So you have spent some time in Interventional Radiology and have decided that you are interested in specializing in this field. We can appreciate that this is a difficult decision for you so our goal is to make the next steps as easy as possible for you.
Step 1
Introduce Yourself
This first step can never be overstated. Now is definitely not the time to be shy. Whether you are considering IR as your future specialty or have made that decision and are now beginning the application process, please stop by and say hello. We are here to help you and the only way we can do that is to know who you are. Make an appointment with our department chair, our program director, or any member of our faculty by calling (518) 262-2397 and speaking to Rachelle Stepnowski. We are looking forward to meeting you.
Step 2
Request An IR Advisor
One of the reasons we are excited about the new IR training pathway is the opportunity to help mentor and advise medical students as they make plans to enter this field. At our institution, once you introduce yourself to us and express your interest in IR, we try and get to know you as an individual so we can pair you with a member of our attending staff. It is our hope that these relationships can help create opportunities for our medical students to learn more about IR and be certain about their career choice.
Step 3
Participate In IR-Related Activities
The path from deciding on a specialty to preparing an application for residency training is a delicate balance between a strong academic performance and allocating the time necessary to build a CV indicative of your interest in IR. It is our belief that the activities our students choose to participate in should best reflect their individual interests as opposed to what they perceive as being necessary to gain acceptance into an IR residency. Yes, gaining admission to an integrated IR residency program is a competitive process, one that requires both academic success and participation in IR-related activities. However, there are many options that fall under the heading of "participation in IR-related activities," including preclinical or clinical research, quality improvement projects, education-related initiatives, society-based (Society of Interventional Radiology) activities, and of course, patient-care services. Each of these activities affords our students the opportunity to learn more about this field (so that they can be certain of the direction they have chosen) and to demonstrate the commitment to their career choice that programs are often seeking. We will help you choose activities that directly relate to your individual interests so that you can enthusiastically participate and maximally succeed. This will ultimately position you in the best light possible on your application for residency.
Step 4
Prepare Your Application
The quality of your ERAS application and personal statement will determine whether a program will offer you an interview. This cannot be over emphasized. It is always best to plan as early as possible in medical school regarding your chosen extracurricular activities so that you can best highlight the story of how you arrived at your decision to pursue interventional radiology as a career. Program directors like to see applicants participate in a few of the IR-related activities mentioned above, all of which take time to accomplish. Rushing this process is easy to detect and will negatively impact your candidacy. To this end, it is not essential that everything you participate in during medical school focus only on interventional radiology. Explore your passions and investigate the various medical specialties that interest you, but do this with a plan in mind. Try to kill several birds with one stone. Let's say that you are considering neurosurgery and interventional radiology as a potential career choice. A research project in neurosurgery that includes percutaneous image guided intervention could be utilized on an application or personal statement for either specialty by highlighting the specifics of the project that best tell the narrative of what most interested you and led you to your career choice. The best ERAS applications and personal statements are those that show your organic, sincere interest progression where the essence of the specialty can be tied to your experiences, skills, and personal traits. If you have planned correctly during your medical school time, the ERAS application and personal statement should nearly write themselves.
So, now that you have your content for the ERAS application and personal statement, how should you begin the organization process so that you can entice a program director to offer you an interview? The answer to this question involves knowing what a program director looks for in an appropriate candidate. Most program directors approach this fairly simplistically. He or she only wants you to demonstrate a few things, which include the necessary intellectual capacity for the specialty, the track-record of working hard in school and in your chosen extracurricular activities, and the evidence of specialty engagement and commitment to IR (to minimize the likelihood that you will change your mind at some point in the future, leaving the program with a vacant position). For better or worse, your Step 1 score will likely be your first hurdle for your candidacy. At most programs, your application will not be reviewed if you fall below a threshold; this is because Step 1 scores do correlate with success on the ABR certification exams. The threshold will differ at different programs. If you perceive that your Step 1 score is borderline, then we recommend taking Step 2 with the goal of improving your score.
The portion of the ERAS application that relates to your CV should be well organized, chronological and of significant substance to show a program director that you have thought long and hard about your career choice. The personal statement should be well organized and show the thought process you used to arrive at your career choice. Students should construct a personal statement as an inverted triangle. This means that the beginning of the personal statement should be about the medical subspecialty fields that you explored trying to have some discussion of how these fields are related, in some manner, in your mind. Then demonstrate how you solidified your decision by shadowing, research, electives, and all other means by which you selected IR as your ultimate career choice. The discussion of a research project should obviously relate in some manner to interventional radiology, i.e. imaging or percutaneous image guided procedures, to best demonstrate your passion for IR to the program director. The conclusion of the personal statement should summarize the aspects of interventional radiology that you have observed and how your personality traits and skills could best contribute to patient care and the field as a whole. Our program director will be happy to review your ERAS application and personal statement before it is submitted.
Step 5
Interviews
The interview clearly represents the most important part of the application process. You should know that the interview is about the program getting to know you and you getting to know the program. From the program's perspective, the interview is the only opportunity to expand on what you have included on your application so that a determination can be made as to whether or not your background and the activities you engaged in throughout medical school have prepared you for a career in IR. In addition, the interview allows the program to assess whether or not you would complement the existing group of residents and attendings at that particular program. As a result, we encourage you to simply be yourself. You should not try and be the person you think the program is looking for. Instead, it is important for you to find opportunities to tell the interviewers about who you are professionally (by discussing your activities relating to IR) and personally (by discussing the aspects of your personality that lend themselves to IR and to being a part of that particular program in that particular city).
Do not forget that the interview is a two-way street. This is the time for you to learn as much as you can about the program and to determine if you can picture yourself working with those individuals in that hospital and living in that city. In order to make that determination, we encourage you to learn as much as you can about each program you are visiting. Today, a lot of information is available online so it expected that you will review hospital-based websites and other resources to maximize the amount of information you obtain about the program prior to your visit. You should then make the effort to talk to as many current residents as possible throughout the day. The most thoughtful programs will arrange time for you to informally interact with their residents, and it is important to take advantage of that time. If there is an evening event such as a dinner with current residents, we strongly encourage you to arrive in time to attend. While these events are of course optional, attendance gives more people the chance to meet you and to advocate on your behalf. Be yourself when talking to the residents at the program and see each person as someone you may be working with within a year or two. At the same time, you should always remember that every interaction with either residents, fellows, attendings, and especially coordinators may be part of the interview process at that institution so you must always be professional.
The interview process itself will likely involve you meeting with several members of the attending staff as well as with one or more of the present residents. Nobody will be trying to fool you during an interview. The questions asked will, in general, be straightforward. We strongly encourage you to have well thought-out answers to all of the obvious or classic interview questions including the following:
- "Why do you want to go into IR?"
- "Why do you want to come to this program?"
- "Why do you want to live in this city?"
- "Describe your strengths and weaknesses."
- "What do you like to do in your free time?"
- "Where do you picture yourself in 10 years?"
While these questions may not necessarily give you the opportunity to highlight yourself as a unique applicant for that particular program, they do provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate how you have prepared for the interview. In other words, if you do not have well prepared answers to these questions, then a program can question your desire to succeed in this process. Take your time before the interview season to prepare thoughtful answers to these questions so you can quickly move past them and onto others that will allow you to differentiate yourself from other applicants. If there is a reason why you have a particular desire to be at a specific program, make sure that you discuss that at some point during the interview process.
In general, most interviewers will afford you the opportunity to ask questions about the program before the conclusion of the interview. Take advantage of that opportunity. Ask thoughtful questions but don't feel that you have to make up questions just to fill up the time. In general, most departmental websites are not 100% complete so reading through the site will likely generate some questions. Come prepared.
Step 6
Prepare Your Match List
It is difficult to provide concrete advice for our students during this part of the application process. Ultimately, the most important thing to remember when preparing your match list is to order the programs based on your individual preference. In other words, figure out where you want to go and place the programs in that order. That is it. Do not over-think it. Do not place the programs in an order based on how much you think they liked you. The system works best when the applicants order the programs based on their individual preferences and the programs do the same with the individuals they have interviewed.
It gets interesting when you start to try and figure out what "based on your individual preference" actually means. This is going to be different for different people. For some students, location will be the primary factor driving a rank list. If you want to be in a particular city, and that is the most important factor for you, then it makes sense to rank your programs based on their location. If other factors such as academic reputation, clinical reputation, and size are most important to you, then rank your programs based on that particular factor. The common theme is that students have to do some soul-searching and determine their individual preferences. That is easier said than done, but once you make that determination, ranking your programs should be a relatively painless process. Our program director is available at any time to review your list before submission.