Supporting a Spouse Through Residency Applications and Interviews – with Step-by-Step Instructions (and Templates)!

It’s that time, friends. Time for hopeful residency applicants to start the process of applying to residency programs.

And this process is NOT for the faint of heart. It’s busy, expensive, and stressful, and chances are, your spouse can probably (definitely) use your help.

If you’re just joining me for the first time today, my husband’s specialty is Orthopedic Surgery. So the information provided here today is from the path to match in that specialty.

My Role in the Interview Process

I’ve always viewed this whole medical journey as a team effort. And PS – if you’re looking for the #1 way to avoid resentment about your spouse’s long work hours and commitments, it’s THAT. So as an integral part of our little residency-matching team, my husband and I created some ways that important tasks that allowed us to work together on this incredibly important goal.

Today, I’m going to review how we kept track of ev.ery.thing related to residency interviews. I’m also sharing our actual interview spreadsheets and templates for documenting each part of the process.

I want YOUR residency-matching team to be successful, too.

One more note before we get going here: it goes without saying (but I’m gonna say it anyway, of course), that a lot of the work to match into a desired residency program happens BEFORE the application process. If you want a quick overview on the process as a whole, check out my post: The Match.

Before applications open

Step 1: Help research all relevant residency programs. How many and what kinds of programs to apply to will depend on:

1. Competitiveness of the applicant’s chosen specialty. (Clearly, it’s wise to apply to more programs for more competitive specialties). THIS article on advisory.com lists the top 10 most competitive specialities from 2019. My husband applied to 36 programs for Orthopedic Surgery. Just to be safe.

2. Personal preference. If where you live matters to you, that will narrow down your options some! Interestingly, coming from a North Carolina medical school, it was sometimes a bit tricky to convince programs that we actually WERE interested in moving back to the West Coast. A majority of applicants stay near their homes and medical schools. Or at least on the same coast. So you may definitely want to make this clear in some part of your application.

Besides geography, other factors that may influence where you apply include opportunities for research, size of program, strength of educational opportunities, talent of faculty, etc.

3. Strength of Application. Apply to more programs if maybe the Step exams didn’t go as you planned, or your letters of recommendation may be weak, or if there’s some other factor that was not entirely in your favor from your medical school years thus far.

Before applications opened, we researched nearly EVERY available program. I wrote notes on 64 programs. Here’s what that research looked like:

THEN, we narrowed that list from 64, down to 51, then down to the eventual 36 programs he applied to.

I admit that I did read online reviews that previous residents had written about the programs and there were times when those reviews were factored in to the decision-making process. But mostly, my husband considered word of mouth, and made calls to people who knew about the different programs, when possible. There are now several websites that residents can use to review programs, and it may be worth a look during this process, but I can’t fully support this route, as online reviews are often biased.

Step 2: Help proofread your spouse’s application. Editing the application and personal statement was a huge help to my husband and helped me to feel like a valued contributor. It’s nice to just have another set of eyes to make sure the right boxes are checked and that there are no typos.

Step 3: Have a spreadsheet for all programs you will apply to and keep it up to date. Rank the programs in order of preference, if possible. Also, document the interview dates in advance if you know them, this may help you know in advance what the priority will be. Here’s what my husband’s looked like, and we would make updates whenever invitations or declinations came in:

Link to the excel spreadsheet!

I left some non-identifying data in there so you could have an idea about the information we would write.

Step 4: Get a calendar designated to keep track of interview invitations and dates.  If this information is available prior to to applications opening, you may want to pencil them in just to have an idea about which interviews conflict, and if offered interviews at both, which one you would accept or decline.

When Applications Open

Step 5: Help your spouse to be submit his/her applications as soon as the system begins accepting applications. I’ve heard recently that invitations to interview now come quickly, and applications who don’t apply on time may miss out on opportunities. Be ready to respond to invitations to interview IMMEDIATELY.

Step 6: Document interview invitations on your spreadsheet and on the calendar. Helping to keep track of these details is very important.

Alright. So now those invitations are rolling in, it’s time to go do them.

Before Interviews

Step 7: Help set up the details. Some interviews may require transportation and lodging to be arranged. We used Hotwire to help save some money on this process. With Hotwire, you can’t pick the exact hotel, but it didn’t matter to my husband in most cases.

Step 8: Help with additional research on the programs before the interview. This will give your spouse more information going in and help guide the questions that they ask of the other residents.

During the Interviews

Step 9: Attend the applicant socials when possible. On the interviews I could go to, I did. I thought it was fun to attend the applicant dinners. It always helped me to have a better idea of what the program and people was/were like.

Step 10: Help document everything about the actual interviews, IMMEDIATELY following the interview.  Here is an example of what my husband and I would document. I typically transcribed while he talked. We found that it was important to write out this info immediately following the interview. If we waited a few days, or until after he had completed the next interview, the information was much more difficult to recall. When deciding on a final rank list, my husband came back to these documents a lot.

Here’s a link to the template we used to write about each interview:

Residency Interview Documentation Template

After Interviews

Step 11: Collaborate on the rank list. This is, not to freak you out, a life-altering decision in some cases. For both you and your spouse. So, work together on the decision! To be honest, agreeing on a rank list was a struggle for us. We had differing views on which program should be ranked #1. But we did reach an agreement (prioritizing the strength of program over my geographical preferences). It all worked out perfectly. I addressed this a bit in my post about our contract we made with each other. Read the crazy story HERE.

And then is all waiting and praying from there, friends!

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Best, BEST wishes to everyone going through the process. Hopefully you find this information helpful.

Let me know if you have any questions about what I did with these documents!

Keep me updated, and I can’t wait to hear where your spouse matches!

XO! ❤️❤️❤️

Honestly,

AM 🙂 ❤️

More About Me: Hi! I’m Ann Marie, a blogging mama of 3 tiny gals, and a wife to a busy Orthopedic Surgeon. You can find me right here for a weekly smattering of inspiration for your motherhood journey, home, marriage (I see you other medical wives!), style, and beauty. You’ll find me most active on Instagram or Facebook for life between blog posts. And I truly can’t wait to see you there, friend. ❤️💋

To connect, shoot me an email at honestlyannmarie@gmail.com ❤️