Hello and welcome back to EM Clerkship. My name is Maddie Watts and this is my series on applying and interviewing for emergency medicine residency.

Application season is in full swing for 2022. It's kind of wild to think that it's been over a year since I went through it myself.

I hope this catches you guys at the right time. I was meaning to get it

out a little bit earlier, but I unfortunately caught a cold and I'm still adjusting to intern year,

so please forgive me. I know that even without my advice, the fact that you're proactive enough

as to listen to this podcast means that you're going to crush it on interviews. And that's

our topic for today, crushing your

interviews. Before we get started on the more logistical components of preparing for and

acing your interviews, I want to start with a little pep talk. And I hope by the end of this pep talk

that you'll be able to see interviews in a bit of a different light. I used to hate nothing more than

getting to an interview and having someone say to me, don't be nervous. It's just a conversation.

We just want to get to know you. In my head, I would always think, sure, it's just a conversation for

you, except for this conversation determines the entire trajectory of the next several years of my life.

And although I used to hate when people would say that, the more I reflect back on interview season,

the more I think that they're right.

Interviews are just a conversation.

Think about it in this way.

So much of medical school and residency and the medical field in

general is about comparison, evaluations, scores, etc. If you think about your ERAS application,

other than your personal statement, pretty much everything that you've submitted is some

kind of comparison or benchmark

that you've had to meet. The interview is the first time that none of that really matters.

...