Find out how to prepare for your residency interview and how to answer common questions like “Tell me about yourself.” In this blog, we’ll go over some of the most common emergency medicine residency interview questions and give you examples of how to answer them.
Landing an interview for an emergency physician role is a major accomplishment It means your application and credentials have impressed the hiring team enough to warrant a closer look Now comes the most critical part – acing the interview.
With competition stiff for these in-demand jobs, you’ll need to thoroughly prepare to stand out. This complete guide covers everything you need to know to crush your emergency physician interview.
Why Interviews Matter So Much
Emergency medicine is a high stakes fast-paced specialty. Hiring managers need to ensure candidates have both the clinical expertise and soft skills to thrive. Interviews allow them to fully assess applicant’s
- Medical knowledge
- Decision making abilities
- Communication skills
- Collaborative abilities
- Resilience
- Passion for emergency medicine
They’ll evaluate how you respond to tough questions and think on your feet. The interview is your chance to demonstrate you’re a perfect culture fit who will provide exceptional patient care. With rigorous preparation, you can develop compelling responses that highlight your qualifications.
Research the Facility and Role
Thoroughly research the hospital or facility you’re interviewing with. Understand their mission, values, and patient population. Review the job description closely as well. This enables you to tailor responses, emphasizing how your background and skills directly meet their needs.
Ask insightful questions too. This demonstrates genuine interest in the role and organizational fit. Preparation showcases your dedication to providing their patient population with top-notch emergency care.
Expect Curveball Questions
Emergency medicine interviews often include behavioral and situational questions. These require you to provide specific examples from your clinical experiences. Expect curveballs like:
- Tell me about a time you made a mistake. What did you learn?
- When have you gone above and beyond for a patient?
- How do you handle conflict with colleagues?
Preparing detailed stories from your rotations, volunteering, or past jobs illustrates how you’ll handle real-world scenarios. Have smooth stories ready highlighting times you provided compassionate care, resolved conflict, or recovered from an error.
Know Your CV Inside and Out
Hiring managers may ask you to walk through parts of your CV or resume. Be intimately familiar with your qualifications, from publications to conference presentations. Refresh yourself on key details of all your clinical experiences, research projects, and leadership roles.
You want to avoid hesitating or needing to look at your CV. Confidently conveying your accomplishments and abilities is key. If there are any gaps in your training, have a smooth explanation ready.
Practice Common Questions
While each interviewer has their own style, there are common questions asked. Practice these until your responses flow naturally:
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Why emergency medicine? Convey your passion for the fast-paced nature of ER medicine and helping patients with critical needs.
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Strengths and weaknesses? Discuss strengths like communication skills, resilience, and passion for learning. For weaknesses, share areas you actively work to improve.
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Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Express your short and long-term goals within emergency medicine. Highlight hopes to gain skills, advance to leadership roles, take on teaching/research opportunities etc.
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Why our program? Link your skills and values directly to details you learned about that specific residency. Show how you’ll contribute to their mission.
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Tell me about yourself. Craft a smooth, focused 1-2 minute story highlighting your medical journey, passion for emergency medicine, and a unique fact about yourself.
Dress for Success
Your appearance conveys professionalism and attention to detail. Follow these tips:
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Wear a freshly pressed suit in a dark neutral color like black, charcoal, or navy blue.
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Make sure your dress shirt is crisp and shoes freshly polished.
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Limit jewelry to small earrings and avoid heavy perfume/cologne.
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Neatly style your hair off your face and keep facial hair closely trimmed.
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Bring extra copies of your CV, license, and other certifications in a professional portfolio.
Act Professionally
From your body language to your responses, present yourself as a consummate professional throughout the interview.
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Offer a firm handshake, make eye contact, and smile.
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Speak clearly and avoid filler words like “umm” or “like.”
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Answer questions directly while weaving in relevant details. Don’t ramble.
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Show enthusiasm by sitting upright and leaning forward slightly.
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Ask thoughtful questions that show your interest.
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Thank interviewers sincerely for their time. Send prompt thank you notes.
Get Help Preparing
Consider working with a career coach familiar with emergency medicine interviews. They can provide invaluable feedback on your responses and presentation skills through mock interviews.
Ask experienced physicians to share their tips as well. The more prepared and polished you are, the more confidently you can present yourself as the ideal candidate.
With these strategies, you’ll be ready to wow interviewers and land the emergency physician job you want. Best of luck!
Article Contents 13 minread
Emergency medicine is a medical specialty that focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of acute illnesses and injuries. Emergency medicine physicians provide immediate care for patients in need, often in an emergency department or trauma unit. They are also called upon when there is no doctor available at the time of urgent care. This is because emergency medicine is one of the most competitive residency programs, and it can be hard to get into one. The number of applicants far exceeds the number of available residency positions, and many applicants are well qualified. Thus, it’s important to understand how the matching process works before applying. Also, make sure you’re ready for your emergency medicine residency interview; it could be your only chance to impress the program director and other residents. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about matching into an emergency medicine residency program if you want to become an emergency medicine doctor.
10 Common Emergency Medicine Interview Questions and Answers
1) What do you think is the biggest issue facing emergency medicine today?
I believe the main issue facing emergency medicine right now is the lack of staff and the large number of patients. Even though doctors and nurses work together to manage the capacity and do everything they can to make sure patients’ needs are met and lives are saved, it can get too much for them to handle. I believe that our healthcare system needs more help from the government and bigger, more up-to-date hospitals where people want to work. This could keep emergency medicine workers from getting burned out and help with capacity issues that might slow down care for patients.
2) Why emergency medicine?
As someone who loves helping people with serious illnesses and injuries in busy places, I think emergency medicine is the right field for me. I’ve worked with people in the acute and trauma wings who had a wide range of illnesses, injuries, and problems. During my ER clerkship, which happened during the global pandemic, I also faced many challenges. However, I was able to adapt and keep going with my team as we learned how to help patients with severe viral symptoms and the rest of the busy ER. I do best when I work with others, and I’m sure I can be a part of a team in the ER and one day lead one. I believe that emergency medicine offers many chances to learn and connect with patients. On the first day of my first ER rotation, I knew that the emergency room was exactly what I had imagined before starting my MD program. I was able to finish my rounds every day and learn something new from both the patients I was working with and the doctors I was working with.
3) What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses pertaining to residency?
When it comes to emergency medicine, my biggest strength is that I naturally know how to work well and smoothly under pressure. I like being in busy, chaotic places, and stress never seems to bother me. I can communicate clearly and act fast even in high-stress situations. During my clerkship, I saw this firsthand one night when the ER got a lot of viral patients, five women giving birth, and about a dozen trauma patients all in a few hours. Not only were nurses, doctors, and other MD students, including myself, working hard to make sure we took care of the most critical patients as quickly as possible, but we were also able to stabilize other patients and set up a rhythm so that all of their needs would be met in a timely and orderly way.
My greatest weakness would be that I tend to overthink after the fact. Most of the time, I make the smartest and most sensible choices, even when I’m in a hurry. But I do sometimes think about it and wonder if I acted quickly enough or if I could have said something different. I know this is sometimes called “imposter syndrome,” and it happens in all areas of medicine and in all kinds of jobs! On that busy night in the ER, I felt my stomach drop as I wondered if my team made the right choice by choosing to take one patient before another, or if I had shown more care in my interactions with individuals or been more “on edge.” Of course, everything I did was for the patient’s benefit, but I need to have more faith in my own authority, skills, and knowledge.
4) Can you talk about a time when you had a patient that was upsetting or hard to deal with, and how you dealt with it?
Unfortunately, some of the patients I worked with during medical school were not very nice. For example, I have dealt with parents of young children in emergency rooms who try to talk over the doctor or make demands that can’t be met. When dealing with these kinds of situations, the first thing I did was be understanding and professional. I know that parents often care most about their child’s well-being. After that, I would continue by telling them what we knew to be true, like what the child’s current symptoms were and if they had a fever at any point. In one case, the child wasn’t in any kind of distress; they were just waiting for several hours with many other people to have their minor fracture treated. I knew the patient and their parents were tired of waiting, but when they begged and complained that they wanted to see the ER doctor faster than other patients, I told them that the emergency room had also seen a lot of serious illnesses and injuries that night, and that even though their child had a minor injury, they had been triaged appropriately and would not get worse while they were waiting. Sometimes, the only thing that can be done is to calmly tell patients that emergency rooms deal with both serious and minor emergencies and reassure them that they are being cared for.
5) What do you think is the most important quality of a good doctor?
Empathy and the ability to think rationally. Being able to understand and care about a patient’s or team member’s situation and making the best decision, even if it’s not the easiest, are the qualities I believe make a good doctor who can give great care to their patients. As an emergency room nurse, I’ve talked to people who were in terrible situations—losing a baby or a loved one—and while my first instinct is to make the best medical decision and act quickly, I have also learned to show empathy, let them know that you care, and do what you think is the most reasonable and best thing for that patient at that very moment. A patient may feel less alone in their despair if they know that their doctor is human and understands how they feel, like fear or grief.
6) What do you think is the most challenging aspect of working in an emergency department?
I think that the reality of most emergency departments—that they can be overcrowded and overwhelming—is a challenging aspect. Even though I like working in fast-paced places, the “rush” can be hard sometimes, especially during shifts when a lot of sick or injured patients come in at once and need a lot of care. Patients who are seriously hurt or sick may have to wait longer and get impatient. To keep a calm mind and put the patient’s well-being first, I would just try to quickly but thoroughly go through each patient in order of triage, keep a professional but understanding attitude (because patients will be upset if they have to wait for hours), and make the patients’ short time with the doctor worth it. It’s most important to give a patient clear information, a diagnosis, or “next steps,” and I will do this even if I’m pushed.
7) Have you had any relevant leadership experience?
I have led a volunteer group at the XYZ Children’s Hospital for three years. As part of my job, I set up meet-and-greets, virtual and in-person reading buddies, and other activities that help pre-med students get experience in a hospital setting in a way that helps kids. During my clinical rotations, my team and I switched roles, with each of us taking turns leading while we were in the hospitals.
8) Have you ever had a clinical experience or patient encounter that taught you something new about yourself?
From a pediatric oncology patient I knew for two years, I’ve learned to enjoy every moment and know that doctors are flawed. If you volunteered at XYZ Children’s Hospital, I taught you how to control your feelings while still being kind and understanding with patients who were naturally hard to see. While a two-year-old was playing with her visiting family and smiling, she was in critical condition the next day. It was hard, but I was able to focus on the patient in front of me and put their care and mental health first whenever I could. I hid my feelings so the patient and their family would only see a confident and positive doctor. I wanted to make them smile, even if it was just for a moment, or give them a split second of comfort. I learned that we can’t save everyone, but we can do our best to save as many as we can, help them, make them feel better, and be the best doctors we can be. Seeing this young patient stay positive through several surgeries made me value every moment I’ve been given and inspired me to become a great doctor.
9) What qualities and skills do you bring to this field?
I’m dedicated and interested in emergency medicine, and I want to help as many patients as I can in the best way possible. I’m also driven to keep learning and growing as I go through my residency. I’m a great multitasker who enjoys working with teams and thrives in fast-paced, tense settings. I am confident in my ability to make logical decisions quickly, and I have a wonderful bedside manner. Working in a busy emergency room and pediatric oncology in the past forced me to work quickly, set priorities for patients, and act quickly when needed. Seeing rare diseases and conditions in emergency medicine and oncology sparked a curiosity I didn’t know I had. Each disease I learned more about by talking to doctors and patients made me realize I’m a lifelong learner who will always be eager to gain new knowledge, especially if it can help my future patients.
10) Tell me about yourself.
I grew up in Anytown, NY and was a very shy and book-smart kid. From a very young age, I thought that the stories I read gave me a lot of meaning, and I related to the characters in my books. I tried to connect with and help them. Sometimes I think this is because I’m a naturally good “helper.”
In high school, I began taking drama classes. Though I was naturally interested in science, my love of stories and the arts really helped me do well on stage and gain the confidence to talk to people. This was also when I saw a treasured staff member fight—and succumb to—a terrible battle with cancer. As much as this hurt me, that’s what drove me to pursue medicine. I wanted to work in a field where I could use my emotional intelligence to help people through their worst times so they could have more good times. During college, I started getting experience for when I want to become a doctor by volunteering as a scribe at a local pediatrician’s office and doing shadowing at an outpatient addiction clinic at a hospital. I learned how to be extra kind and patient with young patients, as well as with people who were having trouble with addiction and mental health. That’s when I decided to volunteer in pediatric oncology at XYZ Children’s Hospital. Working with the kids there not only made me more sure that I wanted to be a doctor (I loved talking to all the kids), but it also helped me deal with death and illness in a healthy and realistic way.
I’m passionate about what I do, and innately empathetic. I’ve always been logical, though, and I think that comes from both my background in science and my early reading. I don’t really recognize the shy child I used to be because I’m so outgoing and sure of myself in group situations. But I haven’t forgotten her; her curiosity and willingness to try new things and enjoy different hobbies while she was in school is what got me to where I am now and what led me to my amazing volunteer experience in oncology and my MD program, where I did so well.
