leaves. Anyways, so then we start talking about . . .

Margaux: That's so rude.

Leen: I know, but hold up.

Bushra: It gets worse?

Leen: It gets even worse. Then she starts coughing. And I was like, I just kind of flinched a bit and she's like, "Oh, don't worry, honey. This is my emphysema. I'm a smoker." I was like, "Oh, okay. I can't catch that, right?" Well, guess on the flight home who started coughing like crazy? Then I come back home the next day. I had three weeks. Was it three weeks of bronchitis?

Harjit: Yeah, like every day you're like I'm sleeping because I feel sick.

Leen: Three freaking weeks of bronchitis.

Harjit: You couldn't even breathe and talk to me on the phone.

Leen: I don't remember those days.

Margaux: Basically, bring lots of hand sanitizer. Masks can't save you, so just don't breathe.

Bushra: One of those Lysol wipes or whatever.

Harjit: Or you can live like Harjit. Just like you can die any day, you can catch a cold any day. So whatever.

Leen: That's my motto. What are you talking about?

Bushra: I caught a respiratory virus when I came home for like the Christmas break, and I literally wanted to not do anything and lay in bed, and I was all phlegmy and disgusting and I was miserable. So I would say avoid all of that. Don't touch your face.

Margaux: Especially if you have to do an interview when your throat is sore and you're coughing, it's not a good look.

Bushra: Everybody knows. Can we talk about like taking your shoes off and then putting it in between like the seat in front of you? Who raised you all?

Margaux: Yeah, it is a confined space. Respect those around you.

Bushra: Leen?

Leen: I'm just like more nervous about TB. So I like turn up the fan on top of me to just like . . .

Bushra: I turn that ish off.

Leen: No, you got to turn it on.

Bushra: No. I turn it on or off.

Margaux: Airborne. Let us know on Instagram air on or off. Okay. Leen, you drove a lot. Tell us about that.

Leen: Yeah, I drove to a lot of them. So one of them was in Amish country. I did not plan that one very well at all. But my first time renting a car, it was already dark. It was going towards Lake Erie and it was super foggy and the highways were very small, not like over here in the West, I guess. They have very small highways.

Harjit: Horror movie scenes.

Leen: Yeah. And like the trees were all like twisted and like in the road. It was insane. Anyway, so I'm like I'm just going to drive slow because I feel like I'm going to run over something, and I see something like weird alternating on the ground. I was like, what in the good God walks like that? Like what is this? I look up and it's a horse, and then I look up even more and it's a carriage and I like slammed the brake. I almost ran over like four Amish carriages, you guys. Yeah.

Bushra: Did they not see you?

Leen: So they have these little reflectors, but they're not like, they're not spaced exactly the way you would recognize a car. I didn't recognize it.

Harjit: So once we finally make our destination, what do you all think about the interview pre-dinners?

Bushra: My experience has been it's either really, really great, like goes off without a hitch, talk to all the residents, like super bomb. Good food. Right?

Harjit: I will say a plug for that because sometimes I'd be so hungry and I'm like I'm just going to wait till the interview dinner. I'm going to eat all the food. And I was the one who would like first go grab the food, eat because I was like I'm hungry and I like food. I want people to know that's something that I care about when I interview. So I just am the first one. I pick up everything.

Margaux: Oh, yeah. I'd say don't be shy to order. If you want a filet mignon, this is your time. Like you don't have to pay for it.

Harjit: Don't be shy.

Margaux: You paid for the flight to get there and the stress that you're enduring to do the interview. Get what you want.

Harjit: And I tried to be a little bit more like relaxed at those dinners. I really believe that every person should just be who they are.

Bushra: During those dinners.

Harjit: Yeah, because a program will want you for who you are.

Bushra: And it's good to get a feel for the residents and how even they interact with each other and see if you would be a good fit with the program dynamics. So it either goes like that or sometimes it's just like awkward. I don't like the sit-down dinners.

Margaux: It goes like one of two ways where, you know, it's just a natural conversation and you blend very well with that group of residents and people. Or it's very awkward and the resident just ends up asking you what question do you have about this program, which will become your worst question. Like the worst thing you could ever hear by the end of interview season.

I don't know. I had never appreciated that, but I always appreciated the residents that just naturally started a conversation and they tell you a little bit about the program, but then you might find a commonality and start talking about whatever. And those usually were the better dinners.

Harjit: I want to add another thing. My favorite dinners, I know I only talk about the food, but my favorite dinners was when they kept on ordering appetizers and it was like, "Ooh, I want to try that fried thing." It was where you were just like chilling, hanging out, eating a whole bunch of appetizers, just letting loose and finding out about these people that matched into this program. So after the first one, I wasn't nervous. It usually went well. I made sure I like fed myself, got to know the people. But I think that a lot of people do find them draining, especially if your personality isn't that way.

Margaux: Extrovert. That's me, me and Leen over here. So either you're really excited by it or you're drained. If you're more of an introvert, you go home, sleep. I loved watching Netflix. You know, that was my way to turn off my mind and get ready for bed. And then the next day you're interviewed. Usually, they start at like seven, eight-ish. Sometimes they feed you breakfast, sometimes they don't. They don't tell you.

Bushra: They don't?

Harjit: I love the places that fed breakfast.

Bushra: Every program fed breakfast.

Harjit: If programs are listening, please feed us breakfast. We love breakfast.

Margaux: But my pet peeve is when they didn't feed you breakfast but they didn't tell you. So then you'd show up and be hangry AF when you were interviewing because you didn't eat breakfast before you got there and you didn't know there wasn't going to be food.

Leen: I'm too nervous to eat breakfast anyway.

Margaux: Oh really?

Leen: Yeah.

Bushra: I had a nice little cup of tea and maybe like some fruit or something. I don't eat anything big for breakfast.

Harjit: I love breakfast.

Margaux: Me too. No, I'm with you.

Harjit: No, I know that you show up and every program usually does an orientation and it answers all your questions. But again, the question will always be do you have any questions about our program?

Margaux: And I think part of it, they want to give you the opportunity, but it's also a way to fill time. I feel like it's if they haven't prepared or read my application, they're just asking that.

Harjit: Actually, you're right Margaux, because there were some places where they didn't ask me that question often and we usually like hit off talking about something because you know we just kind of got into the groove. It felt more natural. That's one thing I hope we have a cultural shift. Isn't it obvious you should ask questions about a program and by asking do you have any questions sometimes it . . .

Bushra: One thing that like turns me off is when a program obviously did not read your application because they don't know anything about you whatsoever.

Harjit: And there's a lot of programs that don't.

Bushra: And it makes me wonder, we pay a lot of money for our applications to go out to these programs that we're applying to, and so when I can clearly tell that you have no idea who I am, you haven't read my application but you extended an interview.

Harjit: And it makes you wonder why did you get that interview then?

Bushra: Yeah. Is it me as a whole person? Is it me a number that was cut off and that's why you like extended the interview invite? And then that also makes me like question the program itself and like what they value. I was always happy when they mentioned something specifically from my application. One program director like read directly word for word, like a piece of my personal statement and I like was taken aback by that. You don't see that very often.

Harjit: Yeah. I really appreciated when someone read my application and wanted to talk further about it, because I spent so much time doing the stuff that I wrote in the application. I was passionate about it. I wanted to share my story with others. I loved it when people asked more about me, my story, why I cared about what I was doing.

Margaux: So for reflection on how the institution but also that person interviewing you thinks about the application process and you as a person sitting in front of you, do they really want to get to know you, or do they just want to test you and see what questions you'll ask when they ask, "Do you have any questions?" And that's not the kind of institution I want to be at. One that isn't doing the work to get to know me because I'm trying to get to know them.

And something I learned, later on, was it's perfectly okay to say, "I don't have any questions at the moment. Do you have any questions about me or for me?"

Harjit: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I love that too.

Bushra: Yeah, I got very comfortable with that, because at the end of the day, we'll all ask the questions that are important to us. To me, at least, it's a little disingenuous to just ask a question just for the hell of it.

Harjit: That was one of the biggest thing that like I wish would be different.

Margaux: Do you have any commentary on this topic, Leen? Do you have any questions?

Leen: No. I kind of just based my questions over my passions. So I'll ask about like what kind of high school outreach do you have? What kind of diversity initiatives do you have? Is it feasible for your residents to do like research projects in like these kinds of fields? They give us paper that have all the information on like money, insurance, cost of living, all these things. I was just going to make sure that I could fit there rather than like . . .

Harjit: I love how you say that, Leen, because I think there's one thing that I took away from the entire interview season. All of these programs are usually accredited. Then it's really important to go to the next step, which is, is this a good fit for me and am I a good fit for them? But, you know, there's still that fear, and I think we've talked about this in a lot of podcasts before, it's just that instability insecurity, like you don't know if you'll match or not. So when the program is like you're interviewing us just as much as we are interviewing you. In my head I was like, nah, I need a job after this. Like it's not the same, even though I wish it was. So there is still that pressure.

Margaux: Right. There's still that element of relying on that institution to rank you high. Even if you know it's not a perfect fit, you still, like you said, at the end of the day need to be trained and you need to get a job. And so there's that element of pressure like you're talking about, Harjit.

So did any of you have any super awkward questions, or what was like the most interesting question you got asked?

Leen: Tell me a time where you were in a conflict, and I was like, "Which one?" So I sat there for like five minutes. Maybe that's a little exaggerated, but I sat there for a while thinking, and it almost looked like I didn't know what to say. But then I was like, "Oh sorry, I'm just trying to sort through which ones I should tell you about." And they were like, "What?"

Harjit: Yeah, because that's real. Right?

Leen: I know. And I was like, yeah, like all of med school I've had things come up and I've made it this far. So there's your answer. You know what I mean? It just caught me off guard. I was like, obviously that's such a basic question. I shouldn't have been surprised by it, but then I was like, yeah, which one have I?

Margaux: I think you feed a lot into the inner, the person who asks you that question and you like want to think like what's relevant to the situation and their office.

Leen: Yeah, he had like a funny mustache and like this weird '80s glasses. I'm like, what is he going to know?

Margaux: Right. Yeah. You kind of want to pick something that's good for the situation. There's so much thought that goes behind it.

Leen: So much thought. But actually, one thing that this one school did, oh, my gosh, you guys, they made us sit through their lectures, their resident lectures for our interview. We sat there for three hours.

Bushra: I would have been so pissed.

Leen: I was so mad.

Bushra: I would have been so pissed.

Leen: I was like, how many bathroom breaks can I take? I was so over it.

Margaux: We had a group interview. That was kind of awkward.

Bushra: Oh that's different.

Harjit: Oh, I've never heard group interviews.

Margaux: They got a big table and the person who's conducting the interview just came in and they had read our personal statements and they went around the room and asked us a question from our personal statement, and we had 5, 10 minutes to answer that question in front of everybody else too.

Harjit: That's so cool.

Margaux: So it's cool, but it was also like scary.

Harjit: Interesting.

Bushra: What was the purpose of that?

Margaux: They were administrative director for the hospitals. I don't think they had enough time to interview everybody, but they wanted to. And I think also just to see how you present yourself in front of others. That's my thought.

Harjit: Wow. That's very different. I've not experienced that.

Margaux: I felt like I was spending so much time thinking about what I was going to say or what question they could have asked me than listening to other people.

Harjit: You couldn't pay attention.

Margaux: And so it's kind of awkward in that. And then you hear everybody else, and then, of course, the imposter syndrome sets in and I kind of, yeah, it was difficult but interesting.

Bushra: Imposter syndrome is hella real, you guys. I don't know if you guys did this, but I constantly compared myself to other applicants. I try not to do that because, you know, we all deserve to be there in some regard. But it's hard to like go to an interview and you see like Harvard Medical School, Yale Medical School, like all these Ivy League students. And I'm like, you know what, I'm from the University of Utah. And what? You know what I'm saying.

Harjit: Yes, you are.

Bushra: I'm representing too. Yeah, you went to an Ivy League. But I deserve to be here too.

Margaux: And I have a podcast.

Bushra: And I ooh. But like that stuff, I try to not let it get to me, but it's like a lot of people put value in those names.

Harjit: People do. It like already biases people, which school you went to, so then it impacts the way you feel, right?

Margaux: Yeah. I cried during an interview.

Harjit: You did?

Margaux: I totally did.

Harjit: You never told.

Margaux: I feel like maybe I did or didn't it, but I'm so in psychiatry I think you're one of the harder interviews to do because psychiatrists and sometimes psychodynamic therapists that are interviewing you and inherently it feels like a therapy session.

Harjit: And also psychoanalyzing you.

Margaux: And they give you no feedback in their face because that's what they're trained to do. It's so hard to tell versus like on the ped side for a triple board, everyone's so happy and bubbly and you can totally like tell if what you just said resonated with that person. Psych people, you have no idea if they hate you, love you or what.

I was about to be on my period so, you know, emotionally labile. And for me it's also more emotionally labile because I've been trying to get pregnant. And so she asked me like a difficult time that I had been going through recently, and of course that just like rocked me to my core, because I thought about like, you know, how I've been trying to get pregnant and having a lot of thoughts and like struggles with that. And I just, the waterworks started and I was like, "Oh."

She was like, that was the one time I saw a psychodynamic therapist give some emotion and she's like, "Are you okay?" And I was like, "Well, I've been trying to get pregnant and I can't, and it's really difficult and the whole system is so oppressive," and blah blah.

Anyways, it turned out being okay, but it was kind of embarrassing to cry. Although I felt if it was going to be with anybody, why not be in a therapist office. So I'm sure she understood on some level, but in my mind, I really do wonder what she thought about it.

I think you can be like, okay, the person who's not afraid to show their emotions or like that person can't control their emotion. It's kind of fun too going in and not knowing them and then seeing what they know about you and then having that conversation and see where it goes, but it is super difficult to get a good night's sleep. I feel like you're in a new place. You're worrying about waking up on time, if your alarm is going to go off on time.

Bushra: I am that person every time I'm away from home, I have a hard time sleeping. Like there was a lot of times where I like fell asleep at like 4:35, 5:00 a.m. and I had to be there at 7:30, 8:00.

Margaux: Oh wow.

Bushra: I was running on fumes for a hot second there, which is probably why I got sick but that's neither here nor there.

Margaux: It's airplanes. We were bugging about the airplanes.

Bushra: But yeah, just be yourself, which is a hard thing to do and they expect you to dress in a fricking suit, which you'd never would do otherwise and you feel like you have to be on your best behavior. But for the most part, I feel like people know how to act. Just showcase yourself and what you care about.

Margaux: And then also a plug in that vein so thinking about changing the system, here's my genius idea, everybody should just wear scrubs to the interview.

Bushra: Yes, because we wear scrubs in the hospital anyways. Technically it is professional dress.

Margaux: It's professional dress. We would all look the same still. Even more so than in suits and like dress clothes and you'd be more comfortable and casual, and I think you just like settle in a little bit better and then you get a feel for like what their scrubs are like. So just putting that out there, then you don't have to carry around a suit anyways and take up overhead space.

Harjit: And if airports can really get Sour Patch the melon, watermelon sour thingies, I would love it. I don't know if people listen to the podcast.

Bushra: Girl, just pack your own Sour Patch Kids.

Margaux: Okay, done.

Bushra: And just the final thought is you'll get interview invites and you'll feel the pressure to go to every single one of the interviews that you get. Like Harjit mentioned, you are obviously interviewing for a job next year, you have to match somewhere, and so you feel this enormous pressure to accept every single interview invite that you get because of that fear.

I would say that if you're generally not interested in the program or not interested in living somewhere, you don't have to accept those interview invites and it's okay to also cancel interviews that you don't want to go to anymore. And trust me, it won't feel so awesome when you do it because I was in that position too when I canceled a couple of interviews. I immediately was like, "Oh my God, I just made a mistake." It is okay. You will feel those things, but it's okay to feel those things because there is an element of wondering what's going to happen in the future. And that's inevitable, but I think your peace of mind is more important than anything else. And so that's what I would say.

Margaux: Also, I would say if there's a thought in your head that like, "I should cancel, I should cancel." It's probably going to become more pervasive, and interview etiquette is to give at least one week's notice for cancellations, ideally more. So if you are thinking about it and that thought is staying there, you should probably just do it and get it over with.

Okay. Thanks for listening, tuning in. We hope you enjoyed listening to our banter about all the good and the bad things that happened on interview season. If you have your own stories, please share with us at Bundle Of Hers on Instagram or on Facebook. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time.

Bushra: Bye.

Margaux: That's it, Bushra?

Bushra: What? Do I have to say something?

Margaux: Bye-bye.

Bushra: Oh, I forgot. I'm a little rusty. Hold up, hold up.

Margaux: Bushra, a little rusty.

Bushra: And until next time folks, bye-bye.

Margaux: What is that shit, Bushra?